Does the new iPhone 18 Pro really have that much better cameras than the 17 Pro or 16 Pro? Well, I went out and I took a bunch of images in different lightings and different settings. And I was honestly shocked because Apple made a huge deal about the variable aperture and the cameras in general. And in some scenarios, the older phones actually did better. But in other cases, I saw some pretty big improvements that Apple literally did not talk about.

So, let's go ahead and take a look at all of the differences, and you'll see if you should upgrade to this phone. Starting out with this image, I want to test out the variable aperture, and I set it to f4. Now, it can automatically change for you if it sees a group, but in this shot, it's kind of hard to tell a difference being just the full wide shot. Now, if we go ahead and punch in, you see how blurry uh my son is on the older phones compared to on the 18 Pro Max.

Now, even my daughter here who's closer, you see all that texture and detail on her hair, on the chair, even compared to a little bit of blurriness, especially on the older phones. Now, Noah right here, he's in perfect focus in all of them. But we get some extra detail in the hair. The face also looks more natural. Now, with pro cameras, a lot of times you will stop down to say f4 to get better detail. I wanted to test that out.

So, taking a look at the corner sharpness, which improves on regular cameras here, it does not. It actually looks worse with the f4 compared to the older cameras. Now, I will touch on this more in a little bit and some discoveries, but let's jump into the telephoto here. And this is what really surprised me because both the 17 Pro and 18 Pro have the same exact 4x optical camera. But you see how much better it looks.

We get better texture over here, better detail. All the text is easier to read. Um, it just looks nicer. And on the 16 Pro Max, that one has the 5x optical and it just looks really, really bad. Jumping to a selfie here. The newer iPhones have the 18 megapixel center stage that can shoot wider. So on the 16, you see I can't fit my daughter and myself fully in the shot. [music] Now the 18 Pro Max looks nice, looks more detailed and punching in.

Even though the cameras are the same on the front, it looks better with the 18 Pro Max, both on her face and [music] the wall behind her. Now, jumping to a food shot, not a big difference, but even with portrait mode on, uh, it knows to leave the whole plate more in focus, and I didn't tweak any of these settings. Now, here we have an ultra wide, and this is where some of my disappointment starts to come in. If we take a closer look, the 18 Pro Max actually looks the worst.

If we're looking at text, we're looking at the wall texture, the detail, it is worse than the two older phones. Same image, we're looking at HDR here. The HDR is a little bit better right here on the left hand side. It's not blown out. Uh, but detail does not look as good. How is that possible? Here's another ultra wide shot. If we're not punching in, it looks similar. I personally would want it to look better. Now, here's a portrait shot right here.

We're not going to punch in, but I just see a little bit better colors. The skin tone is better. The blur effect looks great on all of them. And in this shot right here is where some of the portraits just surprised me. I don't know what Apple did. It looks great even without having a closer look. Uh the contrast look nice, but once you look closer, look at all that extra detail in the hair, in the face. It looks so much more professional. uh looks so much more natural as well.

And the crazy thing is Apple didn't say they improved the sensor or any of the processing, but as you'll see, they definitely did. This is a regular 1x shot right here. I stopped down at f1.8 myself. You guys can see a little bit of that uh sunspot right there, the little sun flares. Now, the whole image looks different. If we take a closer look, we get a lot more detail right here in all of these leaves while not being oversharpened like the 16 Pro Maxes.

The 17 Pro Max, they tuned down the processing to make a little more natural, but it just looks flat and less detailed. And taking a look at Noah here. The 18 Pro Max, it was able to see that it's a person even though he was really small and exposed for him while keeping everything else looking good. So, that was impressive. Now, if you're getting a new iPhone, since the 18 Pro Max still uses an aluminum frame, unlike the titanium on the Duo, [music] protect your new iPhone 18 Pro with a really tough case like the Q3 rugged case from our sponsor, Taurus.

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And with that, you also get better MagSafe magnets built in for all of your wireless chargers and accessories. So, with that said, I definitely recommend getting these cases either on Amazon or by using the links in the video description and pin comment below. Now, I did one macro shot. It doesn't look any different in good lighting because the ultrawide, it's a little bit of a disappointment in terms of upgrades. Here we have a main lens shot.

It's a 1x. This is very difficult. It's not just a person that you're trying to blur out. And taking a closer look, you'll see this trend of how much more detail we're getting out of the new main lens. It just looks so much better. The blur is excellent. If we look at the 16 Pro Max, look how it messed up so much of the edging. And the 17 Pro Max just looks a lot less detailed and more flat. Now, in this photo, I set all of them to 48 megapixel cuz I want to look at the fine detail here.

And punching in just a bit, you can already see the difference in the sign. I can actually read $3 per hour compared to here. Looks like a dollar per hour. The 16 Pro Max looks oversharpened. And the detail in the trees right here in the rocks. I mean, this is a big difference one generation to the next. Now, if we go ahead and take a closer look. I mean, look at that. I don't know how they did it. How they're getting so much more detail.

