Eternal City, Modern Photography: The iPhone 11 Pro in Rome

The Colosseum at night. Shot on iPhone 11 Pro using the wide lens, with night mode enabled. Unedited. Zoom in for details.

In many ways, the iPhone 11 Pro’s camera system feels like the culmination of over a decade’s worth of judicious, relentless improvements. Not only is the device’s camera the best and smartest Apple has ever shipped, but it also affords the most photographic freedom, allowing non-professional photographers like me to produce amazing shots with minimal effort.

I’ll cut right to the chase: I wasn’t a fan of the camera in last year’s iPhone XS line. As I argued on Connected several months ago, I always felt like pictures taken on the iPhone XS – even with Smart HDR enabled – were too muted and neutral. They didn’t pack the same punch as pictures taken on a Pixel; they were by no means “bad” photos – they just didn’t grab me as much as cameras in older iPhone generations did. Ultimately, it was a matter of taste: I know plenty of folks who appreciate the look of photos captured on an iPhone XS; I’ve never found them distinctive enough. As far as the camera was concerned, I didn’t consider the iPhone XS an exciting upgrade.

In the grand scheme of Apple’s camera plans, however, I can now see how the iPhone XS was a necessary step to lay the groundwork for a new kind of camera, one that is more than the sum of its lenses and which relies on machine learning, neural networks, and custom silicon to deliver pictures that are an intelligent interpretation of a moment in time rather than a mere capture of it. The camera in the iPhone 11 Pro line – and, to roughly the same extent, the iPhone 11 as well – is based on the same concept as the iPhone XS’, but builds upon it with more personality, new options, and more freedom to produce shots that would have been unthinkable on a smartphone just a couple of years ago.

I’m not a professional photographer, but the camera system in the iPhone 11 Pro, combined with the latest advancements in the Camera and Photos apps for iOS 13, makes me excited to go out and take as many pictures as I can again. And that’s precisely my point: the iPhone 11 Pro is called “Pro” for various reasons, including the several camera enhancements that real pros will leverage to push mobile photography to its limits; at the same time though, Apple has abstracted enough complexity from the iPhone 11 Pro’s camera experience to allow even someone like me to benefit from the same features without necessarily understanding the intricacies and minutiae of the entire system. That’s the beauty of software paired with humane design: it democratizes challenging tasks, resulting in a more inclusive experience that is accessible to all kinds of users.

I wanted to put all this to the test, and I had an idea: what better way to show off the iPhone 11 Pro’s three lenses, night mode, and new Deep Fusion technology than taking a walk around Rome and seeing what the iPhone 11 Pro would make of it?

Rome is a city that spans over 2,000 years of history, and it offers unique photographic opportunities – from beautiful vistas that are perfect for ultra-wide shots to monuments and ruins of the Roman Empire, which lend themselves well to classic wide-angle shots as well as zoomed-in close-ups taken with the telephoto lens. The center of Rome is very walkable and provides photo-worthy material at every corner, which makes it an ideal testing ground for a new iPhone model; additionally, each of the famous monuments and buildings is constantly illuminated at night, making night mode possible, but not necessary – which is perfect for before/after comparisons. And last: I may be biased, but Rome is the most beautiful city in the world, and it’s a fantastic subject to photograph either during the day or at night. I’m lucky to be able to live here.

So here’s what I did: I lived like a tourist in my own city for two days. Armed with just an iPhone 11 Pro Max and a tripod (which I only used for night mode photos), I took a tour of Rome with Silvia and a couple of friends, and I ended up taking hundreds of pictures. My goal wasn’t to publish a detailed iPhone 11 Pro “camera review” – you should look elsewhere for that. Rather, I wanted to demonstrate how, even without any formal photographic knowledge, the iPhone 11 Pro’s camera can produce stunning results that, at least for me, are downright incredible for a smartphone.

I wanted to prove how, despite my lack of expertise, the iPhone 11 Pro’s powerful interplay of hardware and software could capture the essence of Rome and do it justice. I think I’ve succeeded in this, but I’m going to let Rome speak for itself.

