Interesting to see what they got out of basically the same camera sensor. It seems largely just like way better denoising capabilities. Maybe that is why they needed the extra NPU in the A20 chip.

But even with that they are still behind Android phones, while they dominated some years ago

until the "denoiser" starts to hallucinate

But even with that they are still behind Android phones, while they dominated some years ago

Flagship Android and iOS device cameras have been 1a/1b for awhile. It's video where Apple dominated. Did Android make some huge strides in video lately?

Anecdotically, my current OPPO find x9 mops the floor with my previous iphone 16 pro in photography in practice. The 1-1 with apple only seems to be there for Google and Samsung, but the Chinese flagships are a step up.

For video I think the iphone hasn't been dethroned yet.

Wouldn’t that comparison be quite a bit closer vs the 17 Pro? I thought that was a decent camera upgrade year but I can’t keep track.

It seems that in their ranking currently only the Huawei Pura 80 Ultra is ahead?

https://www.dxomark.com/smartphones/#sort-camera

Wow, with a lens that big on a smartphone I'd certainly hope it was fantastic: https://www.dxomark.com/smartphones/Huawei/Pura-80-Ultra

it tells something that the word "aperture" is only mentioned 3 times in the test

What are you inferring from that? Interested to hear.

I assume they're implying the new variable aperture on the 18 Pro is more of a marketing/spec sheet thing than an actual meaningful feature

Most users will never use it, or I should say adjust the aperture, most people appear to be more interested in the video performance, and the video performance depends upon having very good software and hardware combined as one which is where Apple is able to outdo the competition, with Apple Silicon/video software, Apple appears to only care about still pictures up to a certain point, over the last five or six years. In short video is king in today’s YouTube age.

Most users will never use it, or I should say adjust the aperture

This is like saying most users will never adjust the shutter speed. Of course they won't, because the software automatically adjusts it, just like it does on any traditional camera. For the aperture capable lens, the software adjusts the aperture automatically depending upon light and/or depth of field requirements of a scene.

And yes, photographs are still spectacularly important.

But...I don't get it regardless. You know that video also uses apertures on every such equipped device, right? Better depth of field if the environment allows it is a good thing.

Apple appears to only care about still pictures up to a certain point

I feel like people are just saying silly bullshit now. Apple has made video a core part of their product reveals for years now. And current iPhones take outrageously good videos.

Where is a comparing site where the exact same subject and lightening used? Why https://www.gsmarena.com/piccmp.php3 stopped it? I can only find these "trust me" reviews.

This article is doing comparisons with the same subjects and lighting…

The Huawei model just uses AI based upscaling and filtering which is why the images look so sharp when zoomed in, that's not depicting reality though... You can also zoom into the moon on the night sky with these cameras and easily "resolve" details that are optically impossible to resolve with the camera lens as they are beyond the Abbe limit. At the very least they should compare RAW data in these posts, not the AI scaled slop most of these cameras produce nowadays.

Is that true though? It seems like the iphones are doing some type of skin smoothing algorithm but the Huawei is the only one that actually seems to produce actual skin texture and blemishes. My initial read was that the Huawei was the least processed of the bunch.

You can also zoom into the moon on the night sky with these cameras

iPhone, Samsung, Chinese phones, they all do fake moons now.

not the AI scaled slop most of these cameras produce nowadays

As someone who has only been an Apple user for phones (and Canon, Sony and Leica elsewhere), AI or otherwise, Apple is not immune to relatively heavy post processing in software. They're certainly not inserting moons, but even the raw sensor data has had some uplift to it.

I'm surprised that in no reviews of the iPhone 18 camera there is mention of the bad quality bokeh, it has heavy ring shapes that looks like what you'd get from a cheap catadioptric lens.

Edit: e.g. the tree in one of the images in the page: https://www.dxomark.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/PoleHDR_D...

That is from the normal (24mm) camera slightly stopped down (f/1.8), judging by the EXIF.

