QUESTION · ARCHIVE

What is the optical zoom and sensor size on the iPhone 18 Pro, and how much does computational photography still play a role?

ASKED BY · Unknown · 19 SEP 2026 · ▶ 00:53:15

THE PANEL'S ANSWER
Courtney

iPhone 18 Pro has 8x optical zoom; despite variable aperture, tiny sensor size means heavy computational photography is still required. Camera is exceptional for a pocket device but won't replace full-frame professional cameras; new depth controls are cool but still computationally driven.

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53:14or just do bite the bullet and make it a point-and-shoot camera with the phone on the back of it. You know, so it has a fold-out screen on the back, I'm going to like the Duo. And it's basically a point and shoot, you know, a pocketable with a 5X or 10X optical zoom on it, optical image stabilization. You know, all those great things we had in micro four thirds cameras.

53:40Just make it a camera. And you can make phone calls on it if you want. But, you know, just take the final step and make it a camera. What are these phone calls that you speak of, Courtney? i don't know well now we just have ai translate your text into a voice which phone calls for you yeah so so the new i haven't i did watch the keynote they they do actually provide on the 18

54:06uh pro there is an 8x optical zoom on it uh what's the sense does anyone know the sensor size i don't know if they disclose the sensor size it shows the aperture I don't see the other issue with the iPhone that people don't always seem to talk about is they go oh yes it's got aperture blades now so we can but just remember a lot of

54:33because the sensor size is so tiny on these things they're still doing a lot and I mean a lot of computational photography and I don't mean that to diminish the incredible engineering work that Apple has done on these and continues to impress me year over year with the camera updates. And it's incredible that what they were able to do and put into that tiny package. And

54:55I'm definitely going to be due for a new phone this year. So I'd like to try this out. And I think it's cool that you can play with more depth of focus, shallow depth of focus or having things more in focus in the background. But there's still a lot of computational photography and it's the camera on these phones is not meant to replace a

55:19professional full frame camera like it is like don't don't pretend like that's going to somehow be a full frame camera with an expensive lens it's not going to be that it's not ever going to be that but i think for a device that's in your pocket it does take truly exceptional photos And the examples that I've seen of the 18 Pro look pretty impressive.

55:42And I'm sure actual experienced photographers have probably tested it already, have some really good things to say about it. But Guy, what do you think? I just wanted to reply to what Courtney's idea was, because there was actually a phone camera. I don't know if anybody remembers it, but it looked like this. And I had one. I still have it. It's somewhere buried in a box.

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