iPhone 16 Pro Slightly Outperforms iPhone 17 for Macro Photos

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Originally published at: iPhone 16 Pro Slightly Outperforms iPhone 17 for Macro Photos - TidBITS

After feeling slightly suckered by Apple’s claims of 48-megapixel macro photography last year (see “Understanding the iPhone 16 Pro’s 48-Megapixel Macro Photography… and Reverting to 12-Megapixel Shots,” 4 October 2024), I decided to see if I was being snobby about needing a Pro-level iPhone for the macro photos I enjoy taking. Macro photos use the iPhone’s Ultra Wide camera, and Apple upgraded the standard iPhone 17 with a 48-megapixel Ultra Wide camera, which sounded like the same one found in the iPhone 16 Pro. Here are Apple’s tech spec descriptions of the Ultra Wide cameras:

  • iPhone 17: 48MP Fusion Ultra Wide: 13 mm, ƒ/2.2 aperture and 120° field of view, Hybrid Focus Pixels, support for super-high-resolution photos (24MP and 48MP)
  • iPhone 16 Pro: 48MP Ultra Wide: 13 mm, ƒ/2.2 aperture and 120° field of view, Hybrid Focus Pixels, super-high-resolution photos (48MP)

If anything, the iPhone 17’s description sounds slightly fancier, thanks to the “Fusion” name and the addition of 24MP to the super-high-resolution photos parenthetical. It’s hard to know if the specs hide any real differences.

One clear difference is the chip: the iPhone 17 uses the new A19, while the iPhone 16 Pro has last year’s A18 Pro. There’s no way of knowing if Apple’s computational photography performs differently—or just faster or slower—on a different chip.

No way, that is, other than side-by-side comparisons. Since I had a few days before I had to return the iPhone 16 Pro as part of Apple’s trade-in program, I took a few macro photos with each iPhone, making them as similar as possible while still keeping each true to how I take opportunistic handheld photos. I chose not to use a tripod or try to control all the environmental variables to ensure the setups were identical—the iPhone 17 has to work the same way I’ve always used iPhones for macro photos.

Embedded in that statement is the fact that I am neither a professional photographer nor even an experienced hobbyist. I’m largely uninterested in the technical details of photography—I just want to take photos I find attractive without thinking about f-stops or doing any editing beyond possibly clicking the Enhance button in Photos.

With those caveats out of the way, here’s my assessment of macro photography on these iPhone models. Overall, the iPhone 17 performs very well, and I wouldn’t have complained about any of its images in isolation. However, I slightly preferred the versions of the photos I took with the iPhone 16 Pro, which generally had a bit more detail, brighter exposures, and more appealing colors.

In each of the sets below, the iPhone 17 image comes first, followed by the iPhone 16 Pro image. All were taken using what I called Auto Macro mode in last year’s article—simply bring the camera close enough to the subject until the yellow flower icon appears—and are thus 12-megapixel images. I didn’t attempt to lock focus or exposure for any of the photos—the iPhone did everything. Click each one to zoom in, and feel free to download them to compare side by side at larger sizes.

Petunia

I’ll start with what I felt was the most obvious win for the iPhone 16 Pro over the iPhone 17. To my eyes, the iPhone 17’s photo lacks some crispness in the petal patterns and is noticeably fuzzier in the green and blue flower parts in the center. In a typical situation, I probably would have taken several extra shots with the iPhone 17 to see if one of them focused slightly better than the others.


iPhone 17 macro photo example of a petunia flower
iPhone 17
iPhone 16 Pro macro photo example of a petunia flower
iPhone 16 Pro

Serviceberry

For this next set, the iPhone 17 image on top doesn’t suffer from focus issues or lack of detail, but it’s slightly darker and has less color in the background. I’m torn between these photos because the darker background in the iPhone 17 picture makes the foreground flowers stand out better, but I prefer the brighter, more colorful iPhone 16 Pro photo otherwise.


iPhone 17 macro photo of a serviceberry flower
iPhone 17
iPhone 16 Pro macro photo of a serviceberry flower
iPhone 16 Pro

Marigold

With these photos of a marigold, the iPhone 17 image at the top has fewer shadows and less internal contrast compared to the iPhone 16 Pro image below. The tiny hairs are also less defined in the iPhone 17 shot, although that might be partly due to the lower contrast. However, I think I slightly prefer the deeper orange color in the iPhone 17’s photo.


iPhone 17 macro photo of a marigold flower
iPhone 17
iPhone 16 Pro macro photo of a marigold flower
iPhone 16 Pro

Geranium

Conversely, I slightly prefer the color of the iPhone 16 Pro image in this set of photos. It’s a bit lighter and brighter, with a wider range of colors in the gradient from pink to purple. I can’t discern any significant difference in the fine details between these two images.