[table_of_contents]

Setup and Methodology

Here’s the short version:

This story contains 50 photos;

All photos in this story were taken with an iPhone 11 Pro Max;

All photos have been uploaded in full-resolution, with a Display P3 color profile, with no edits.

And for those seeking a few more details:

A few weeks ago, Apple provided me with review units for the iPhone 11 Pro Max and iPhone 11. I only tested the Pro model for this story since I wanted to test the wide-angle, telephoto, and ultra-wide lenses.

Photos shared in this article were captured on the first beta of iOS 13.2 exclusively with Apple’s Camera app; I had ‘Capture Outside the Frame’ disabled in Settings to ensure that, whenever possible, the system could apply its Deep Fusion technology.

When shooting and previewing pictures, I was able to confirm multiple times that Deep Fusion was indeed working since I could see the “proxy” image in the Photos app while the Deep Fusion shot was being processed. However, in the spirit of replicating the average user’s experience with the iPhone 11 Pro and the Camera app, I didn’t annotate which shots used Deep Fusion and which ones didn’t – I shouldn’t have to know. By design, iOS 13 makes it extremely hard to guess when Deep Fusion is enabled – and that’s the point: Deep Fusion is a feature that works in the background and kicks in when iOS thinks it’s needed. My recommendation: try to zoom in on photos in this story and look at the finer details the iPhone’s camera retained.

Photos shared below are the original files – as saved by the Camera app – uploaded in full quality with no compression or edits. By default, exporting from Apple’s iOS Photos app generates .heic files that cannot be embedded on a webpage; the photos in this story are JPEG files exported at maximum quality, with metadata intact, and with their original color profile (Display P3) using the Photos app for macOS Catalina. You can tap on the button underneath each photo to view it in full-size in a new browser tab; you can also download each file and inspect its metadata and GPS coordinates.

The photos in this story weigh around 400 MB. For this reason, to maximize performance and avoid potential browser loading issues, I’ve split the article in multiple pages. You can move between pages with the navigation tool at the bottom of the story.

Lastly, the majority of night mode photos were taken by setting night mode’s capture time to ‘Max’ and using a tripod (this one); a handful of night mode shots were taken in handheld mode. I attached the iPhone 11 Pro Max to the tripod using the excellent Studio Neat Glif.

The Colosseum

Our tour around Rome happened on two separate days: the night between October 6-7 and the morning of Tuesday, October 8. On both occasions, we were lucky enough to have great weather conditions, which comes through in the daytime shots with a gorgeous blue sky. Also of note: the nighttime shots were taken between 11 PM and 1 AM; I’ve been living in Rome for over 6 years now, and this was the first time I walked around the center of the city with so few people around. It was incredible, and if you happen to visit Rome in late summer or the beginning of fall, I highly recommend taking a walk after dinner on a weekday – you’ll be able to enjoy the hundreds of monuments and hidden corners without the typical tourist chaos.

We began our photographic tour at the Colosseum, the famous amphitheater located in the center of Rome and visited by thousands of people every day. The Colosseum was built roughly 1,950 years ago and, despite issues involving deterioration, stone robbers, earthquakes, and weather conditions, it’s still standing, and it’s the monument to see in Rome. Its sheer size (the outer wall’s height reaches 48 meters/157 feet) makes it a great subject to photograph from a distance, as well as from directly below to play around with interesting perspectives and angles.

In this first photo, you can see how, even with night mode disabled, we have a perfectly usable, gorgeous shot of the Colosseum at night. The outer wall is illuminated by LILT’s pink/purple lights (it’s a cancer awareness campaign), while lights from the inner section are shining through the wall’s arcades.

Night mode off (wide lens).

By switching to night mode with a 6-second exposure (also taken with the wide camera on a tripod), we can observe a few interesting changes. Night mode has retained the detail of the wall and arcades (zoom in to judge for yourself), increased the brilliance of the purple lights, and – the improvement I was after – brightened the right side of the structure as well as the street in front of it. Amusingly, you can see the result that night mode’s longer capture time has on passing cars and scooters with the white and red lights at the bottom of the picture.

Night mode on.

