TechGadgetsAppleThe iPhone 18 Pro’s big camera update is all about the small gainsThe Pro camera’s major upgrade offers minor image quality improvements — whether or not you know what an f-stop is.If you buy something from a Verge link, Vox Media may earn a commission. See our ethics statement.by Allison JohnsonPhotography by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The VergeSep 16, 2026, 12:00 PM UTCShareGiftIf you buy something from a Verge link, Vox Media may earn a commission. See our ethics statement.Allison Johnson is a senior reviewer with over a decade of experience writing about consumer tech. She has a special interest in mobile photography and telecom.
Previously, she worked at DPReview.Last week, Apple announced an iPhone unlike any it has made in the past. An iPhone that has seemingly already led several other phone manufacturers to pursue entirely different designs for their flagship products. A remarkably distinct device with the kind of “I can’t believe they did that” software touches that Apple sometimes pulls off when it’s at the top of its game.That phone is not the iPhone 18 Pro.The 18 Pro and Pro Max are in the unusual position of being the second-most interesting iPhones that Apple is launching this year. The foldable iPhone Duo stole the show at Apple’s launch event, but it’s not arriving until next month.
In the meantime, the 18 Pro cometh, and it is extremely familiar even with a totally new hardware feature in the camera.It is so similar to the iPhone 17 Pro that it can use the same cases. Have you used an iPhone 17 Pro? Great, you now know what it’s like to use the 18 Pro. There are no surprises, and unless you’re a truly committed smartphone photographer, no hugely compelling reason to pick an 18 Pro over a 17 Pro if you can find one on sale.
It’s what we’ve come to expect from what was the flagship iPhone: excellent and utterly iterative.8Verge ScoreApple iPhone 18 Pro$1199$1199The GoodManual exposure controls in the native camera app, finallyMarginal improvements to image qualityPhotographing sunstars with a smartphone camera rulesThe Bad$100 more expensive than last yearManual exposure controls are tinyHigher storage tiers are quite pricey$1199 at Apple$1199 at Best BuyHow we rate and review products8Verge ScoreApple iPhone 18 Pro Max$1299$1299The GoodManual exposure controls in the native camera app, finallyMarginal improvements to image qualityPhotographing sunstars with a smartphone camera rulesThe Bad$100 more expensive than last yearManual exposure controls are tinyHigher storage tiers are quite pricey$1299 at Apple$1299 at Best BuyHow we rate and review productsInside, the iPhone 18 Pro has a revamped thermal management design that allows its new A20 Pro chip to sustain full performance for longer, but the biggest truly new idea is inside the main camera, where Apple has added a moving aperture to control how much light hits the sensor. This is a big deal, and also a small deal, which I promise makes sense.With a few exceptions, phone cameras have fixed apertures. Their sensors and lenses are so small that most of your scene is in focus even when you’re shooting wide open, and it’s usually best to get as much light as you can on that tiny sensor anyway. But there are some edge cases where a narrower aperture is helpful, even on a phone camera.
It could also be helpful in other situations, particularly in low light, to open up the aperture even further than the iPhone’s traditional f/1.8. So Apple seems to have said, “Screw it. Let’s have it both ways,” and put in a variable aperture.With the right lighting and the help of a macro lens you can see those aperture blades.So there are really two separate things happening here. The maximum aperture is now bigger, at f/1.48 vs. f/1.8, and has the ability to get smaller, with stops available at f/1.8, f/2.8, and f/4.
And while both the larger and smaller apertures do offer marginal improvements to photo quality in some cases, the differences are generally marginal.One of the reasons photographers like a wider aperture is for its ability to throw more of the background of a photo out of focus. But the small lens and sensor on a smartphone camera don’t allow for the same kind of soft background blur you get from a bigger camera system. At the iPhone’s old maximum aperture of f/1.8, most things are in focus most of the time, and going to the slightly wider f/1.48 doesn’t make a huge difference.PreviousNext1/2iPhone 18 Pro, f/1.48 cropped to 100 percentA bigger aperture does offer an advantage for low light photography. On a traditional camera, letting in more light allows the system to keep noise down by using a faster shutter speed, a lower ISO, or both.
It’s not quite the same on a smartphone camera that’s combining multiple frames at different exposures to create the final image, but broadly the concept of “more light = better photo” holds.Maybe because phones are already so good at coping with low light through these computational methods, the low light gains in the 18 Pro look pretty minor. If I look closely at the detail in a shot at f/1.48 versus f/1.8, I can see a difference, but it’s subtle.PreviousNext1/2iPhone 18 Pro at f/1.8, cropped to 100 percentThe biggest advantage might be for Night Mode. At f/1.48, the system can use a slightly shorter Night Mode capture time compared to f/1.8. That’s less time you have to try and keep your hand still and less noise that the system needs to try and process out.PreviousNext1/2iPhone 18 Pro, f/1.48 and 1.4 second night mode capture, cropped to 100 percentOn the other side of the dial, a smaller aperture is useful for extending depth of field and keeping more stuff in focus, particularly if your subject is close to the camera.
If you’re taking a close-up photo of a statue, at f/1.48 or f/1.8 the back part of it might look a bit soft. Stopping down to f/4 sharpens up the part in the background.PreviousNext1/4iPhone 18 Pro at f/1.48. For a subject close to the lens, the background blur is more pronounced.That’s helpful! But once again, you’ll find these benefits on the margins.
That’s because the iPhone’s new f/1.48 maximum aperture actually equates to about f/5 on full frame in terms of depth of field, which already puts a lot of the stuff in front of and behind your subject in focus. Unless you’re really close to your subject, most things are in focus or close enough when you photograph them with a smartphone camera.If you don’t know or care about f-stops, you’ll still get along just fine with this updated camera. By default the aperture is set to automatically adjust based on lighting conditions, and it seems to stay at f/1.8 most of the time in good lighting. The aperture does open up to f/1.48 in dim light automatically, and will close down to f/4 when taking a group photo with someone who’s standing further back.
And I saw it consistently dropping down to f/4 when I was taking a photo of some close-up text. That’s a situation where f/4 will help you get more in focus and make for a potentially more usable photo. But that’s an awfully narrow set of use cases, whether you’re the kind of person who wants to take manual control over the aperture or not.That’s the big update, and the effect is a relatively small one. But it’s not the only camera update.
Friends, in the year of our Lord 2026, you can finally change the exposure controls by yourself in the iPhone camera app. Apple has added pro controls for the aforementioned aperture as well as shutter speed, white balance, and focus. There’s also the exposure compensation control that existed before, though no direct ISO adjustment, which someone coming from a traditional camera system would probably look for. But there’s enough control here for anyone who is so inclined to get a little more creative and hands-on with the stock app than ever before.I noticed that when I was using a manual shutter speed,
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