**Comparing the Cameras of the iPhone 13 Pro Max and iPhone 12 Pro Max**

When it comes to camera technology, both the iPhone 13 Pro Max and iPhone 12 Pro Max are considered top-of-the-line devices. In this article, we'll delve into the details of each phone's camera capabilities and explore the differences between them.

**Wide Camera**

The wide camera on both phones is capable of capturing high-quality images in a variety of lighting conditions. However, there are some subtle differences between the two cameras. The iPhone 13 Pro Max has a slightly wider aperture of f/1.8 compared to the f/2.4 on the iPhone 12 Pro Max. This means that the iPhone 13 Pro Max can capture more light and produce images with better contrast and vibrancy. Additionally, the new image processing pipeline in the iPhone 13 Pro Max results in a bit more contrast and vibrancy, making images appear more vivid and lifelike.

**Ultra Wide Camera**

The ultra wide camera on both phones is capable of capturing a broad field of view, but there are some notable differences between them. The iPhone 12 Pro Max uses autofocus on the ultra wide, which makes it ideal for macro photography. However, this also means that the ultra wide camera cannot be used for macro shots as easily as the phone's other cameras can. In contrast, the iPhone 13 Pro Max has improved autofocus on the ultra wide, making it more suitable for close-up shots and reducing the need to manually adjust focus.

**Selfies**

The front-facing camera specs are identical on both phones, so we won't spend too much time discussing selfies. However, if you want to tweak the look of your selfie photos, you can use a custom photographic style that maintains skin tone accuracy. While there's no significant difference between the two cameras in terms of image quality, the iPhone 13 Pro Max does offer slightly better contrast and vibrancy.

**Low Light Images**

When it comes to low light images, both phones are capable of producing high-quality results. However, the iPhone 13 Pro Max has a slight edge when it comes to noise reduction. This means that images taken in low light conditions on the iPhone 13 Pro Max tend to look cleaner and more detailed than those taken on the iPhone 12 Pro Max. The main difference is noticeable when zooming in on images taken with Night mode, where the iPhone 13 Pro Max tends to retain more detail and nuance in the shadows.

**Night Mode**

One of the most significant differences between the two phones is their approach to night mode. The iPhone 13 Pro Max chooses a slightly longer exposure time for Night mode, which can make images look brighter but also susceptible to camera shake when using the ultra wide camera. In contrast, the iPhone 12 Pro Max tends to choose a shorter exposure time, which results in less noise and more detail. However, this means that some shots may appear slightly darker or more muted.

**Video**

Both phones are capable of shooting 4K video at up to 60 frames per second, and the video quality is remarkably similar on both devices. The optical image stabilization is also similar, with a slight edge to the iPhone 13 Pro Max in terms of controlling flare. This makes the video from the iPhone 13 Pro Max look more polished and cinematic.

**Cinematic Mode**

One of the most exciting features of the iPhone 13 Pro Max is its Cinematic mode, which automatically adjusts focus on subjects that enter or leave the frame. This feature works beautifully in simple scenes but can be a bit finicky with complex shots like the one I used to demonstrate it. Fortunately, you can adjust the virtual f-stop and keyframes after filming to get the desired effect.