I’ve visited the Colosseum several times in my adult life since I moved to Rome in 2013, and I’ve always loved the feeling of being a minuscule, ephemeral human in front of a towering structure that was built nearly 2,000 years ago and is still here with us today. It’s hard to reflect on this aspect of history during the day, while the exterior of the Colosseum is packed with tourists and you have to be mindful of pickpockets. At night, with only a few other people around, admiring the Colosseum takes on another meaning altogether, at least for me. And if you have an iPhone 11 Pro, you can capture some amazing perspectives of the most iconic symbol of the Roman Empire.

Night mode on, wide lens.

Same spot, telephoto lens, night mode off.

In the wide-angle shot above, you can see how night mode retained all the finer details of the Colosseum’s facade, which I find incredible. The telephoto shot, as you can confirm by zooming in on the photo, has a bit more noise and it’s a touch darker – it was taken with night mode disabled since the telephoto lens doesn’t really support it.

Zoomed-in comparison of the wide-angle shot (left) and telephoto one. (Both zoom levels achieved via double-tap in the Photos app.)

I’ve been impressed with the performance of the telephoto lens in the iPhone 11 Pro: at ƒ/2.0 aperture, it captures 40% more light than the XS’ telephoto lens. I’ve been able to take brighter, sharper shots with the telephoto camera on the 11 Pro thanks to its wider aperture.

Purple lights hitting the Colosseum at night (wide lens).

Obviously, with a structure as tall and large as the Colosseum, it’s almost mandatory to play around with the iPhone 11 Pro’s ultra-wide lens to get some fun shots out of it. I’m going to share a few more ultra-wide examples later in the story; in the meantime, here are two of my favorite ultra-wide shots taken with a tripod in front of one of the Colosseum’s entrances.

Ultra-wide Colosseum.

The ultra-wide lens struggles with maintaining sharpness in a dark scene, but the perspective is too cool to pass on.

Night mode doesn’t work with the ultra-wide lens, which, with an aperture of ƒ/2.4, captures less light than the wide-angle or telephoto lenses.1 In my tests, I’ve noticed that the ultra-wide lens really doesn’t like low-light situations. But with the right composition and a sufficient amount of light, the ultra-wide lens can produce great results at night too.

As expected, the ultra-wide lens fares much better during the day with a lot of light hitting the sensor. Note how, with plenty of sunlight, this ultra-wide shot has preserved details in the facade and inscription:

Ultra-wide Colosseum during the day.

Zoomed-in comparison of an ultra-wide shot taken at night (left) and during the day. Sunlight considerably helps with retaining sharpness in the daytime shot.

The ultra-wide camera doesn’t yield the same dynamic range of other daytime shots taken with the wide and telephoto cameras I’ll share later, but the result’s pretty good. The edges of the image are somewhat distorted, but that’s a natural consequence of the ultra-wide lens, which is why I’m trying to be very conservative with my ultra-wide shots. I want to make sure I can find subjects – such as large panoramas or structures – that lend themselves well to this kind of look.

Due to physical limitations in its first version, I’ve mostly been using the ultra-wide lens during the day, when lots of light is available. I have no doubt that Apple is already planning major improvements to the ultra-wide lens for future iterations; it seems fairly obvious that the lens will eventually gain a wider aperture, higher dynamic range, support for Focus Pixels, and integration with night mode. I’d love to take more low-light ultra-wide shots with my iPhone; as far as the ultra-wide camera is concerned, I already know what’s on my wish list for next year.2

Night Mode and the Eternal City

Night mode has been the highlight of this photographic exploration of Rome. It is my favorite addition to the iPhone’s camera system this year (even more than the ultra-wide camera) and it plays into the idea of creative freedom granted by the iPhone 11 Pro.

At a high level, I like night mode for two reasons: it’s largely automatic, so you don’t have to decide whether it’s best if you enable it or not; and it’s been designed to bring out the detail in pictures that still look like shots taken at night. Unlike night modes I’ve seen on other modern smartphones, Apple’s night mode wasn’t designed to alter your midnight shots so they look like they were taken at noon: it was created to let you see more details and colors in the dark. And in the vast majority of cases, night mode works exceptionally well, producing stunning results.

