iPhone 16 Pro Max: One Week Camera Review

It's been a full week since the new iPhone 16 models launched, and we've now had enough time to give the Camera Control button and the camera setup a more in-depth look. We tested the iPhone 16 Pro and Pro Max, which have triple-lens rear camera setups with 48-megapixel Fusion lens, 48-megapixel Ultra Wide lens, and 5x Telephoto lens.

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The Camera Control button has turned out to be great for quickly launching the camera and snapping photos and videos, but the more in-depth adjustments that require light presses and swiping are harder to get used to.

It's still quicker to get to these controls in the Camera app itself by tapping on the display. Maybe that's a matter of getting used to the new setup, but it's also harder to use the button in portrait orientation than landscape mode, and a lot of people take photos in portrait orientation these days. On the ‌iPhone 16 Pro‌ Max especially, the button is just too low to be comfortable to use when holding the device vertically.

New this year is the 48-megapixel Ultra Wide lens, and it's a big improvement over the prior 12-megapixel Ultra Wide lens. Apple is using pixel binning to combine four pixels into one, ultimately providing a 12-megapixel finished image, but merging pixels allows for more detail and improved quality in low light.

The 5x Telephoto lenses haven't changed, but you can get 5x optical zoom on the 16 Pro in addition to the Pro Max, which is new this year. The "Fusion" camera is also basically identical to the "Main" camera from last year, and you still have the settings to choose between 24mm, 28mm, and 35mm lenses.

Photographic Styles are a great addition for tweaking the look of an image, and the pad for adjustments is useful to get a unique mood with minimal effort. Make sure to check out our video above to see it in action.

For videographers, the option to shoot in 4K 120 fps is super useful, especially because you can slow it down or speed it up in post production. The Audio Mix feature for changing the audio also really makes a difference for capturing video.

We have some ‌iPhone 16 Pro‌ camera comparisons coming, where we pit the ‌iPhone 16 Pro‌ against some other flagship smartphones. Stay tuned to MacRumors to see those videos next week.