iPhone 17 macro photo of a geranium flower
iPhone 17
iPhone 16 Pro macro photo of a geranium flower
iPhone 16 Pro

Aster

These two photos of an aster probably differ mainly because I subtly adjusted the shot between the two iPhones. The iPhone 17 photo on top has an angle that creates more shadows and conceals the other asters in the background. As a result, the iPhone 16 Pro image is slightly brighter, sharper, and shows finer details.


iPhone 17 macro photo of an aster flower
iPhone 17
iPhone 16 Pro macro photo of an aster flower
iPhone 16 Pro

Ultimately, even if I have to give the nod to the iPhone 16 Pro’s images in most cases, the iPhone 17 macro photos are well above the bar for what I want to achieve. If you’ve been on the fence about whether the iPhone 17 camera is good enough for macro photography, I think it’s safe to say that it is. You still won’t get the 4x/8x Telephoto camera that’s in the iPhone 17 Pro, but as I explored in “Tracking My iPhone Camera Usage With a Deep Dive into EXIF Data” (25 September 2025), that may not be worth an extra $300.

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How about with the 16 Pro Max?

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Could the degraded resolution be the lens?

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(Hopefully not too off-topic…) Is that a serviceberry tree? And it’s blooming now? I’m surprised. That must be a different plant than what I know of as a serviceberry tree. No blooming like that here in metro ATL. The one I planted a few years ago is officially “alive” but underwhelming. I’ve never seen blooms like that. But yours looks great, and I agree with your phone photo judgements. Gonna be sticking with my 14 Pro for at least a few more cycles.

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I notice that throughout the article, you say you “preferred” the colour of one photo over the other. This is a conundrum that photographers argue over:

Is the photo meant to be an accurate representation of the real world, or is the goal to make a pleasing image?

If the latter, where does it stop? My Samsung-owning friends display their photos which always look better than my iPhone photos, because Samsung automatically enhances the images, usually by increasing saturation.

What do I want? An accurate representation. Apple unfortunately is making this harder - it is not possible to turn off HDR. How soon will it be that images are automatically enhanced with no option to turn it off?

On the subject of macro mode, I got a 16 Pro a few months ago and have been using the macro mode. If a photo works, it is wonderful. But in many cases the screen shows a sharp image but in the photo, the subject is out of focus. It also often switches between the macro and normal lens randomly, presumably depending on the distance between the lens and the subject. Very frustrating.

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The 16 Pro and the 16 Pro Max have the cameras.

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I’m curious if there’s any noticeable difference between the macro camera on a 17 Pro and a 16 Pro.

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No, it’s a field flower here in the northeast. I wasn’t particularly familiar with it by name, though it’s familiar enough by look.

Amelanchier, also known as shadbush, shadwood or shadblow, serviceberry or sarvisberry, juneberry, saskatoon, sugarplum, wild-plum or chuckley pear, is a genus of about 20 species of deciduous-leaved shrubs and small trees in the rose family. Amelanchier is native to temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere, growing primarily in early successional habitats.

Always a good question, and one that everyone will have to answer for themselves. Even beyond the fact that the originals were taken with reflected sunlight as opposed to the photos being displayed with emitted light from the screen, everything involved in the question is perceptual, and everyone’s perception varies. Personally, I think I have to come down on the side of what the viewer deems pleasing. I think I’d be less likely to keep an image if it was accurate but not pleasing.

No idea. Perhaps @jeffc has tested both?

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The hardware of the ultra-wide cameras are the same on both. From what I can tell, Apple seems to be doing a better job of compensating for the ultra-wide angle when shooting close up (ie, zoom at 0.5x, resolution at 48MP, macro mode disabled). But it’s pretty subtle. (My iPhone 16 Pro has also gone back to Apple, so I don’t have any further test images.)

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How does one go into “Macro Mode”? My wife loves taking pictures similar to the one in the article, but I’ve never seen a way to enter that special mode. (On my real camera, I just dial in the little flower.)

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Nice article, nice photos. I actually prefer your iPhone 17 Pro’s macro images on all examples except for the Geranium shots. But as a long-time photographer who’s shot both professionally and for personal use, the one thing I’ve learned over the decades is that aesthetics are subjective, so you do you!

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Just get close to the subject so you see the little flower icon appear. You can turn the icon off, but I see little benefit to doing that.

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To be clear, that’s the iPhone 17, not the iPhone 17 Pro.

But I’m really intrigued that you preferred its images nearly every time. Can you explain why in a couple of examples? Perhaps you’re seeing things that I’m not paying attention to (but might be interested to do so).

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While it doesn’t compare macro shots, for an in-depth comparison of landscape images from iPhone 16 and 17 vs. DSLR, see:

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