After the Colosseum, my photo tour continued with the so-called Altar of the Fatherland, located between Piazza Venezia and the Capitoline Hill, right beneath the Roman Forum. Created to act as a symbolic link between the glory of Ancient Rome and the modern metropolis, it was designed with a neoclassical style featuring a cornucopia of architectural elements borrowed from the classic Roman and Hellenistic repertoire, such as stairways, fountains, colonnades, equestrian sculptures, and goddesses. You may disagree with its original purpose (it was built in honor of the first king of a unified Italy), but you can’t deny it’s quite the sight, particularly from the center of Piazza Venezia.

With night mode disabled, the Altar looks good, but the scene is clearly too dark:

Altar of the Fatherland, taken from the center of Piazza Venezia with the wide camera. Night mode off.

And here’s what happens to the same shot with night mode enabled:

Night mode on.

To disable night mode, tap on the moon icon in the upper left corner of the Camera app and turn down the slider until it says “Off”.

This photo is a great example of Apple’s night mode tech achieving its goal. The scene is still very much a nighttime shot and cannot be mistaken for a picture taken, say, in the late afternoon or evening. Night mode, however, lit up the entire structure, maintained the highlights generated by artificial lights located around the stairway and within the colonnade, and brought out the color of the grass and flowers (arranged in the order of the Italian flag) in the middle of the piazza. All of this while preserving detail and sharpness, without adding noise, and, more importantly, without requiring me to know anything of what went on behind the scenes. It just worked.

Here’s the Fontana del Moro, which is located at the southern end of Piazza Navona. With night mode disabled, it’s not a bad photo, but the subject is too dark given the absence of large artificial lights:

Fontana del Moro, taken in Piazza Navona with the wide camera. Night mode off.

With night mode, the result is on a different level entirely: it still looks like a picture taken at night, but the iPhone’s software has illuminated the scene in a natural way, allowing us to see more in the dark – all while retaining accurate colors, crispness, and consistency with existing light sources. Take a look at what happened to the statues at the sides of the fountain and the buildings in the background:

Wide camera, night mode on.

The night mode shot is crisp and brighter without feeling “fake”.

If you look at the water streams of the fountain photo above, you can see a byproduct of night mode’s fusion of multiple shots: in the night mode version, water has turned into a continuous, smooth stream. This effect is common to traditional long exposure photography, and it’s often intentionally used for capturing waterfalls or rivers.

The combination of this effect and night mode is behind what’s possibly my favorite photo of all – a wide-angle capture of the Fountain of the Naiads in Piazza della Repubblica:

Wide camera, night mode on.

No previous iPhone could have taken this shot.

I absolutely adore this photo. To capture it, I set my tripod in the middle of Piazza della Repubblica, right by the side of the road, waited for no cars to be around, and initiated a 7-second night mode capture. No previous iPhone could have taken this shot – and, once again, keep in mind that this photo has no filters or adjustments applied. It’s what came out of the Camera app. Night mode hit a fantastic balance between the warmth of incandescent lights in the background porticos, the blueish tint of the fountain’s water streams, and the city’s dark sky.

In my tests, night mode failed to produce credible shots very rarely. After reviewing ~150 shots taken at night, I saved three questionable examples of night mode, and I think only one of them is a disappointing photo.

Here’s a picture of Ponte Vittorio Emanuele II, taken with night mode disabled from Ponte Sant’Angelo:

Ponte Vittorio Emanuele II, wide camera, night mode off. That’s St. Peter’s Basilica in the background.

Now have a look at the night mode version:

Wide camera, night mode on.

The entire scene has been illuminated: clouds are more visible in the night sky; you can see the buildings in the background of the left side of the bridge; the reflections in the river Tiber show more details of the buildings above. For me, this photo is right at the edge of how far night mode can push a dark scene: anything more than this and the photo would begin to look unrealistic to my eyes.

Whether you like night mode photos that alter a scene’s dark appearance too much is a matter of personal preference; I’ve had a couple instances in which I would have liked night mode to be less aggressive.

