The iPhone 14 Pro’s camera upgrades should appeal to photographers, filmmakers, and creative types on TikTok and YouTube. Apple made several major improvements to the iPhone’s camera hardware, including the addition of a larger 48-megapixel sensor. The 14 Pro also uses Apple’s revamped image processing system, which is supposed to improve image quality in darker environments. Throw in the new A16 Bionic chip and you get features like a new video stabilization mode, the ability to shoot Cinematic mode videos in 4K, higher resolution ProRaw photos, and better image quality photos and videos when captured in medium and low light situations. Read more: iPhone 14 Pro and 14 Pro Max review: Welcome to Apple’s Dynamic Island I used the iPhone 14 Pro as the primary shooter for a week to document two of my favorite places in San Francisco: the Mission District and the Embarcadero. I encountered fog, beer, a college band, and various tacos, and I used the iPhone 14 Pro to capture it all. I ended up with hundreds of photos and dozens of video clips on the 1TB iPhone 14 Pro review sample that Apple lent me. Now playing: Watch this: iPhone 14 Pro and 14 Pro Max Review: Tons of upgrades,…
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The iPhone 14 Pro and the 48 megapixel camera

The iPhone 14 Pro has three rear cameras: a main wide-angle camera, an ultra-wide-angle camera and a telephoto lens with 3x optical zoom. The main camera lens has a longer focal length, from 26mm corresponding to previous iPhone models to 24mm. It’s not drastically different, but it helps bring more of the scene into the frame.
Just a cat under mixed lighting, as captured by the iPhone 14 Pro. Patrick Holland/CNET The main camera also gets a new, larger 48-megapixel sensor. Although more megapixels don’t necessarily mean better photos, Apple divides the pixels into groups of four and combines the four in each group into one larger pixel. This technique is called pixel binning and has been used in Android phones for years. The results are brighter photos that have less image noise (and as a bonus, less noise reduction noise). Apple’s new fantasy pipeline, called the Photonic Engine, takes things further and helps improve color accuracy and preserve detail. Take a look below at a photo I took from a tram just after sunset. Pay special attention to the texture of the pavement and the details in the leaves and the building behind the tram. This isn’t the best photo I took with the iPhone 14 Pro, but it shows how the camera handles an everyday situation when things aren’t bright and sunny. The contrast of the photo is a bit high and I would probably reduce it when editing the image or set a photo style with less contrast. I took this photo shortly after dusk. Notice how the 14 Pro was able to get a bright exposure without too much light. Patrick Holland/CNET The main camera takes great pictures. The image quality and details look great for a phone photo. I noticed the biggest improvement was in medium and low light situations. Colors and textures look good. Check out the photo below, which I took on a foggy morning. Notice the textures on the brickwork of the buildings and how the 14 Pro captured the fog gradually engulfing the top of the Salesforce Tower.
When I took this photo, it was very foggy. Notice the detail the 14 Pro was still able to capture. Patrick Holland/CNET For the past year, I’ve mostly been using an iPhone 13 Pro as a daily driver. In the week I had the 14 Pro, I saw an improvement in the photos I took. Image detail was better, in part due to the new Photonic Engine processing pipeline. Check out the photo below of a cookie and cappuccino from Four Barrel Coffee, a hip java spot in the Mission. Vegan fudge cookie, cappuccino with oat milk. Patrick Holland/CNET The photo below was taken under the dark canopy of a palm tree. The 14 Pro boosted the brightness and did a good job capturing the different textures in the stem and leaves.
Notice the textures. Patrick Holland/CNET If you’re so inclined, you can take 48-megapixel photos using the phone’s ProRaw setting. I should warn you that these files are large. The file for the photo below of the Bay Bridge at sunset is 48 megabytes. After processing, the photo is saved as a much smaller JPEG. Look closely at the color gradient of the sky and the details of the cars and the bridge support cables.
This photo was taken at the full 48 megapixel resolution of the main camera sensor and saved as an Apple ProRaw file. Patrick Holland/CNET

Night mode on iPhone 14 Pro

When the iPhone 11 series launched in 2019, it included Night Mode, which takes a series of images in a few seconds and combines them to create a photo that’s brighter and has better colors and less image noise. Three years later, on the 14 Pro, night mode has blossomed even further. Download times are much faster. Most of the time, Night mode only took a few seconds to get a good photo on a line or other dark locales. Check out the photo below that I took indoors at Zeitgeist in the Mission. Essentially, all the lights are aimed at the walls, leaving the middle of the bar a dark void that’s a perfect place for punk Gen Xers and millennials to enjoy their IPAs in quiet anxiety. Night mode took two seconds to take this photo. He did a great job balancing the bright lights on the red-marked wall with the dark middle of the bar. Although most people are in the shadows, the 14 Pro did a good job of capturing skin tones. This bar was pretty dark, but look closely at the detail in people’s markings and skin tones. Patrick Holland/CNET The photo below is of Taqueria El Buen Sabor, a great place for some post-drink burritos. It was very dark and I used the Night mode to take the picture. This isn’t the best shot of my Night Mode with the new phone, but it shows what it’s capable of in a less-than-ideal situation. If I had put the phone on a tripod for a longer exposure time in Night Mode, or if the lights weren’t so bright (compared to the dark cloudy sky), I think it would have been a better photo. But it’s still decent. There is some image noise in the cloudy sky and details in the building are a bit soft. This was taken around 11pm, using night mode. Patrick Holland/CNET I visited another mission taco spot, Tacolicious, with some friends. (I warned you there were a lot of tacos in this review.) The shot below was taken with night mode. It wasn’t as dark as when I took the other two photos with night mode, but it certainly wasn’t overly bright either. Pay close attention to the texture of the tortillas and the detail of the cilantro. I’ve been holding the 14 Pro in my hand and I’m proud of the results. Night mode tacos, anyone? (Sorry if you’re one of those people who can’t handle cilantro.) Patrick Holland/CNET

The ultra-wide-angle camera of the iPhone 14 Pro gets a new lens

The ultra-wide camera gets a new sensor, with more focus pixels and a reduced f/2.2 aperture lens. All of this adds up to much sharper ultrawide photos. The sensor, combined with the Photonic Engine, helps improve image quality in less-than-ideal situations. Ultra-wide photos and videos are still a step down from the main camera, but these improvements are welcome. I like the dramatic look of the…