**Pet Mode**

Cinematic mode also works on pets! In fact, it's specifically designed for capturing smooth footage of furry friends, which is perfect for pet owners who love recording their pets' antics.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enthe iphone 13 pro and iphone 12 pro max both have great cameras but now it's time to compare them and see which one you like the most i know most people don't upgrade their phone every year but it's still fun to see how much of a difference there is or how little of a difference there is between the two phones and like all my camera comparisons pretty much everything you see in this video has been shot on one of these two phones without any edits and if you're wondering why i'm using the 13 pro instead of the 13 pro max well they have exactly the same cameras and i wanted to save a bit of money like all comparisons personal preference plays a big part in all this plus the screen you're viewing on does make a difference both phones are running ios 15 so let's see the photos in good light it's going to be hard to tell the difference between the two results from the wired camera are really similar on most shots the image processing on the 13 pro looks to give its photos a little more contrast and on some shots photos have slightly more dynamic range but it's really not a dramatic change from one phone to the other that said i do think lens flare is better controlled on the wide camera on the 13 pro than it is on the 12. i tried to exaggerate the effect by shooting straight into the sun so you could see the halo effects in the bottom right hand corner it's more pronounced on the 12 pro max now's also a good time to mention photographic styles on all the iphone 13 models essentially it's applying a preset to your images before you take them and you can see the effect live on screen it's not a filter because it's identifying and applying local edits like it would know that grass should have the effect applied but if it spots a face it would make sure that skin tones stay accurate and you can also customize the existing presets so if you wanted to bring out more warmth for example you can or if you wanted to take out a bit of that contrast on the default settings to make shots look more like those from the 12 you can do that too next let's take the phones to one of the highest points in san francisco to check out the telephoto cameras the 12 pro max has a 2.5 times optical zoom at f 2.2 while the 13 pro and pro max go to three times at f 2.8 it's not going to get you that much closer especially for really far away subjects but a little bit extra is nice if you need to get even closer both the phones have digital zoom here's the ten times comparison which is okay if you have enough light the 13 pro definitely processes the image a bit better here it's got some more detail retained and you can even go all the way up to 15 times on the newer phone while the 12 pro max is capped at 12 times digital zoom let's be real neither look great at this most extreme length so don't say i didn't warn you switching to the ultra wide it looks like the 13 again has a bit more contrast than the 12 on some shots and overall images are definitely sharper but the biggest change is the newer phone has auto focus on the ultra wide now that means macro photography the results can actually be really impressive if you have enough light on your subject and of course if it stays relatively still you can get as close as two centimeters from your subject and it will automatically switch from the wide camera to the ultra wide once you move in the 12 pro max doesn't have af on the ultra wide so macro is really out of the question here and its minimum focusing distance on the wide camera means you can only get about this close before things start to get out of focus for selfies the newer phone has a bit more contrast and vibrancy again thanks to that new image processing pipeline the front-facing camera specs are actually the same on each phone so i'm not going to talk too much about selfies again though you could use a custom photographic style if you wanted to tweak the look but still maintain skin tone accuracy now let's get into low light images right after sunset during blue hour noise reduction is a bit better on the 13 pro on all of the cameras so images do look a touch cleaner when you zoom in as a result though sometimes it looks a little too clean and on certain shots i found that i lost a little bit of detail compared to the 12 but really i'm trying to nitpick here to find the differences and i'm really having a tough time separating them for the most part for me the most interesting difference is when you use night mode rather than boosting the brightness throughout the scene almost like you can see in the dark the 13 pro leaves more nuance in the shadows so it's a little bit darker and more moody overall now you might like it you might not but it's a different look from the older phone now that's in part because the 12 pro max generally chooses a slightly longer exposure time for night mode while that makes sense given some of the shots look brighter it also means that they could be susceptible to camera shake when you move to the ultra wide camera you can see an even bigger difference thanks to the 13 pro's faster maximum aperture at f 1.8 compared to f 2.4 on the 12 pro max more light is captured so there's better detail and less mush on the 13 pro especially when you zoom in to look at the detail let's talk video both of them can shoot in 4k at up to 60 frames a second and the video looks really similar on both in good light i also found the optical image stabilization was pretty similar with the walking shot with a slight edge to the 13 pro although again it really does feel like i'm splitting hairs a bit that said the 13 pro is definitely better at controlling flair like you can see in this clip shot on the ultrawide and i definitely do like a little bit of that added contrast boost it just makes the image pop alright let's get into cinematic mode on the 13 pro it detects when a face or a subject enters the frame and shifts the focus accordingly kind of like a personal focus puller in your pocket you can leave it up to the phone to adjust focus which i think works fine for more simple scenes but of course being me i like to make things more complicated with this scene of flowers in the foreground and me in the background the phone locks onto me automatically as soon as i enter but when i leave it doesn't really know where to go i can actually adjust this after filming by looking at the keyframes and then tapping on the thing i want to switch focus to say like this flower now when i leave the frame it smoothly switches focus to the flower in the foreground i also like how you can adjust the virtual f-stop just like you can in portrait mode photos and most importantly i am happy to report that cinematic mode works on pets as well here's a side by side with the tour pro max so you can see a comparison with and without cinematic mode applied the good news is you can use cinematic mode on the wide the telephoto and the front camera the bad news is unfortunately you're currently capped at 1080p at 30 frames a second so there you have it the iphone 13 pro has some obvious software advantages like cinematic mode and hardware features like autofocus on the ultra wide for macro photos you'll notice i didn't talk about pro raw on the iphones because that's a whole other video in itself if you are interested in that let me know plus prores video on the 13 pro isn't available yet and should be coming later in the year but overall most of the images are really really close so unless you want those extra features that i mentioned i wouldn't necessarily consider upgrading from the 12 pro max because it's still such a good phone camera thanks so much for watching make sure you let me know which phone you like the most down in the comments below and if you want to find out more information about the phones the cameras and