I took this photo with night mode disabled near the Trevi Fountain:

Wide camera, night mode off.

It’s an unremarkable subject, but pay attention to what happened with night mode (in handheld mode):

Wide camera, night mode on.

Now, some people may like the effect, and the camera surely did an impressive job maintaining clarity and color consistency; for my personal taste though, the iPhone overused night mode in this particular case since the photo could pass for an afternoon shot if I didn’t tell you it was taken at night.

Here’s another example, featuring Ponte Umberto I:

Wide camera, night mode off.

In the night mode version, the iPhone’s software changed the scene’s brightness and colors so much, it looks like the photo was taken at dawn instead of 1 AM. The sky is too bright, the river has become impossibly reflective, and the trees on the right side are so green, it’s almost as if a rising sun was casting light on top of them. This is a good example of night mode going too far:

Wide camera, night mode on.

Fortunately, this was an isolated fumble. In reviewing the hundreds of shots I took around Rome at night, I noticed a common theme in all night mode photos: iOS 13 used night mode judiciously most of the time, without any assistance required on my end, producing photos that didn’t feel fake and which retained their original personality. I was consistently impressed by the amount of detail and clarity from each night mode shot – which confirms how Apple’s night mode does much more than just “pump up the brightness”.

Let me share a few more examples.

The Trevi Fountain is always well-lit at night, so night mode wouldn’t be absolutely necessary to capture it. But with night mode enabled, I got that extra balance and soft illumination throughout the scene that makes the fountain and its Corinthian backdrop pop off the screen:

Trevi fountain, wide camera, night mode on.

Wide camera, night mode on.

Even with night mode disabled, however, the artificial lights installed inside the Trevi Fountain provided enough light to capture good shots. Here’s one taken with the telephoto camera:

Telephoto camera, night mode off. Still enough light to make for a good picture.

Out of curiosity, when I visited the Trevi fountain again a few days later, I wanted to take a daytime shot similar to the one above and compare the details captured in two different times of day. I find it fascinating how, despite clear weather and plenty of sunlight, the night photo mode contains sharper details for the arch above Oceanus, the pilasters, rockwork, and exedra behind the statue.

Wide camera.

I also used night mode to take this beautiful shot of Castel Sant’Angelo, another highlight from my nocturnal Roman adventures:

Wide camera, night mode on.

To give you an idea of how this picture was taken, here’s the shot behind the shot, taken by Silvia using an iPhone 11 (wide camera, handheld mode):

Behind the scenes at Castel Sant’Angelo.

Also at Castel Sant’Angelo, I like how one of the angels from Ponte Sant’Angelo (specifically, Girolamo Lucenti’s Angel with the Nails) turned out. Here’s the night mode version, taken in handheld mode with the wide camera:

Angel with the Nails, wide camera, night mode on.

But I also like the (slightly darker) telephoto version with night mode disabled. The dark sky in the background looks great on the Super Retina XDR display:

Telephoto camera, night mode off.

And again, for context, here’s how both shots were taken, as seen from an iPhone 11:

Behind the scenes at Ponte Sant’Angelo.

After Castel Sant’Angelo, we walked to Via della Conciliazione, which was effectively empty at 1 AM. That allowed me to take this shot of the thoroughfare with St. Peter’s Basilica in the background:

Via della Conciliazione and St. Peter’s Basilica, wide camera, night mode on.

I’ve found night mode well-suited for close-ups too, as demonstrated by this picture of the Fountain of the Four Rivers in Piazza Navona:

Detail of the Fountain of the Four Rivers, wide camera, night mode on. (Pictured: river god Río de la Plata, scared by a snake. This fountain is full of metaphors and allegories.)

And if you were wondering: with night mode disabled and a smaller aperture, you get an epic perspective with the ultra-wide camera, but the entire scene is fairly dark:

Fountain of the Four Rivers, ultra-wide camera.

As I’ve mentioned before, I strongly hope night mode for the ultra-wide camera is on tap for next year’s iPhone camera upgrades.