Odd bokeh was one of the risks of adding a mechanical aperture, and bokeh is very often weirdest at the first or second down from open.

I would hope that the telephoto lens does not show this so severely (because it has a fixed round aperture) but all mobile phone lenses in my experience have had a tendency towards a sort of concentric-ringed, quasi-soap-bubble bokeh; it's a common part of the challenge of really tiny optics (that you either like or dislike). (The iPhone X was really distinctive in this regard). So it's not too surprising to see the aperture do this on top of that.

As a general rule you don't see it in average images, but I guess sensors are now high-enough resolution that it's becoming more obvious, and the blades of a mechanical aperture might make it quite noticeable in some situations.

Odd bokeh was one of the risks of adding a mechanical aperture, and bokeh is very often weirdest at the first or second down from open.

Why? Where can I read/learn more about this?

This is usually due to the blade shape and quantity I believe. The aperture is most likely to be less circular on the widest apertures after fully open unless you have quite a lot of aperture blades, as the curve to make a rounder aperture is usually applied more towards the tip of the blade, and you're only seeing the base of the blades at wider apertures. That varies a lot by aperture design, however - if you have the more banana-shaped blades where the retaining pin and pivot pin are at opposite ends (like in a Yashica TLR) then I believe they can maintain a more consistent curve along the length. Those also suck massively to reassemble, but that's a different story.

I haven't seen a diagram of how the aperture in this new iPhone is designed yet. There's a lot of different ways to do it, with lots of odd shape possibilities.

This is usually due to the blade shape and quantity I believe.

Also because of things like angle of incidence?

The purely round lens will generally have nice round (or at least cats-eye) bokeh across the frame with an edge that degrades softly as a result of aberration, so beams of light from different angles tend to blur into each other.

As soon as you get aperture blades, you lose that soft edge, get contrast but also a lot of competing shape influences at different angles. They will tend towards more rounded shapes as you stop down more.

And that is putting aside that some aperture shapes are just really insane when they are nearly wide open, right? (Konica 40mm f/1.8 AR I am looking at you with your shuriken bokeh)

I haven't seen a diagram of how the aperture in this new iPhone is designed yet. There's a lot of different ways to do it, with lots of odd shape possibilities.

Not a diagram but one closeup photo:

https://petapixel.com/2026/09/19/apple-explains-why-the-ipho...

and an animation:

https://petapixel.com/2026/09/09/iphone-18-pro-has-apples-fa...

Six blades with a slightly rounded hook in them by the look of it. Very noticeable sun stars at f/1.8, nice looking results at f/2.8.

Absolutely insane mechanical challenge and assembly challenge.

Ooh yeah I love those weird shapes nearly wide open. I found a lens that had a torx bit shaped aperture the other day, I'll have to fish that out and see what it looks like in an image. Lots of compact cameras have a diamond/square-ish hole, notably the Minox 35 range from what I can recall.

Edit: just saw your update with the photos of the mechanism. Wow that's impressive miniaturisation. The hexagonal shape looks surprisingly good. I wonder what's causing the odd effects in the OP. I have noticed in the past that iPhone cameras produce square specular highlights through tree foliage, so I wonder if it's an extension of that oddity.

Yes that mechanism only has two blades! They are sort of sickle-shaped. (Presumably gave the Soviet cloners a chuckle)

I found myself looking at it when I was considering making a DIY aperture for my DIY lenses. (I've personally settled on swappable Waterhouse stops for now but I might fit an eBay microscope aperture, many of them have loads of blades).

Oh and now I'm going to end up looking on eBay for a Minox 35ML or 35GT again. Seriously, never do this while logged in; Minox 35 sellers may be among the most desperate I've ever seen in terms of sending you offers, it's relentless.

Haha there's certain camera models that are very prone to that. Some of the Pentacon M42 lenses are worth a look if you want an unholy amount of blades - I have a 135mm f/2.8 sat around that has like 15 blades or something daft.