[music] It's a lot of processing improvements. Now, here's a portrait using the telephoto uh cameras, and I'm really surprised how similar it looks. Even the 16 Pro Max still looks good. It cut out a little bit more of the fine hairs compared to the newer phones that have better processing, more [music] powerful chips that do a lot of this stuff, but it looks great. And taking a look at overall detail in daylight, it's hard to tell the difference here.

Now, in this shot right here, I went ahead and punched in more. So, and that's where you could see the 16 Pro Max, the [music] 5x, even though it zooms in more optically. It just looks so much worse than [music] the new 4x cameras. Now, in this regular shot, all of them look great. We have a little bit differences in skin tones. Um, and if this was on your phone, honestly, you would be happy. You can't tell a difference.

So, if we look a little closer, we do have better detail in the 18 Pro Max, but nobody's going to do that for a shot like this. Now, here is a telephoto portrait 4x and 5x. I had to move back. And this is using the new texture and grain control that they added. And you let me know if you like this kind of a look with the grain, the more film style look. Now, that is going to be coming to the older phones as well. And if I go ahead and turn off the film grain, you guys will see it's a lot cleaner.

Um, I just like the shadowing on the face here as well. And then punching in, this is where you really could tell the quality difference. Even though we have the same exact 4x [music] camera, the quality difference for portrait shots, [music] it's pretty amazing how much more detail we get. The skin tones look better. It is impressive. Now, here's a main shot, also portrait. It's a 2x portrait. And looking closer, I mean, the [music] new phone just kills it.

The shadowing, the skin, the hair, it just looks quite a bit better. And the 16 Pro Max definitely is falling behind now. Now, here is a shot where I went in and I set it to f1.8. You don't have to go all the way to f4 to make those uh sun flares, and it just looks beautiful. Even without punching in, we could see the extra detail here. The colors look amazing. Uh, it's just an awesome photo and the whole glare control is also better and that's been an issue with iPhone.

So, if you look closer, I mean, look at that difference. These on the right look more like cell phone photos. This looks more like a real professional camera. So, that just impressed me, especially cuz they weren't talking about it. Now, another thing that comes in is processing for portraits. And especially hard if you have a subject that's not a human, it's harder for the processing. Now, if you just look like this, they all look great.

You'll be happy with your 16 Pro. But taking a look closer, the 18 Pro does such a good job with the blur. You can see right here, natural fall off. This tree is perfectly cut out. The background, whereas on the older ones, look where it just cut out a chunk right here or these sharp edges. And here we have part of the building wasn't blurred out. The top right here was the 18 Pro Max. I think it's the extra processing from the A20 Pro chip that does such a good job because the images processed there.

And once again, right here, telephoto shot, portrait. Look how much nicer the 18 Pro [music] Max looks. And Apple was not talking about that 4x optical at all. They didn't say it had any improvements, but look right here. Look how bad these ones look on the on the side. Now, this is with sunflaring. It makes it so much more difficult, but the coatings and processing on the 18 Pro Max really impressed me. Here's another shot.

We have nice backlighting and just taking a look at the cutouts. The 16 Pro Max has all these sharp edges. The hair just is not blurred out that well. We have random spots. Compared to the 18 Pro Max, [music] it's a lot cleaner. Look, it's keeping all these hairs, just lightly blurring them instead of just having this rough cut on the 16 Pro Max. Now, here's another selfie right here. And what really stands out here, yes, we have more detail on the newer 18 megapixel ones, but look at the skin tones.

[music] How natural it looks, not oversharpened. The 16 Pro Max has extra sharpening added. It just looks like such a great selfie. Now, here we're going to take a look at some of the HDR and how it processes. Here's the image. Nice sunset punching in. Look on the 17 Pro Max. We have oversharpening. It's a lot darker. A lot of the detail is going away. The 18 Pro Max, all this extra detail that stays there while maintaining uh the water, this canoe, just a lot more going on there.

Here we have extra detail in all the dark areas that didn't get crushed while maintaining the sunset. looks really good. [music] And then in this shot, similar lighting, but I wanted to do something a little bit different. Uh, with the new variable aperture in this camera, um, you should be able to get extra detail by stopping down for landscape photography. That's what people did, you know, have done for, I don't know, hundred years with real cameras.

So, if we punch in, this is where I set the 18 Pro to F4. We do see extra detail. >> [music] >> Look at the trees. Look at the bushes. Look at the building. You definitely have extra real detail without any fake crunchy oversharpening like you get on the 16 Pro Max. Now, I wanted to test [music] what what happens if we just leave it in full wide open mode. And right here, [music] it decided to do f1.8, not f148. And it looks even better than before.

I mean, this difference is drastic when you're going year overyear. Now, I also want to just compare the two modes. We have f1.8, f4. You would think f4 would be more detailed. And it's not dark. It's not high ISO, but no. F1.8 right here, which is what it chose, looks better. [music] You have more detail in this uh lettering on the building. More detail in all the trees and bushes, in the brick over here. Here you actually see the little pieces.