In case it’s not clear from all the photos in this story, I love using night mode, which I believe consistently hits the sweet spot of “dark scene, but with better illumination”. I especially find it impressive when night mode can extract details out of a picture that the human eye cannot see in normal lighting conditions, but which are consistent with what would happen if there was more light available.

Night mode has given my iPhone super-vision abilities, allowing it to reinterpret dark scenes and optimize them for a more enjoyable viewing experience. With night mode, I don’t have to care about photography concepts such as ISO or shutter speeds: I can just take a walk around Rome at midnight and let the iPhone 11 Pro figure out what to do. For a first take on this feature, night mode’s results are already spectacular.

Daytime Photography

We were lucky enough to get a beautiful sunny day with no clouds last week, and took advantage of it to take a morning tour of Rome with our dogs and visit a few other landmarks. We started in Piazza di Spagna, where the iconic Spanish Steps provided some cool perspective opportunities. This is where the ultra-wide camera shines – plenty of light (resulting in a crisp image) and an obelisk at the top of a long stairway (174 steps in total):

The Spanish Steps and Trinità dei Monti, ultra-wide camera.

The same approach works in reverse too: from the top of the steps and overlooking the piazza with the ultra-wide camera, we get an intriguing perspective of Bernini’s Fontana della Barcaccia and the hyper-fashionable Via dei Condotti:

Overlooking Piazza di Spagna, ultra-wide camera.

And yes, both Zelda and Ginger approved of this location:

Zelda (left) and Ginger, posing for MacStories on the Spanish Steps, wide camera.

Obviously, the telephoto camera benefitted from the great weather conditions too. On our way to the Pincian Hill, I snapped this photo with the telephoto lens:

Rome from above, telephoto camera.

Once we reached the Pincian Hill, the view from the balcony overlooking Piazza del Popolo (and its Egyptian obelisk) was simply breathtaking. I’ve been living in Rome for six years, but it was my first time visiting the Pincio gardens during the day. I had a feeling the balcony’s famous vantage point was going to be ideal to test the triple-camera system’s perspective of the obelisk in the center of the piazza, and I was not disappointed:

Piazza del Popolo as seen from the Pincian Hill, wide camera. (St. Peter’s Basilica in the background.)

Same spot, telephoto camera.

Same spot, ultra-wide camera.

I’ve never owned a DSLR, let alone one with an ultra-wide lens, and I find it incredible how the iPhone’s ultra-wide camera can capture more of the same scene without having to physically step backwards. The following ultra-wide shot of the Trevi Fountain demonstrates it well, particularly when compared to the wide camera capture from the previous page:

Ultra-wide Trevi Fountain.

I’ve found that large open spaces compensate well for the distortion inherent to the ultra-wide lens. As I’ve said before, I prefer to use it with moderation, but when appropriate, I like the look a lot. Case in point: the Forum of Caesar, built in 46 BC in a section of the (much larger) Roman Forum, and somehow still in better shape today than certain parts of Rome:

Forum of Caesar, wide camera.

Detail of the Forum of Caesar, telephoto camera.

The Forum of Caesar in all its ultra-wide glory.

Compared to the iPhone XS, I feel like the iPhone 11 line produces daytime shots with higher contrast between colors and a more balanced, natural Smart HDR – a considerable improvement over the muted, sometimes pastel-like appearance of shots taken in similar conditions last year. Take a moment to appreciate the dynamic range between white/yellow stone, shadows, and the deep blue sky of this telephoto capture of the Trevi Fountain:

Trevi Fountain, telephoto camera.

Or the vivid greens in this photo of the Arch of Constantine, the largest triumphal arch in Rome situated between the Colosseum and Palatine Hill, also taken with the telephoto camera:

The Arch of Constantine, constructed between 312 and 315, captured with the telephoto camera.

Generally speaking, whether thanks to more light hitting the sensor, Smart HDR’s processing, or finer details assembled by Deep Fusion, I like the color balance and clarity of the iPhone 11 Pro’s camera in a way I never liked the iPhone XS’:

Broken columns scattered on the ground in the Roman Forum.

Trajan’s Forum, wide camera.

