{"id":11671,"date":"2026-08-29T05:06:06","date_gmt":"2026-08-29T03:06:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.brokenmount.com\/bm\/2026\/08\/29\/im-a-camera-expert-heres-why-the-iphone-18-pro-maxs-rumored-big-camera-feature-probably-wont-matter\/"},"modified":"2026-08-29T05:06:06","modified_gmt":"2026-08-29T03:06:06","slug":"im-a-camera-expert-heres-why-the-iphone-18-pro-maxs-rumored-big-camera-feature-probably-wont-matter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.brokenmount.com\/bm\/2026\/08\/29\/im-a-camera-expert-heres-why-the-iphone-18-pro-maxs-rumored-big-camera-feature-probably-wont-matter\/","title":{"rendered":"I\u2019m a camera expert: here\u2019s why the iPhone 18 Pro Max\u2019s rumored big camera feature probably won\u2019t matter"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n\tVariable apertures historically haven\u2019t made much of a difference to mobile photography<\/p>\n

\"iPhone-17-Pro-rear-panel-and-cameras\"Apple<\/span><\/figure>\n<\/section>\n
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The rumor mill around Apple\u2019s upcoming iPhones, set to be announced September 9, has been in full swing for months, and the word on the street is that there\u2019s supposedly one big change coming to the new phone\u2019s cameras: the iPhone 18 Pro Max will get a variable aperture on its main camera. While people have been making this prediction for years, Bloomberg<\/em>\u2018s Mark Gurman, who has a pretty decent track record, recently threw his weight behind it<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n

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As an iPhone nerd, there are a lot of things that interest me about this. The first is that it marks a return of Apple differentiating the camera on its biggest, most expensive*<\/mark> model. The Pro Max phones have historically received new camera updates first \u2013 the 15 Pro Max got the 5x telephoto camera a year before it came to the standard Pro \u2013 but we\u2019ve been in a stretch where the cameras on the Pro models have been exactly the same. If this rumor is true, that\u2019s about to change.<\/p>\n

But as a photographer and camera reviewer, I\u2019m skeptical whether this change will matter much. Before we get to the reasons why, let\u2019s talk about the theoretical benefits. At a high level, changing your lens\u2019s aperture lets you control how much light is hitting the sensor and your depth of field (i.e., how blurry the background of your photo is). The smaller the aperture (or, counter-intuitively, the higher your F-number), the less light it lets in, and the more of your image will be in focus. Phones, historically, have quite fast lenses; the iPhone 17 Pro\u2019s main camera shoots at a fixed F1.78.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In bright, sunny conditions, this means the phone has to cope with a lot of light hitting the sensor, resorting to tricks like using extremely low ISOs and very fast shutter speeds. And as phone companies push to make their lenses faster<\/a> to improve image quality and flexibility in low light, this becomes even harder. Adding an aperture that can stop down to, say, F4, would help take some of that pressure off.<\/p>\n

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Even photographing a bright white object in the sun, the iPhone is able to compensate for its faster aperture with ultra-quick shutter speeds and low ISOs.
iPhone 15 Pro main camera | F1.78 | 1\/7937 sec | ISO 80<\/figcaption>Mitchell Clark<\/span><\/figure>\n

It\u2019s worth noting that this would almost certainly be the direction Apple goes in, rather than making one that could open up from F1.78 to, say, F1.2. If it was able to make the lens faster, it already would\u2019ve done so. And for phone photographers, that reduces the potential practical benefits; I\u2019ve personally never run into a situation where it was physically too bright for my phone to cope, so an aperture that can stop down isn\u2019t fixing a problem I currently have (with the one exception of video, where the closer you can get to a shutter speed that\u2019s double your frame rate, the more natural motion will look). <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n

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The same is true for the other half of the equation, depth of field. To understand why, we have to introduce the concept of equivalent apertures. A F number is absolute; an F1.8 lens on a phone will transmit the same amount of light per square millimeter of sensor as a full-frame F1.8 will. However, because iPhones use much smaller sensors than traditional cameras, the amount of light gathered over the whole image area and the depth of field won\u2019t<\/em>\u00a0be equivalent to what you\u2019d get on a full-frame camera with an F1.8 lens.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Even with its fixed F1.78 aperture, I never find myself wishing my iPhone\u2019s lens had more<\/em> depth of field.
iPhone 15 Pro main camera | F1.78 | 1\/9009 sec | ISO 80<\/figcaption>Mitchell Clark<\/span><\/figure>\n

