Apple’s upcoming iPhone 13 lineup isn’t expected to bring major improvements to imaging hardware except for the flagship iPhone 13 Pro Max model which should apparently rock a wide-angle rear camera outfitted with a marginally-improved ƒ/1.5 equivalent lens.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS:
- iPhone 13 Pro Max may sport an ƒ/1.5 wide-angle camera.
- This should help improve low-light photography and bokeh.
- The iPhone 12 Pro Max wide-angle camera has an ƒ/1.6 aperture.
A marginal upgrade
According to the latest checks by TF International Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, who has a great track record predicting Apple’s moves, a larger ƒ/1.5 effective aperture on the wide-angle camera of the flagship iPhone 13 Pro Max should boost your low-light and Portrait mode shots.
In Apple talk, a “wide-angle” camera basically denotes your main rear shooter while the camera that features a wider angle of view is referred to as an “ultra-wide-angle” camera.
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By comparison, the current iPhone 12 Pro Max wide-angle camera features a slightly smaller ƒ/1.6 aperture. As for the other models in the upcoming lineup, the revered analyst in a note to clients obtained by AppleInsider and MacRumors says that the other models will use an f/1.6 wide-angle lens similar to the wide-angle lens on the iPhone 12 lineup.
All new iPhones in the lineup—the iPhone 13 mini, iPhone 13, iPhone 13 Pro and iPhone 13 Pro Max—are expected to share a 7P lens provided by a new supplier, Sunny Optical. The 7P lens should reduce chromatic aberration that causes fringes of color along boundaries that separate an image’s dark and bright parts.
Mass production of the new camera system is expected in May ahead of the expected iPhone 13 arrival in September.
Other analysts previously said that the ultra-wide camera on all four iPhone 13 models comes with an ƒ/1.8 aperture, an improvement over the ƒ/2.4 aperture on the current iPhone 12 series. More significant improvements to the iPhone’s imaging system are expected with the iPhone 14 in 2022 and iPhone 15 in 2023, such as periscope lens technology.