Thank you for the recommendations for Pro Camera, ProCam, and Lightroom (A FREE Adobe application, I’d never have believed it 
). I’ll play with them, one at a time, to see what suits my needs best.
On the more general issue of computer photography, it seems (to me) that it’s all-pervasive. I have a colleague who posts photos from a Sony (I think) SLR and swears blind that there’s no HDR applied, even though it’s obvious - at least to my eyes! It’s all a matter of degree, the whole process of digital photography is computer based: translating the pixels to RAW or jpg, and then translating the files to an actual “photo” all requires processing power. Maybe we need a new term for “non-essential” processing 
Thanks for all this good advice re: alternative photo apps. I was nearly ready to upgrade to an iPhone 13 Pro, until I read the article listed above. I have taken hundreds of thousands of RAW images with my Nikon(s), but sometimes don’t want to carry it with me everywhere I go. I would like to be able to rely upon my iPhone to take usable photos when necessary.
Has anyone used the iPhone 13 Pro’s camera?
I guess I could try it myself, and possibly return the phone within 30 days, but that’s a headache. I’d rather hear more 1st party experiences.
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Yes. It’s fantastic. I’m not a pro photographer, but for me it’s taken some really amazing photos. That New Yorker article I think was a little exaggerated. I’m sure that there are some photos that are potentially made worse by not not being able to control HDR, but I think that computational photography on this phone makes better photos far more frequently that it makes worse ones.
Just doing a search here:
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+1 for the iPhone 13 Pro (mine’s a Max, but afaik the cameras are identical). I take photography seriously, but I’m not a pro. To my eye, the photos I take with my phone are comparable to or better than those I take with my digital SLR. The latter has advantages in terms of specialty lenses (particularly telephoto), and absolute control over all exposure variables, but I have never had cause to quibble over the computational decisions the phone makes in terms of exposure and dynamic range.
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I have a iPhone 11 so I can not give you a 1st party experience, but based on my reading I believe you will be able to edit the strength of the automatic machine learning processing if you select to use the Pro RAW format. The Pro RAW format is developed by Apple and Adobe as an ad on to Adobes open source DNG RAW format. Try searching for “How to edit Pro Raw in Lightroom”. I am using my iPhone 11 to take photos in RAW format, mostly when I am out in the wilderness and do not want the additional weight of my Olympus camera. I am very impressed with the results.
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Very interesting. I wonder if it will work with the curmudgeon’s version of Lightroom (i.e., the last version sold as a stand alone software, not as part of a subscription, Lightroom 6.14)?
No it will not. But I believe it will work on the Apple Photos app on Monterey. If you have not used Apple Photos for some years you will be surprised how much it has matured.
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Lightroom does have option to convert almost any format to DNG and embed original in that DNG. Might be worth experimenting. It does convert my Leica raw, Canon raw and iOs Camera+2 raw.
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adobe.com: Minimum Lightroom Classic version required
If you filter on Apple you will see this at the bottom: “*Apple ProRAW: Apple ProRAW DNG images may appear overexposed in Adobe apps compared to Apple Photos. We are working closely with Apple to address this.” This is probably not a problem if you plan to edit the images anyway. But “curmudgeon’s version” seems a no go.
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I too am happy with almost everything the iPhone 13’s camera does for me, except that I would like much more of a telephoto lens for some things like bird photography. I’ve been trying to use an add-on lens system (by Lieront, which seems pretty good for the money, though I don’t expect miracles). These systems work by simply getting the camera to ‘look’ through the additional lens by clipping the lens onto the body of the phone: I used to have one on an iPhone 7 - with one camera - and it worked well. So far though I haven’t been able to get this to work: I think the iPhone software may switch cameras if it thinks the one you have been using is blocked. You don’t need a lens kit to try this: just cover up one of the cameras while you’re looking through it, and it seems that the phone switches to another camera automatically. I need to do some more careful research, but it looks that way so far. I wonder if there’s a way of stopping this behaviour.
If I was in your shoes I would take the time to find out more about the iPhone 13 Pro camera. . . I was seriously considering upgrading from an iPhone 6S to an iPhone 13 but I wound up going with the new SE3. It’s not a matter of $ but I just find it difficult to spend more than twice the cost mainly for the camera upgrades.
I haven’t seriously researched the higher-end iPhones so imagine my surprise when a few days ago Mac rumor websites announced that the iPhone 14 will probably get an upgraded 48MP sensor to replace the current 12MP in the iPhone 13. The iPhone SE 3 also has a 12MP sensor. I had assumed that the Pro iPhones sported better sensors.
Now the sensor resolution isn’t the whole story when comparing the cameras in these iPhones but the SE3 has been upgraded so it now has most of the image processing options of the iPhone 13. I would have been rather upset if I had found out after I spent $1000+ that the sensor is only 12MP.
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The SE and the 13 may have the same sensor, but the optics are different. The SE has one lens. The 13 has two lenses and the 13 Pro has three. And it is reasonable to assume that the SE’s optics are not the same as any of the the ones used on the 13 or 13 pro.
There’s far more to a camera than the number of megapixels in the sensor. Especially when the sensor is as small as the ones used in phones. When you increase the sensor density, each sensor element gets less light and therefore needs better sensitivity and optics and software in order to produce a good picture using reasonable apertures and shutter speeds.
SLRs can use far more megapixels because they have much larger sensors - often the size of a 35mm negative. Which makes it far easier to get enough light for good pictures without massive amounts of software processing.
As for a hypothetical 48MP sensor, I’ll believe it when I see it. Apple can’t just quadruple the number of pixels in the sensor and get good results. It will require new tech for the sensor element itself, for the optics and for the software. Probably quite a lot of new ML processing of the raw sensor data. And those who are currently complaining about the amount of software processing that goes into an iPhone image are going to get even more angry when they learn about what these new sensors are going to require.
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I mentioned in my previous post that there is more to the iPhone camera-quality equation than sensor size. But I am still surprised that all of the iPhones in question have the same size sensor. Like you noted, a 48MP sensor would be a game changer for Apple. The source of the info has an excellent track record for being right but of course it ain’t so until Apple says it is. . .
I’m not besotted by high-res digital sensors. Two of my all-time favorite Nikon DSLRs have 10MP DX and 12MP FX sensors. The rumored iPhone upgrade will need to tick more than just the megapixel box to get me to buy it.
I enjoyed a long freelance career in photography before retiring. I could still use those older cameras today for many assignments and reserve the newer camera tech for subjects that really require their advanced capabilities. Likewise, the more basic iPhone cameras have been fine for the subjects I tend to use them for.
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Nikon D700?
Strange. . . I thought that I had already replied to your query. Maybe I clicked the wrong icon LOL. Sorry about that!
D700 12MP. D200 10MP.