Coincidentally I think I have a non-working 35GT in my market stall (https://camerasetc.wales), so if you want a project drop me an email as I'll send it to you for the cost of postage. I have too much in my repair backlog and those things are fiddly little bastards at the best of times :D

It's not due to the aperture blades. It's due to the amount of spherical aberration in the lenses.

Professional camera lenses carefully control this. It's actually one of the only intentional "flaws" added to lens. Technically bokeh with a slight ring on it (on point lights) usually results in a tack sharp lens. You can see this in most macro lenses.

Portrait lenses are sort of the opposite - they want super smooth bokeh (point light sources in the blurred out of focus area will have a nice gradient that is soft and gradually drops off toward the edges). This results in a lens that has slightly less sharpness on the in focus portion. It's not that noticeable though on a great lens.

Most lenses are a balance. When shooting professional cinema many lenses are intentional chosen for their bokeh qualities. "Nervous" bokeh is more on the side of rings and is often found on older Russian and East German glass.

There are two lenses where the amount of spherical aberration is not baked into the lens. They were made by Nikon called "Defocus Control". The 105mm 2.0 DC and slightly older 135mm 2.0 DC both have a second ring that looks another aperture ring but allows adjustability of the spherical aberration from "nervous" to "smooth". They were marketed poorly and misunderstood but are some of the best glass you can get - they test insanely well and have huge flexibility.

The 105mm 2.0 DC and slightly older 135mm 2.0 DC [...]

I almost never change the defocus control on the 135/2.0 from neutral, yet I believe the lens makes it almost impossible to take a bad portrait. The only reason to keep a DSLR around instead of a mirrorless is that this lens has an old-school camera driven auto-focus, which Nikon's F-to-Z adapters don't support. While manually focusing that lens can be done, the shallow depth of field makes it very challenging for moving subjects.

Polygonal aperture openings are not the cause of soap-bubble bokeh, it's the cause of polygonal stopped-down bokeh.

Heavily ringed bokeh just comes from the optics.

Polygonal aperture openings are not the cause of soap-bubble bokeh

Errr, quite obviously not, indeed. But then I didn't say they were?

I said all phone lenses tend to have soap bubble bokeh as a consequence of their optics. Almost all phone lenses don't have mechanical apertures; they have fixed ring apertures and also tiny aspheric lenses.

(In the industry it's seemingly called "onion ring bokeh" to distinguish from soap bubble, presumably because it has more than one ring.)

However! The first stop down of a mechanical iris has a tendency to have odd effects on the lens's bokeh.

You get an interference of the aperture blades and the wide-open bokeh. With a lens that is prone to ring bokeh, slightly stopping down will smear the edge of the bubble, but in this case it is also clearly boosting contrast as you expect (and an irregular shape at different angles)

But then I didn't say they were?

Is that a question?

An aside re: telephoto lens: Duo doesn't have one! It creates the effect of a 2x lens by enlarging the unmagnified image.

Soap bubble bokeh comes from overcorrected SA. Onion rings and related brightness anomalies/unevenness in bokeh are mostly the result of molded aspheric lenses. Stopping slightly down has not significantly impacted bokeh (apart from apodized lenses) since rounded aperture blades have been invented about fifty years ago.

Only professionals and enthusiasts care about bokeh. And I say that as someone that shoots my 50mm 1.2 wide open.

Previously the blur on iPhone was all software, apparently. I've set mine to do wide open with no bokeh, and i'll put it in after.

But to be honest, the iPhone is the camera I have on me, so the limits are acceptable. Can I force focus it? No. Can I get the glow? No. But iPhone + zoom + crop is better in some ways than my 50mm 1.2 with bokeh.

That assertion is not true at all and your comment overall just reeks of Apple apologism.

The average user may not understand the technical details of bokeh but they will certainly have an opinion on what is pleasing to the eye.

I remeber photographers talking about X has "not very nice bokeh" probably since I met a first photographer when phones were monochrome and had no camera. No one beside photographer cared then, no one will care today.

