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Apple has announced the addition of a variable aperture main camera to the new iPhone 18 Pro, claiming that it will provide an improvement in low-light photos and video, and more control over the depth of field when composing shots.
But with an almost identical design and spec sheet to the excellent iPhone 17 Pro, the iPhone 18 Pro begs the question: are these camera upgrades incremental, or will the extra investment be worth it?
I received my iPhone 18 Pro review sample on September 21st, two days before I flew to New Zealand for a month-long trip to see family and friends. The country’s dramatic scenery proved the perfect place to put the iPhone 18 Pro through its paces, and I ended up shooting more than 750 stills to see if Apple’s much-hyped photography upgrades cut the mustard.
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In addition to that variable aperture feature, Apple has also added ‘pro’ manual controls to the iPhone 18 Pro camera app for the first time, as well as more customization options for photographic styles, including a film effect and film grain effect.
Cumulatively, these granular control options are pretty un-Apple, and put a lot more control in the hands of an iPhone photographer that can be used for an easier point-and-shoot experience.
In doing so, Apple demands that its latest iPhone be held to a higher standard. And the bottom line is that, while the iPhone 18 Pro has the best and most versatile camera setup of any iPhone to date, there are more capable alternatives available just a short hop over the technical fence in Android land for platform-agnostic mobile photographers who want the best.
Variable opening
The variable aperture is a physically moving mechanism that can be manually changed between four different f-stops – the smaller the f-stop number, the more light is allowed to reach the lens, and vice versa.
The main camera of the iPhone 18 Pro is a 48MP sensor that can switch between f/1.4, f/1.8, f/2.8 f/4.0. This makes it the most flexible iPhone camera lens yet, but Apple only allows those four settings – unlike a real camera, you can’t adjust to incremental f-stops between those numbers.
Changing the aperture on the iPhone 18 Pro subtly changes how much background blur a shot has when there is a subject in focus in the foreground. This is how cameras work, but usually the tiny sensor on a phone requires software-enabled portrait modes to achieve this bokeh effect.
The iPhone 18 Pro can only do it with hardware, although the difference between the four settings is quite minimal, as seen here:
Picture 1 of 4
(Image credit: Future)
You can change the aperture manually, but it also changes automatically by default. And after a month of using the iPhone 18 Pro as my main camera, I feel that this is still how Apple’s latest flagship should be used: as a point-and-shoot camera with its default settings enabled. As you can see from many of my favorite images, the iPhone often selects the main lens at f/1.8, and it will usually be spot on.
As already mentioned, this variable aperture is the headline feature of the iPhone 18 Pro, but the subtlety with which it changes the photography experience versus the iPhone 17 Pro suggests that there is not much more that Apple can do with its flagship camera system.
That said, the addition of customizable ‘pro’ controls in the camera app is a nice touch. I set my control panel to show shutter speed, white balance and aperture, and they were fun to play with to achieve better shots in low light, for example. But unless you’re invested in wringing the best possible results from the lenses of the iPhone 18 Pro, you’ll probably forget about these new controls after a while.
The good news is that, if you’re a more casual shooter, Tap to Focus continues to work well on the iPhone 18 Pro. I was impressed with the ability of the main lens to capture the two images below. Tapping on the background or foreground, respectively, quickly focused on the part of the scene I wanted to highlight, with strong results.
Picture 1 of 2
(Image credit: Future)
I’ve taken such shots on phones like the Xiaomi 17 Ultra, but that handset has a much larger 1-inch sensor. It’s a testament to Apple’s hardware and software prowess that the iPhone 18 Pro’s smaller 1/1.28″ sensor can be so capable.
Android phones have long had more technically capable camera systems than iPhones, and while that’s still the case, the iPhone 18 Pro represents yet another small shuffle forward for Apple.
Photographic styles
Apple has also updated the photographic styles on offer for the iPhone 18 Pro, and they are much more varied than before.
Below I’ve included the same shot applied sequentially with several different filters (in their default settings), noting each filter name in the caption. To my eyes, some are tasty, others less so:
Handily, if you don’t like the look of a particular filter, you can dive into each one and adjust both ‘Palette’ and ‘Texture’ granularly (although the little dot matrix Apple provides for doing this is fiddly, and doesn’t explain what you’re actually changing).
Within ‘Texture’ you can add a film effect and then extra film grain on top of that. It’s a bit heavy for my liking, but I got some cool shots of it:
Picture 1 of 2
(Image credit: Future)
4x telephoto
While Apple touted the variable aperture on the iPhone 18 Pro’s main lens more than any other feature, I still really enjoy shooting with its 48MP 4x optical telephoto lens, which has no such capability.
It’s the best-looking telephoto I’ve used on an iPhone so far, with optical image stabilization resulting in crisp, well-rendered shots. Some of these were captured in transit while pushing a cart, so a hat tip to the iPhone’s ability to eliminate blur (or my steady hands – you decide).
All were taken in iPhone 18 Pro standard shooting mode, with the standard filter:
Picture 1 of 2
(Image credit: Future)
Admittedly, this telephoto lens is still not as capable as the ones you’ll find on phones like the Xiaomi 17 Ultra, which boasts a formidable 200MP sensor and continuous optical zoom, or the Vivo X300 Ultra, whose own 200MP lens offers exceptional detail and sound. But it’s stellar for an iPhone, and that’s notable because Apple is long behind the Android competition when it comes to image performance.
It is also significant that these small hardware improvements are paired with Apple’s excellent iOS software. I like the Vivo X300 Ultra’s camera, but I find it hard to enjoy using Vivo phones for long periods due to their relatively unpolished Android software. Apple continues to be at the top of the heap for software slickness.
Judgment
This was the first time I’ve tested a Pro iPhone for an extended period of time since the iPhone 15 Pro Max, and compared to that phone, the 18 Pro feels like a significant step forward in both hardware and software.
But that’s a three-year evolution I’ve experienced. The 18 Pro is certainly only a small step forward against the 17 Pro, and it’s not too far ahead of the 16 Pro either.
So for iPhone fans who want a significant camera upgrade over their current device, I would only recommend the iPhone 18 Pro if you have an iPhone 15 Pro or older. You will certainly notice the step in overall quality.
And while Apple sings the praises of the 18 Pro’s variable aperture feature in its wall-to-wall marketing of its new phone, in truth, it’s the cumulative effect of several years of iteration that makes the iPhone’s camera system feel like a real upgrade.
That’s the best praise I can give these excellent cameras, along with the simple fact that they’re incredibly fun to shoot with, which I haven’t always found when reviewing iPhones over the past decade.
To wrap up, here are a few more of my favorite New Zealand shots that I think showcase the iPhone 18 Pro’s versatility:
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(Image credit: Future)
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(Image credit: Future)
Android die-hard Pixel peepers will understandably cling to their superior hardware. But as far as iPhones go, the 18 Pro is sure to please anyone who carries it as their main camera.
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