Review: iPhone XS, the latest iPhone camera

Friday 2 November 2018, 15:30 by Lars Paymans | 7,074 views | 1 comment

This article was translated from Dutch with the help of AI. Read the original.

Apple calls the iPhone XS and the iPhone XS Max a new era for photography. Here's what's new in the camera of the latest iPhone.

The cameras of the iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max are exactly the same this year. That's a first, because in the past Apple always gave the larger iPhone some extra camera features.

So in this case, it doesn't matter whether you buy an iPhone XS or an iPhone XS Max. Everything we discuss in this review applies to both the iPhone XS and the XS Max.

The specifications at a glance

The iPhone XS is once again equipped with a dual camera lens on the back. It consists of a 12-megapixel wide-angle lens with an aperture of 1.8 and a telephoto lens with an aperture of 2.4.

This dual lens is used, among other things, to provide up to 2x optical zoom. That's a big difference from older iPhones, because you always had to accept a loss of quality when you wanted to bring an image closer. In addition to the 2x optical zoom, you can zoom digitally up to ten times, although this of course quickly results in a loss of quality.

What's new is the sensor in this camera, which responds up to twice as fast. According to Apple, this sensor plays an important role in the new Smart HDR feature, the most impressive addition to the now familiar iPhone camera.

Smart HDR

During the unveiling of the iPhone XS, Apple spent a lot of time discussing Smart HDR. The company is so proud of this technology that it uses it automatically for every photo. It works as follows. When you take a photo with the iPhone XS, several photos are actually taken at the same time.

Each of these has a different exposure, creating a collection of almost identical images with different exposure settings.

The iPhone analyses these photos and then selects the best elements from the individual shots. These are then combined to create one photo with the optimal settings.

The great thing is that all of this happens fully automatically in a second. Photos therefore automatically look better, and you'll definitely notice the difference when, for example, you photograph the sky against the light. In the past, this produced photos where the sky became one large white area, while with the iPhone XS you can still make out the clouds.

Improved Portrait mode

Another improvement that is entirely down to software on the XS is the improved Portrait mode. You could already simulate a bokeh effect by blurring the background, but the new iPhones go a step further.

From now on, you can adjust the depth-of-field effect afterwards, so you can make the background extra blurry or simply sharp again. This feature comes in handy, because this portrait effect still doesn't always work as it should. Reducing the intensity a little often results in a photo that looks much more believable and better.

From iOS 12.1, an update expected to be released in late October or early November, the option to set the intensity of the portrait effect before taking the photo will also be added. This gives you even more control to take exactly the photo you have in mind.

Better photos in low light

Now that we've used the iPhone X for a year to take hundreds of photos, the main thing we noticed was that the device struggled to take photos in the dark.

The larger sensor and the addition of Smart HDR largely solve this problem on the XS. The camera still has to work hard to take a sharp photo in a room with little light, but the results are noticeably better than before.

Conclusion

If you bought an iPhone X last year, there are relatively few reasons to upgrade to an iPhone XS again this year. The improved camera is the only factor that would make us consider upgrading, and it is an important difference compared with the cheaper iPhone XR.

Smart HDR is a nice addition, the improved Portrait mode means we use the feature more often, and the better photos in the dark also address our biggest complaint about the iPhone X last year.

Apple continues to innovate every year when it comes to smartphone cameras, and the iPhone XS is once again an impressive step forwards.

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