lots of extra detail on how you can get your hands on them i've put some links in the description below i'll catch you next timethe iphone 13 pro and iphone 12 pro max both have great cameras but now it's time to compare them and see which one you like the most i know most people don't upgrade their phone every year but it's still fun to see how much of a difference there is or how little of a difference there is between the two phones and like all my camera comparisons pretty much everything you see in this video has been shot on one of these two phones without any edits and if you're wondering why i'm using the 13 pro instead of the 13 pro max well they have exactly the same cameras and i wanted to save a bit of money like all comparisons personal preference plays a big part in all this plus the screen you're viewing on does make a difference both phones are running ios 15 so let's see the photos in good light it's going to be hard to tell the difference between the two results from the wired camera are really similar on most shots the image processing on the 13 pro looks to give its photos a little more contrast and on some shots photos have slightly more dynamic range but it's really not a dramatic change from one phone to the other that said i do think lens flare is better controlled on the wide camera on the 13 pro than it is on the 12. i tried to exaggerate the effect by shooting straight into the sun so you could see the halo effects in the bottom right hand corner it's more pronounced on the 12 pro max now's also a good time to mention photographic styles on all the iphone 13 models essentially it's applying a preset to your images before you take them and you can see the effect live on screen it's not a filter because it's identifying and applying local edits like it would know that grass should have the effect applied but if it spots a face it would make sure that skin tones stay accurate and you can also customize the existing presets so if you wanted to bring out more warmth for example you can or if you wanted to take out a bit of that contrast on the default settings to make shots look more like those from the 12 you can do that too next let's take the phones to one of the highest points in san francisco to check out the telephoto cameras the 12 pro max has a 2.5 times optical zoom at f 2.2 while the 13 pro and pro max go to three times at f 2.8 it's not going to get you that much closer especially for really far away subjects but a little bit extra is nice if you need to get even closer both the phones have digital zoom here's the ten times comparison which is okay if you have enough light the 13 pro definitely processes the image a bit better here it's got some more detail retained and you can even go all the way up to 15 times on the newer phone while the 12 pro max is capped at 12 times digital zoom let's be real neither look great at this most extreme length so don't say i didn't warn you switching to the ultra wide it looks like the 13 again has a bit more contrast than the 12 on some shots and overall images are definitely sharper but the biggest change is the newer phone has auto focus on the ultra wide now that means macro photography the results can actually be really impressive if you have enough light on your subject and of course if it stays relatively still you can get as close as two centimeters from your subject and it will automatically switch from the wide camera to the ultra wide once you move in the 12 pro max doesn't have af on the ultra wide so macro is really out of the question here and its minimum focusing distance on the wide camera means you can only get about this close before things start to get out of focus for selfies the newer phone has a bit more contrast and vibrancy again thanks to that new image processing pipeline the front-facing camera specs are actually the same on each phone so i'm not going to talk too much about selfies again though you could use a custom photographic style if you wanted to tweak the look but still maintain skin tone accuracy now let's get into low light images right after sunset during blue hour noise reduction is a bit better on the 13 pro on all of the cameras so images do look a touch cleaner when you zoom in as a result though sometimes it looks a little too clean and on certain shots i found that i lost a little bit of detail compared to the 12 but really i'm trying to nitpick here to find the differences and i'm really having a tough time separating them for the most part for me the most interesting difference is when you use night mode rather than boosting the brightness throughout the scene almost like you can see in the dark the 13 pro leaves more nuance in the shadows so it's a little bit darker and more moody overall now you might like it you might not but it's a different look from the older phone now that's in part because the 12 pro max generally chooses a slightly longer exposure time for night mode while that makes sense given some of the shots look brighter it also means that they could be susceptible to camera shake when you move to the ultra wide camera you can see an even bigger difference thanks to the 13 pro's faster maximum aperture at f 1.8 compared to f 2.4 on the 12 pro max more light is captured so there's better detail and less mush on the 13 pro especially when you zoom in to look at the detail let's talk video both of them can shoot in 4k at up to 60 frames a second and the video looks really similar on both in good light i also found the optical image stabilization was pretty similar with the walking shot with a slight edge to the 13 pro although again it really does feel like i'm splitting hairs a bit that said the 13 pro is definitely better at controlling flair like you can see in this clip shot on the ultrawide and i definitely do like a little bit of that added contrast boost it just makes the image pop alright let's get into cinematic mode on the 13 pro it detects when a face or a subject enters the frame and shifts the focus accordingly kind of like a personal focus puller in your pocket you can leave it up to the phone to adjust focus which i think works fine for more simple scenes but of course being me i like to make things more complicated with this scene of flowers in the foreground and me in the background the phone locks onto me automatically as soon as i enter but when i leave it doesn't really know where to go i can actually adjust this after filming by looking at the keyframes and then tapping on the thing i want to switch focus to say like this flower now when i leave the frame it smoothly switches focus to the flower in the foreground i also like how you can adjust the virtual f-stop just like you can in portrait mode photos and most importantly i am happy to report that cinematic mode works on pets as well here's a side by side with the tour pro max so you can see a comparison with and without cinematic mode applied the good news is you can use cinematic mode on the wide the telephoto and the front camera the bad news is unfortunately you're currently capped at 1080p at 30 frames a second so there you have it the iphone 13 pro has some obvious software advantages like cinematic mode and hardware features like autofocus on the ultra wide for macro photos you'll notice i didn't talk about pro raw on the iphones because that's a whole other video in itself if you are interested in that let me know plus prores video on the 13 pro isn't available yet and should be coming later in the year but overall most of the images are really really close so unless you want those extra features that i mentioned i wouldn't necessarily consider upgrading from the 12 pro max because it's still such a good phone camera thanks so much for watching make sure you let me know which phone you like the most down in the comments below and if you want to find out more information about the phones the cameras and lots of extra detail on how you can get your hands on them i've put some links in the description below i'll catch you next time\n"