A different angle of Trajan’s Forum, taken with the telephoto camera.

We’ve seen ruins of the Roman Empire, we’ve seen fountains, monuments, arches, bridges and obelisks – I couldn’t possibly conclude this photographic tour without at least one pasta photo. So let’s round it all up with some pasta alla gricia, typical of Rome, originated around 400 AD, and captured with Deep Fusion in 2019:

“Deep Fusion gricia” is not something I was expecting to type in 2019, yet here we are.

Other Notes

Here’s a collection of other miscellaneous notes and thoughts based on my experience with taking ~400 shots around Rome with the iPhone 11 Pro Max.

The Display

One of the first improvements I noticed in the iPhone 11 Pro compared to the XS Max when using it outside was the higher-contrast, brighter display. I didn’t pay much attention to the Super Retina XDR display in my first few days of indoor usage – it mostly looked similar to the iPhone XS Max’s display – but the difference became quite apparent as we were walking around Rome in the morning.

Under very bright sunlight (ideal conditions for iOS’ Auto-Brightness setting to kick in and push the device’s brightness to its peak level), I could tell that the iPhone 11 Pro’s display was brighter and more legible than the older generation one. Apple has touted these improvements with numbers such as 2,000,000:1 contrast ratio (compared to 1,000,000:1 last year) and 800 nits max brightness outdoors (compared to 625 last year), but it’s one thing to read the numbers and it’s another to see actual results in practice. I expect the iPhone 11 Pro’s brighter screen to come in handy at the beach next year.

After seeing the difference between old and new display in outdoor usage, I remembered Apple mentioned that the Super Retina XDR display could also push brightness up to 1,200 nits when viewing HDR photos or HDR10 and Dolby Vision video, so I checked for myself. I started watching The Greatest Showman, which is available in 4K Dolby Vision on iTunes and is one of my favorite movies in recent years, simultaneously on the iPhone XS Max and 11 Pro Max. The iPhone 11 Pro was considerably brighter in my side-by-side comparison and I was able to see the higher contrast with superior color separation in dark scenes. I wouldn’t want to watch an entire movie on an iPhone, but plenty of people do, and the Super Retina XDR is one impressive display to make the most of HDR content. Honestly, the sole feature missing from Apple’s iPhone display tech at this point is a higher refresh rate (ProMotion), which I hope to see in next year’s Pro model.

The New Camera UI

I was immediately sold on Apple’s new Camera UI for the iPhone 11 line for one main reason: somehow, Apple managed to pack more options in the viewfinder while also making it more comfortable to use with one hand. Much of it comes down to embedding icons and controls in the top section of the UI (when used in portrait orientation) and allowing users to swipe vertically on the viewfinder to access a secondary row of settings for flash, night mode, Live Photos, format, timer, and effects. Each of these controls expands inline to reveal segmented controls or sliders, which are easy to interact with using your thumb (in portrait orientation) or index finger (when shooting in landscape). Because they’re placed at the bottom of the screen when the iPhone is held vertically, you don’t need to stretch your thumb to reach specific options at the top of the interface.

The iPhone’s new Camera UI.

I also like Apple’s zoom control/lens switcher, available by tapping and holding one of the lens buttons at the bottom of the viewfinder. Although I respect the inclusion of traditional photography details such as focal lengths, I don’t particularly care for them as they’re just numbers to me – I’m interested in the results and the experience of using the Camera app. To me, the best part of Apple’s lens switcher UI is the ability to scroll the zoom wheel with one finger and jump with one seamless motion from 0.5x up to 10x digital zoom. In a nice touch, you feel a subtle haptic tap when the wheel stops on a specific lens at its default zoom level, which adds a pleasant physical dimension to the Camera experience. Add to all this the upcoming ability to change video options without having to open the Settings app, and you can see how the software updates to the Camera app are just as important as the hardware changes to sensors and lenses this year.

Browsing Shots from Different Lenses

Last week, I shared a shortcut to inspect the lens used to shoot a particular photo. The shortcut, called iPhone 11 Lens Inspector, required you to pass an individual item from the Photos app to the share sheet, select the shortcut, and double-check the lens used to capture it. I use this shortcut a lot, and you can find it here.