To most people its just blur and they don't care that it is not just blur.

Ring shapes on this image? I’m a not a professional and I don’t see them.

Zoom in on the large tree in the background. It looks as if it has ornamental balls hanging off it.

https://www.dxomark.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/DuoTable_...

Oh god that plasticization of the faces is absolutely horrifying. Like a bad image gen AI from 2022. Or reptilians wearing cheap rubber masks.

Edit: what's with the downvotes?

Some people’s faces just naturally look like that. Probably depends on the cosmetics applied.

The girl in the front, sure. The girl behind? No. It's not even skin smoothing, there's not a single clearly defined feature to her face, while the hair at the same depth is markedly more detailed.

what's with the downvotes?

Presumably because others disagree. I also do not see it here. Zooming in there are clear pores and skin texture. Is it somewhat smoothed? Yeah, it has that feel. Does it look like a cheap rubber mask? No. And that phrasing is frankly very insulting to the pictured subjects.

What's insulting about overprocessed photos? You can clearly see that the arbitrary part of the face of the girl in front is literally blurred, which happens neither to the other parts of her face nor to the photo taken with 17 Pro where details are visible over the entire face.

It's smartphone cameras, squeezing blood from a stone is pretty hard.

What's insulting about overprocessed photos?

This is a heavy walk-back from reptile wearing a rubber mask. It should not be hard to understand why that statement can be seen as insulting.

You can clearly see that the arbitrary part of the face of the girl in front is literally blurred

Not really. It’s a bit smoothed but the smoothest parts of her face are also where the skin is stretched tightest from smiling. It is actually smoother in those areas. I don’t see a ton of difference in the foreground between the skin texture in the different photos.

Background is different but as you said, that’s blood from a stone. The data just isn’t there.

It should not be hard to understand why that statement can be seen as insulting.

It's very hard to understand. It doesn't make sense that a criticism of the camera would be an insult to the subjects of the photo.

The criticism is that the image isn't an accurate representation of the subjects. If B is bad, and B != A, it doesn't follow that A is bad.

You take a picture of your wife with your phone. You show it to a coworker. They tell you that your wife looks like a reptile wearing a rubber face mask.

Your reaction is?

a. “Yeah, the slight over processing definitely turned my wife into a lizard person.”

b. “Fuck you.”

The face is the background is clearly an AI model adding detail where the raw image is out of focus. The people you're talking to on this site are just blind.

Look at one eye has lashes and the other doesn't! It's just a low-quality AI "denoise+sharpen" filter.

Apple's cameras always look overprocessed to me. Not to the extent that some Chinese smartphone manufacturers replace your skin, but the general vibe of Apple's pictures is just off.

Some people really like that style, though. I think it's a matter of preference, and it seems like the people who like that style are exactly who Apple is optimizing their image algorithms for.

This particular iteration seems to increase the hallucinations a bit more than previous models, though. Unless one of the models did actually have one eye with eyelashes and one without for the iPhone shoot.

How does it compare to the Samsung flagship phone cameras? I have to say I was impressed by the Samsung cameras, although being Android based it's not really an option for me. It'd be like trading a Porsche 911 for a Pontiac Aztec.

That’s harsh - the Aztek was not that bad …

Like trading something flashy, fast and impractical for something ugly and practical (idk if Azteks were fast but I suspect not notably so). I don’t know if it works for the camera phone comparison.

although being Android based it's not really an option for me. It'd be like trading a Porsche 911 for a Pontiac Aztec.

I use GrapheneOS for my own phone and have always been forced into iPhones at work.

iOS, after 12 years of use, is still so terrible that I can't just get over it.

I open my MacBook and will do whatever needs to be done from there.

I should probably get an iPhone for private use too though. It would surely stop me from being on my phone more than I'd like to.

Android doesn’t have a single decent calendar app. The apps that do exist and are cross platform are _almost always_ a worse version of the iOS app. I tried making the switch to Graphene and even after giving in and using the Play store to find apps, it was just impossible.