The current iPhone 17 Pro main camera has a\u00a0Type 1\/1.28\u00a0(71.5mm\u00b2) sensor. That means that its F1.78 lens will produce the same depth of field as an F6.1 lens on a full-frame camera. If Apple makes it stop down to, say F4, that would give you a lens with two settings: F6.1 and F13.7 equiv.\u00a0That\u2019ll definitely make a difference in your available depth of field, but it\u2019ll be a change from \u201cenough\u201d to \u201cmore than enough,\u201d rather than making a huge difference to the types of shots you can get in most cases. It also, importantly, won\u2019t make any difference if you want to get the coveted shallow depth of field look that the iPhone currently has to emulate with portrait mode.<\/p>\n

Finally, let\u2019s consider some historical context. Back when compact cameras were dominant, many of them used sensors that were similar sizes to the iPhone, and had the ability to change apertures. But while some had actual aperture blades like a traditional lens, others used a Waterhouse stop, moving a plate with a fixed aperture in between the lens and the sensor to stop down when needed. <\/p>\n

This is less flexible \u2013 you don\u2019t get the stops in between wide open and the plate\u2019s diaphragm \u2013 but is mechanically simpler. That\u2019s likely a huge consideration for Apple when it comes to building a device that will be subjected to pretty much every condition and abuse you can think of. This is, after all, a company that replaced a physical home button with a solid state one (and is rumored to have at least considered doing the same for the rest of the phone\u2019s buttons, too).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n

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The Samsung Galaxy S9\u2019s main camera had an aperture that could be set to F1.5 or F2.4. The feature didn\u2019t last long.<\/figcaption>DPReview<\/span><\/figure>\n

Some compacts also simply slotted in an ND filter, and reported it as a stopped down aperture, since it had the same effect on the incoming light. (It didn\u2019t affect the depth of field, but, again, they already had plenty). Apple could go either of those routes rather than building a standard aperture, and it would have good reason to; going the traditional way may have reliability concerns, and could cost more at a time when Apple\u2019s also being squeezed when it comes to chip pricing and availability. <\/p>\n

With that said, we\u2019ve seen phones with physical aperture mechanisms before. Samsung included the feature on the Galaxy S9 and S10, to extremely middling results<\/a>. You essentially couldn\u2019t tell the difference, and the company ended up dropping the feature. Huawei has several phones in its lineup today with variable apertures, but it essentially never gets a mention on the feature pages, despite how much of them are dedicated to talking about the cameras.<\/p>\n

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It\u2019s unlikely to be something you notice when it comes to the experience of using your phone as a camera or the photos you get out of it<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n

However Apple decides to implement it, if it does at all, the point is the same: it\u2019s unlikely to be something you actually notice when it comes to the experience of using your phone as a camera or the photos you get out of it. But that\u2019s not to say that Apple has just decided to make one of the most mechanically complex parts of its phones even more complicated for giggles, or that it\u2019ll purely be a marketing gimmick. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n

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To the latter point, I\u2019m honestly 50\/50 on whether I think it\u2019ll bring it up in the keynote presentation at all (again, assuming the rumors are even accurate). There\u2019s probably some technical reason why it\u2019ll be nice to have as part of its computational image processing pipeline, and there may even be a slight noticeable benefit to it. And if, by some miracle, Apple has decided to massively increase the size of the camera sensor, then it could genuinely be an important inclusion, though, to be clear, that change hasn\u2019t been rumored at all.<\/p>\n

But don\u2019t get your hopes up. At the end of the day, the odds are that iPhone photos will still look like iPhone photos (which is to say: pretty good, for a phone), and that there won\u2019t be an appreciable difference between the camera on the iPhone 18 Pro and the one on the 18 Pro Max\u2026 or, for that matter, between the new phone and the one it\u2019s replacing. Sometimes, a change is just a change, no matter how much buzz there is about it leading up to it.<\/p>\n

* \u2013 Currently<\/em> most expensive, anyways. Apple is also expected to introduce a folding phone that will almost certainly be priced above the Pro models and that will have worse cameras, if other major foldables are any indication.<\/mark><\/p>\n

About the Author: <\/span>Mitchell started taking pictures at 10 and hasn\u2019t stopped since. It\u2019s been a wide-ranging adventure, spanning a wide variety of genres and locales, and occasionally dipping into fascinations with video and filmmaking. They honed their technical knowledge doing documentation, programing and QA, writing for The Verge, and just generally messing around on the computer to see what breaks.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n
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Want to stay up to date on the latest product news and releases?\u00a0Add DPReview as a preferred source to ensure our independent journalism makes it to the top of your Google search results.<\/p>\n

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