Apple iPhone 17 Pro Max: First sample photos reveal camera weaknesses, especially at 40x zoom
Apple’s new iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max feature the same 48MP f/2.2 ultrawide camera and 48MP f/1.78 main camera as the iPhone 16 Pro, but the telephoto lens has been massively upgraded. Apple has replaced the 12MP f/2.8 periscope telephoto camera with a 1/3.06-inch sensor and 5x optical zoom with a 48MP f/2.8 periscope telephoto camera with 4x zoom and a 1/2.55-inch sensor.
This effectively increases the sensor size by 56%, which should allow the telephoto lens to capture significantly better images, especially in low light situations. Meanwhile, the higher resolution should result in better photos when additional digital zoom is used. For instance, Apple explicitly promotes its 8x zoom, which allows for photos to be taken at a resolution of 12 megapixels. The reliable leaker Ice Universe has published the first pictures that have been taken with the iPhone 17 Pro Max.
The photos show Apple's headquarters with a zoom from 0.5x to 40x, which is the entire zoom range supported by the iPhone 17 Pro Max. As usual, the ultrawide camera shows visible vignetting and a loss of detail in the corners of the photo, indicating that Apple has apparently not improved the lens. As expected, the main camera has no problems with these rather undemanding conditions with a cloudy sky, although Apple's image processing visibly struggles and is oversaturating the blue sky behind the cloud cover.
That said, the photos taken with Apple's new telephoto camera are particularly interesting. At 4x zoom, the camera is sharp across the entire field of view, no image noise is visible even in dark areas. The 8x zoom is also quite impressive, at least in these conditions. On the other hand, the 40x zoom results in barely usable photos because the resolution is significantly lowered.
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