Cameras

On the surface, the iPhone 12 may appear to share the same dual-camera system as the iPhone 11, but Apple has made some pretty decent improvements under the hood.

While you’re still dealing with only two cameras — an ultra-wide angle and wide angle — Apple has improved the main wide camera with an f/1.6 aperture and a new seven-element lens. The result is an improvement by 20 percent in low light performance thanks to the wider aperture. The ultra-wide angle camera, appears to have stuck with the same f/2.4 five-element lens as before, however.

That said, with modern iPhones, the real power for capturing images doesn’t lie solely in the camera specs, but in Apple’s computational photography features, and with the A14 Bionic, Apple has been able to take this up a notch in several key areas.

Both Smart HDR and Night Mode have been improved to provide greater levels of detail through deeper analysis of photos, plus the wider aperture on the main lens allows for more light to be captured, which will naturally improve Night Mode photos even further.

More significantly, however, is that Apple has expanded Night Mode to all three cameras on the iPhone 12 — both rear cameras and the front TrueDepth camera, meaning you’ll now be able to capture Night Mode selfies. On the video side, Apple has also added Night Mode Time-lapse video.