For this article, I needed a shortcut that would allow me to easily see all recent photos taken with a specific lens. Apple’s Photos app doesn’t currently offer smart views to browse pictures taken with the wide, telephoto, or ultra-wide cameras, so I built my own shortcut for that. Called iPhone 11 Lens Browser, the shortcut lets you select the kind of camera you want to filter photos for, then presents you with a list of photos captured with that camera; you can tap on a thumbnail to preview the selected item in Quick Look.

Browsing photos taken with different lenses using iPhone 11 Lens Browser.

By default, the shortcut will consider your 300 most recent photos, excluding screenshots; you can customize the number to process fewer or more photos at once. When I was selecting photos to use in this story, this shortcut became an essential tool to ensure I wasn’t forgetting about other interesting shots from my library. I’ve been using the shortcut so much over the past couple of weeks, I even added it to my Home screen using MacStories Shortcuts Icons.

You can download iPhone 11 Lens Browser below.

iPhone 11 Lens Browser

Filter your photo library by the lens used to capture a photo. The shortcut is optimized for the iPhone 11 and iPhone 11 Pro, and it supports the wide, telephoto, and ultra-wide lenses. By default, the shortcut looks at the last 300 photos from your library.

Get the shortcut here.

Battery Life

I was somewhat skeptical of Apple’s touted 5-hour battery life improvement over the iPhone XS Max; in practice, the company’s claim proved absolutely true.

In normal everyday usage, I can use the iPhone 11 Pro Max all day and I’ll only see the 20% battery warning around 2 AM (I usually wake up at 10:30 AM); with that 20% of battery left, I can still use my iPhone until 4 AM before it runs out of power.3 When we went out to take pictures around Rome during the day and I used the iPhone intensively to check directions and take hundreds of pictures, it still managed to end up at 9 PM with 30% battery left.

For the first time in over a decade, I now have an iPhone that truly lasts me all day without having to worry about topping it up every few hours or investing in a battery case. I always disliked seeing the 20% battery warning around 9 PM, which forced me to ensure I would always have a portable battery, Lightning cable, or wireless charger around. With the iPhone 11 Pro Max, I can finally stop worrying about the battery and just enjoy using my iPhone throughout the day.

Apple Maps Collection

Lastly, I’ve put together an Apple Maps collection of the historical landmarks mentioned in this story.

My Apple Maps collection.

The ability to add places to a collection and share it with friends was added in iOS 13, and I’ve taken advantage of it to put together a list of the 23 locations mentioned or shown in this article. You can find the collection here.

iPhone 11 Pro: Photographic Freedom

Capturing the Roman Forum, taken with the wide camera on iPhone 11.

The more I think about the iPhone 11 Pro, the more I keep coming back to this conclusion: the iPhone 11 Pro reinvents what “pro” means – it takes pro shots without requiring pro knowledge. The device grants a freedom of visual expression that is unmatched by any other iPhone model; by making the core tenets of professional photography available to everyone, the iPhone 11 Pro’s triple-camera system, paired with its intelligent software, fosters creativity, turning each shot into a fun, unique experiment.

The iPhone 11 Pro has made me fall in love with taking pictures on my iPhone all over again. The device allows me to take great-looking pictures that have a distinct personality compared to the iPhone XS, and it does so in wildly different contexts and scenarios that wouldn’t have been possible before. And best of all, I didn’t have to study a manual to make it all happen.

Rome wasn’t built in a day, and it took 10 years of unabated evolution for the iPhone camera system to reach this level of excellence. Unlike the eternal city, it won’t last for 2,000 years. But today, the iPhone 11 Pro’s camera sure makes for an amazing, beautiful adventure around Rome.

It’s also lacking 100% Focus Pixels, found in the wide lens this year. ↩

Broadly speaking, I also hope Apple can figure out how to enable Deep Fusion and Capture Outside the Frame at the same time. Being able to shoot QuickTake videos in 4K would be nice too. ↩

I know, I have an odd sleep schedule. Don't judge me. ↩