The Ultimate Tool for Photographers and Videographers
The iPhone 16 Pro Max continues Apple’s tradition of delivering exceptional smartphones designed to cater to both casual users and professional creators. With its advanced camera system, powerful performance, and innovative features, it’s an excellent choice for those who want the best technology packed into a smartphone. In this review, we’ll explore how the iPhone 16 Pro Max stacks up, particularly for photographers and videographers, and whether it’s worth the upgrade.
Design and Build Quality
Apple has maintained its premium design aesthetic with the iPhone 16 Pro Max. The phone is robust, featuring Ceramic Shield glass for durability, a stainless steel frame, and an overall sleek look. It feels substantial in hand, and the large 6.9-inch Super Retina XDR display provides an immersive experience for both video playback and editing photos. While the screen brightness remains the same at 2,000 nits, it performs well in bright conditions, making it ideal for outdoor shooting. You don’t have to worry any more about overheating, it has now been almost render to a thing of the past, and for outdoor filming on the field, this is really helpful.
One standout design change is the introduction of the Camera Control button, a new feature that allows for quick access to the camera app and manual settings. This button adds a layer of control that mimics the feel of using a traditional camera, making the iPhone 16 Pro Max more appealing to serious photographers and videographers.
Camera System: A Professional’s Dream
The iPhone 16 Pro Max comes with a powerful 48MP main camera, a 48MP ultra-wide camera, and a 12MP 5x telephoto lens. This camera setup is designed to provide users with versatility, allowing them to capture everything from expansive landscapes to detailed close-ups. The new ultra-wide camera now matches the main camera in resolution, offering sharper photos and enhanced macro capabilities.
Main Camera
The 48MP main sensor is the star of the show, offering high-resolution images with incredible detail. Whether you’re shooting in ProRAW or using Apple’s Smart HDR 5, the camera consistently produces well-exposed images with accurate colors. For photographers who like to have more control, the ability to shoot in ProRAW provides additional flexibility for editing in post-production. If you record video, the quality of the main lenses is still superior to any other lens, and the video you get is sharp and looks brilliant.
If you record using Apple Log, you start to get professional looking footage, specially if you pair it to a 3rd party camera app like Blackmagic’s, that will give you all the manual controls you could possibly need, like a pro camera, but will also allow you to record on Apple log, but using aH264 and H265 as the recording codec, rather than ProRes, which is going to eat up your storage very quickly. That to me is the perfect combination, because most people using the iphone for video don’t really need ProRes. H264 or H265 will do, and 99.9% of people won’t even be able to see any difference.
Ultra-Wide Camera
The 48MP ultra-wide lens has seen significant improvements, particularly in terms of detail and clarity. It now offers more depth and sharpness, especially in well-lit conditions. The addition of autofocus on the ultra-wide camera enhances its macro photography capabilities, allowing for detailed close-up shots of small objects, such as flowers or insects.
However, in low-light settings, the ultra-wide lens can struggle. The smaller pixel size means that it doesn’t gather as much light, resulting in noisier images, essentially unusable for anything other than sharing photos among friends and family, but certainly not for anything remotely professional.
This is where Apple’s Night Mode comes into play, helping to brighten up the scene and reduce noise, but it’s not as effective as on the main sensor. Regardless of how much they advertise the improvement on this lens, it won’t give you the same quality as the main lens, and in low light you will be able to tell the difference. So using a 3rd party lens might be the best option, if you want to get the best results with an ultra wide lens effect.
Telephoto Lens
The 5x telephoto lens remains unchanged from the iPhone 15 Pro Max, and while it’s useful for zoomed-in shots, it’s not as strong as the other lenses in the system. The telephoto camera struggles in low-light conditions, producing noisier images with less detail. This lens is for daytime only, in full bright conditions. Anything other than a bright day and the image will start to break up. But in bright conditions, this lens is fantastic.
Video Capabilities: Impressive but Familiar
The iPhone 16 Pro Max excels in video recording, with the ability to shoot 4K at 120fps and record in ProRes Log. This feature is particularly useful for videographers who want to capture smooth, high-quality slow-motion footage. The Log video format provides greater flexibility in post-production, allowing for more dynamic range and control over the final look of the video.
One of the more exciting additions is the spatial audio capture feature, which uses four microphones to create an immersive sound experience. This is particularly beneficial for creators who want to capture ambient sound or focus on a specific audio source in their videos. The spatial audio and Dolby Vision HDR video make the iPhone 16 Pro Max a powerful tool for content creators, allowing for professional-level video quality without needing additional equipment.
Performance: A18 Pro Chip for Speed and Efficiency
Under the hood, the iPhone 16 Pro Max is powered by Apple’s new A18 Pro chip, which offers a noticeable performance boost compared to its predecessor. The A18 chip improves processing speeds by 15-20%, making the phone incredibly responsive, especially when editing photos or videos. It also helps with multitasking, allowing users to switch between apps seamlessly.
The A18 Pro also enhances the phone’s battery life. Apple claims that the iPhone 16 Pro Max can handle 30 hours of video playback, and in real-world use, it holds up well throughout the day, even with heavy use. The USB-C port now supports faster charging, both wired and wireless, so you can top up the battery quickly when needed.
Is It Worth the Upgrade?
For users coming from older models, particularly those still using the iPhone 14 or earlier, the iPhone 16 Pro Max is a significant upgrade. The new Camera Control button, 4K 120fps video, and spatial audio capture are all compelling reasons to consider upgrading, especially if photography and videography are central to your workflow.
However, for users with the iPhone 15 Pro Max, the improvements, while nice, are incremental. The camera upgrades—particularly the new 48MP ultra-wide lens—offer better image quality, but, in my opinion, they may not justify the cost of upgrading and might want to wait until the iPhone 17 pro max is released.
If you want to consider some camera accessories to use with the 16 pro max and enhance your video and photography, check out out camera accessories and smartphone lenses section for a range of lenses, filters and other equipment perfect to take your videography and photography to the next level.
If you still feel the iPhone 16 Pro Max is not the right fit for you and would like to consider a different alternative, why not check out other vlogging camera reviews and find out if there is a more suitable option for you?
iPhone 16 Pro Max Review
The iPhone 16 Pro Max is Apple’s flagship smartphone for creators, featuring a 48MP main and ultra-wide camera, 5x telephoto lens, and 4K 120fps video recording. With spatial audio capture and the powerful A18 Pro chip, it’s designed to meet the needs of photographers and videographers.
The Good
- 4K at 120fps
- New Camera Control button
- Improved ultra-wide lens
- Spatial audio capture
The Bad
- Telephoto lens still lacks improvements
- Minor upgrade for iPhone 15 users
- Limited low-light performance on ultra-wide
- Expensive