Pro Photographer Austin Mann Tests iPhone 18 Pro Camera [Video]

Photographer Austin Mann has published his annual iPhone camera review after spending a week testing the iPhone 18 Pro at Dunton River Camp in southwest Colorado. The field test covers the new variable aperture, Pro Controls, Focus Tracking, Photographic Styles 3, Reference Image, 4K time-lapse and more, with extensive sample images and an accompanying video.

Mann recommends leaving the new variable aperture in Auto for most shooting. He found it selecting f/1.48 indoors at dinner, then moving to a higher f-stop outside when there was plenty of light and more depth of field was useful. The wider aperture, which provides 50% better light-gathering ability in low light, proved particularly useful under a new moon for Milky Way shots captured in ProRAW. For shooting into the sun, Mann preferred the starburst produced at f/1.8, emphasizing that the effect comes naturally from the variable aperture lens rather than software.

Manual focus was one of the bigger surprises. With focus peaking enabled in Apple’s Camera app, Mann could set focus by hand and then tap separately for exposure. He demonstrates the feature with a mountain reflection in a store window, where autofocus wanted to focus on the glass instead. The new Pro Controls also let him create motion blur without reaching for a third-party app, including a waterfall shot at 1/15 second and a panning shot of horseback riders at 1/60.

Focus Tracking proved more useful than he initially expected, particularly for close-up subjects that can move in and out of the shallow focus plane. A double-tap locks tracking onto a subject, helping Mann keep flowers sharp as either the camera or subject moved. He also demonstrates the feature with a small object moving toward and away from the camera and with distant subjects viewed through foreground objects.

The new film texture and grain controls in Photographic Styles 3 were another focus of the test. For a more film-like result, Mann recommends shooting HEIF rather than ProRAW, underexposing around -1.0, shooting wide open at f/1.48 and using manual focus for slightly softer images. Moving the Styles control toward the lower right can then reduce tone mapping, deepen shadows and brighten highlights, while the Film effect can be dialed back if its halation becomes too strong.

Reference Image gets its own Camera mode and works with the Main camera at 1x and 2x, but not at 0.5x, 4x or 8x. As best Mann can tell, the key distinction from an ordinary RAW or DNG file is that Reference Image is signed. He compares the difference to an original document carrying a notary stamp.

Time-lapse recording has also moved from 1080p to 4K, bringing its resolution in line with the footage Mann uses in his review videos. After capturing a scene where the light briefly became more dramatic, he was also able to export that moment as a high-resolution frame directly from the time-lapse.

The overall lens lineup remains the same as the iPhone 17 Pro, something Mann considers a good thing. After Apple’s previous moves between 3x and 5x telephoto cameras, he says the 4x, 100mm perspective introduced last year feels right.

More details on the new Reference Image feature are available here. Mann’s Colorado test follows last year’s iPhone 17 Pro field test in the Dolomites.