[music] So, do not go into your phone settings and just keep setting it to f4. If you're taking landscapes, uh even in bright daylight like we saw, it doesn't make it any more detailed. It makes it worse. Just let it do its thing. If you have a group of people you want more in focus, use it for that, but not for landscapes. Now, here is the telephoto and sunset lighting. Uh we do get a little bit more detail in the brick.

Even though the camera is identical, it hasn't changed. Just better processing. The 16 Pro Max really is starting to fall behind. It's really blotchy. We have noise here. And stepping inside with low light, it just looks a little bit better. The contrast looks good. Skin tones look good. And it's not oversharpened. It's more natural looking. I have a sushi shot right here. This is with portrait mode. It's hard to tell.

I like taking pictures of food with portrait mode with some nice blur. >> [music] >> Uh, if we did set it to f4, you can have more of it in focus, but I didn't choose to do so. Couple more shots here. Sun was almost going away. This is golden hour. You guys could see some of that improvement. Less noise. And now it got really dark. Now you guys see these um sunspots, this flaring. Nice, cool effect. Looks really nice.

But one thing that I found out is if you're going to go to f4 to get these really dramatic flares [music] with portraits at the nighttime, it really kills the quality. So even on the main photo, you could tell, but here, look at how much worse the photo looks in low light. The phone cannot compensate for that. So, uh, the older phones look quite a bit better. So, if you want those sun flares and it's very low light, I would recommend just use f1.8. 8.

You still get that flaring right there. And then at the same time, the image looks so much better than the older phones. I mean, look at that. Just natural. You have a lot more detail, texture, and you're getting the other benefit creatively. Getting back to the ultrawide, very low light shot. I was hoping they would make the ultrawide better, but no, it does not look any better. And in this shot right here, we have really low light.

Once again, it actually looks worse. It does. So, we're seeing the trend of the ultrawide looking worse. Look at that brick. How much less detailed it is. Look at my shirt right here. My face. It looks bad. And I don't know why the newer phone looks bad with the ultra wide. The 17 looks a lot better. Now, here's a shot in the car. Uh, this is actually adding extra lighting from a phone. All of them look pretty good. We have some skin tone differences.

U this is not oversharpened. More natural detail. I think it looks better overall. You guys let me know what you think. And couple more shots here with the main lens. I like the colors that pop a little bit more. A little more contrast without overdoing it. More detail right here in the brick. You guys can see an improvement year after year. Couple more shots right here. We got some sunflares that look nice and pop. And then if we go in over here, take a closer look once again.

I mean, look at that improvement in detail. Apple just talked about the aperture. They talked about the new film modes, stuff like that. But this is generally a big jump where the two older phones look very similar. The new one actually stands out a lot. And if you really want to see this where there's flaring from a bunch of lights, look at that shot right there. Man, the 16 Pro Max looks bad. It looks dark. It's grainy. 17 Pro Max, a little bit brighter.

A little did better processing. SE the 18 Pro Max, look at all the texture. Look at just the whole image, the colors. We got sun flares. I mean, this is a bigger jump than we've seen for a while. And this shot is what blew my mind. This is telephoto. This is nighttime. And the 17 Pro Max looks bad. Even though it has the same camera, the hardware is the same. The A Pro Max [music] looks shockingly good. I think this is the A20 Pro just pulling out more processing.

They could stack more images for night mode and it just looks incredible. Look at the leaves right here. [music] The sign. It looks awesome. Now, here's a few images using their uh new texture with the film [music] look and grain. You let me know if you guys like that kind of nostalgic look. I'll just cycle through a couple of [music] these. We have great detail in the hair. And none of this takes longer. Images are super quick.

Here's a shot of me [music] right there. Yeah, I don't know if I'm a fan of that much film grain, but of course, you can go in and fine-tune [music] it. And now a couple nighttime shots. These are on a tripod uh using 30 seconds. I honestly thought I would get a little bit more. [music] If we take a closer look, you do see some smaller stars in the distance that you don't see on this one. Uh but in general they look fairly similar.

And then the last shot here definitely picking up a little bit more stars. They stand out a little bit more. [music] Um but not a massive difference. So what did we learn overall? Well, Apple really showed off the aperture control. Um they made such a big deal about [music] it. But the actual images in portrait mode, [music] they've in regular photos, they've done a lot of processing. They've tweaked their colors, their contrast. stuff looks more detailed and natural at the same time.

It's not just sharpening and some of the images just look drastically better. [music] Flare control is better. And I feel like they could have talked about this a bit more. Now you guys let me know. Is this enough of a reason for you guys to upgrade? Say if you have a 16 Pro Max or even from a 17. Does this make a difference or does it look too similar to you guys? Now we're going to do a blind camera comparison as well against Samsung and Pixel.

So, if you guys want to see how the new 18 Pro Max stacks up to the latest flagships, make sure you guys click that uh circle above to subscribe. Check out one of those videos right over there. This has been Max and I'll see you in the next