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The iPhone 16 and 16 Pro are likely to launch during Apple’s “Glowtime” event on Monday, and they could arrive with some big improvements to their cameras. Be sure to follow CNET’s iPhone 16 event live blog throughout the event for details on every feature and device Apple announces. The rumor mill has been churning for months, and there have been plenty of leaks about what we could be getting, including larger display sizes with thinner bezels, new processors, and a sleeker design. Apple has already talked about its Apple Intelligence skills are coming to iOS 18.
But as a professional photographer, I’m especially excited about the cameras.
Apple has always equipped the iPhone with some of the best cameras you can get in a smartphone, and the iPhone 15 Pro Max is still one of the best camera phones you can buy right now, with its 5x optical zoom.
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The competition is fierce, especially in the photography space, and Apple will be looking for ways to keep the phone’s photography prowess at its best. Let’s take a look at what the rumor mill has been saying about the cameras in the iPhone 16 lineup.
A new physical camera button
The iPhone 15 Pro’s action button may be getting a new physical camera button.
The iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max feature a new “Action” button on the outer edge of the phone, which allows you to customize the button to perform different actions, like launching the camera or taking a voice memo.
MacRumors suggests that an additional button will appear on the next model, aimed specifically at photographers. The button will act as a camera shutter, with multiple levels of sensitivity, allowing for a half-press to focus and a full press to take a photo. Rumors also suggest that the button will recognize swipe gestures, with swiping left or right to zoom in or out.
The volume buttons have long been able to fire the camera shutter, but this new button gives you more extensive camera control, letting you operate the iPhone more like a compact digital camera.
Better zoom for all Pro models
The S23 and S24 Ultra’s 10x zoom may have some competition.
According to Apple analyst Ming Chi KuoThe base iPhone 16 Pro will come with a 5x optical zoom lens. This was something that was only found on the larger iPhone 15 Pro Max, so it’d be good to see the same level of zoom offered in a smaller, more pocket-friendly package.
Both phones could be getting an upgrade, with previous rumors suggesting the iPhone 16 Pro Max would get an upgrade. a “super telephoto lens” offer zoom levels beyond the current 5x range. While this would be a welcome addition for sports or wildlife photographers who rely on long zoom levels, these rumors were only circulating back in the summer of last year, before we even saw the iPhone 15 launch, so take them with a grain of salt.
Larger image sensors
Thanks to its larger image sensor, the Xiaomi 14 Ultra is a real photography powerhouse.
According to a MacRumors StoryAccording to claims from Weibo user Digital Chat Station, the iPhone 16 Pro’s main camera could feature a larger image sensor. It’s reportedly 1/1.14-inch in size, making it larger than the 1/1.28-inch sensor on the iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max.
A larger sensor captures more light and image information, which means better detail, dynamic range, and improved low-light performance, so it would be great to see such a big increase in size. Notable leaker Majin Bu posted on X What they claim are leaked cases for the upcoming Pro models, which show a significantly larger cutout for the camera island. This would make sense if we do indeed see larger camera sensors — and thus larger camera units — on the phones.
It would be wise for Apple to step up its game here, as phones like the Xiaomi 14 Ultra already use even larger 1/0.98-inch (the so-called 1-inch type) image sensors for their main cameras.
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Higher resolution ultra-wide angle cameras
The iPhones’ ultra-wide cameras have felt a bit neglected in recent generations, with resolutions stuck at 12 megapixels since the iPhone 11. A report from noted analyst Jeff Pu, seen by 9to5Macsays the ultra-wide cameras on both the iPhone 16 Pro and Pro Max get a significant upgrade to 48 megapixels.
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Vertical camera setup
The iPhone 12 with vertically positioned cameras.
Several rumors and leaked renders have suggested that the base models of the iPhone 16 and 16 Plus will feature a vertical camera arrangement, rather than the diagonal one we saw on the iPhone 15. It would make the design more similar to the iPhone 12, but there’s a bigger reason this could be happening than just aesthetics.
A vertical camera layout like this would make it easier for the phones to shoot spatial video, which uses information from both cameras to create a 3D-like effect. It would make sense, given that Apple brought spatial video recording to the iPhone 15 Pro lineup but not to the base iPhone 15 models, likely due to the camera layout.
Spatial videos were viewable just fine on the Apple Vision Pro headset.
Spatial videos look exactly the same as regular 2D videos when you play them on your iPhone, but they’re designed to create a 3D effect when you watch them through Apple’s Vision Pro headset.
Other things we want to see
iPhone footage shot in the Log color space needs to be edited on computers or the iPad. It would be nice to see more options for processing this footage on the iPhone itself.
While Apple talked a lot about AI at its WWDC event, it didn’t really talk about ways it could extend to image capture. The iPhone’s camera already uses AI to varying degrees, in its computational photography, skin tone reproduction, depth mapping, and even down to the automatic settings it uses when capturing an image.
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Deeper AI would allow for better scene recognition and therefore better use of settings and processing to create better-looking images. I’m also impressed with the AI object removal seen on the Google Pixel range, and perhaps we’ll see similar AI-based editing tools on the next iPhone.
Speaking of editing, Apple may be introducing more ways to edit video on the phone, specifically when recording with Log on the 15 Pro and Pro Max. Log video is designed to look flat and gray when it’s recorded, as it provides a better base for editing and adding color and contrast later.
Right now, you have to transfer that footage to an iPad or computer in order to edit your Log video in software like BlackMagic’s DaVinci Resolve, so it would be nice to see Apple introduce more ways to process Log footage on the phone. Perhaps even introduce its own set of “LUTs” — presets used to quickly apply color and contrast to video — into the iPhone’s editing tools.