The launchers were fine, but the app experience being abysmal just made Android a non-starter. I don’t understand how people don’t see this.

RCS didn’t even work as well as it does on iPhone.

And this isn’t a walled garden comparison - I don’t use iCloud or any Apple services aside from iMessage (for people who don’t have signal).

Try using a self-hosted calendar on Android - absolutely impossible if you have any expectation of it being usable. And no, an unreliable third party app that promises to sync in the background does not count, mostly because it doesn’t work well. iCalendar works. You should not need to buy Business Calendar 2 to get a worse version of what iPhone users get for free.

There are a half dozen apps at least I could tell a similar story about.

"DXOMARK’s objective measurements and perceptual analyses"

Where are the measurements? All I see are vague generalities like "well-rendered images with improved contrast and natural-looking skin tones". I guess those are the "perceptual analyses"? Is there a "See full measurements" button I'm missing? How do they come up with numbers like "157 Portrait", "172 Outdoors"?

For mobile devices they unfortunately do a much less technical analysis compared to "real" cameras and lenses. Or they just don't publish those parts. It's really unfortunate

Someone should assemble a chain of iPhone camera review comparison images published over the years, 18 → 17, 17 → 16, 16 → 15 etc. showing how each year's new phone being so much better than the previous year's somehow becomes perceivably bad next to the next year's phone.

Could you provide at least one review to support that claim?

Youtuber Marques Brownlee did this (as a short). It's actually not so noticeable, it's only once you get to the very oldest phones that it's visibly worse.

the difference will be in things like low-light, telephoto lenses, video capability, HDR, and lots of other things that don't show up in most photos (including that one)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jru9Gsz3kJY

It'd be much better if this test was done in low light. The tiny sensors in iphones work fine when there's plenty of light around. The real test is how well they do when the you aren't sitting in the sun.

I’m not convinced that this is a particularly scientific or rigorous test of the cameras! Seems rather lacking in control variables, documented processes, actual measurements etc.

My gripe with iPhone is hunting white balance. Always happening when I'm shooting video.

I wonder if newer phones / camera apps are better.

The 18 Pro enables 'pro' features in the default camera app that finally allows you to set the white balance, shutter speed, aperture, but not the ISO.

I’ll pass on the opinion of a website that has not only a cookie banner, but a stupid modal.

Ad hominem. Very low effort and maturity of thought.

a website is not a person. low effort comment and poor correctness

a website is not a person.

That is not relevant. The conclusion of the review on the website is being dismissed because of some other qualities of the website that have no bearing on the quality of the review being performed.

Yes, it does.

To judge the quality of their findings properly you'd have to perform the same research yourself.

Judging some factors surrounding the content is quickly done, and generally a good approximation for the quality of the content itself.

How obnoxious is the website, how tasteful is the design? Is the copyright year in the footer up-to-date (terrible signal if the year is wrong)?

A crass analogy, but I'll not take health advice from someone with brown stains on their pants either.

Zooming in on a clock 4-500yds away and expecting a fully crisp image seems somewhat of a useless benchmark.

I'm a sniper so this feature is mission-critical to me

I’m not a big fan of the bokeh on smartphone cameras. The depth of field isn’t shallow enough to really isolate the subject, yet it’s shallow enough to make background details slightly blurry. As someone who uses a DSLR, I don’t find the nisen bokeh particularly pleasing either. If I were using an iPhone 18 Pro, I’d probably keep it at around f4 for a deeper dof most of the time rather than shooting wide open.

The really problem of iPhone camera is not these benchmark things. The problem is that the photo captured by the “Modern iPhone” simply does not look nice , let say, compared to iPhone 4S.

This is a question for the sake of curiousness; the article writer shot a couple of pictures of young black kids. I can't find any mention in the article, but is this just coincidence or is this commonly done becauses the darker skin is hard to shoot correctly?