The camera improvements in the new iPhone 13 model are nothing short of an impressive and a huge leap forward from last years’ iPhone 12 model. Powered by the next-generation A15 Bionic chip, the latest 6.1-inch base model offers advanced auto-focus, sensor-shift optical image stabilization, and cinematic mode, photographic styles.
DXOMark put the new camera system to the test and found that iPhone 13 camera performs better than the high-end 6.1-inch iPhone 12 Pro. By no stretch of the imagination does this mean the iPhone 12 Pro has a poor quality camera system, it is just that Apple has equipped the latest flagship series with features that outshine its already high-quality camera systems of predecessor models. Here are the test results.
iPhone 13 has better photo and video scores than iPhone 12 Pro
DXOMark put the primary, Ultra-wide, and video recording lenses of iPhone 13 to test, and the model got scored 138 photo, 55 zoom, and 117 video points which are better than the reviewer’s scores of iPhone 12 Pro. The iPhone 12 Pro model got 135 photo, 66 zoom, and 112 video points. As iPhone 13 mini has the same camera system and the larger 6.1-inch model, this means the latest 13 mini model camera system is better than iPhone 12 Pro’s camera.
The pros of the latest 6.1-inch model are accurate and repeatable target exposure, fast autofocus, good details in daylight and indoor environments, a wide range in video with accurate white balance, smooth transition, autofocus, and more. And the cons are limited dynamic range in challenging high contrast scenes, noise in videos in lowlight conditions, some loss of texture in videos in daylight and indoor environments, and more.
Furthermore, a comparison of iPhone 13 scores with iPhone 12 Pro Max revealed that the base level model camera system is just as good as the highest-end model with a better video recording score.
iPhone 13 and 13 mini
- Dual 12MP camera system
- Wide: ƒ/1.6 aperture
- Ultra-Wide: ƒ/2.4 aperture
- 2x optical zoom out and digital zoom up to 5x
- Sensor-shift optical image stabilization
- Cinematic mode for recording videos
- HDR video recording with Dolby Vision up to 4K at 60 fps
- 2x optical zoom out and Digital zoom up to 3x
