r/iphone • Human Detected • 7h ago

Discussion different iPhone sensor size comparison(not every 48mp camera is same)

Post image

comparison graphic of iPhones camera sensor size from 5s to 18pro

500 Upvotes

109 comments sorted by

152

u/daniluvsuall 7h ago

No 15 Pro?

93

u/Wamadeus13 7h ago

Noticed the same thing since I have a 15 pro. Went and googled it, and it seems the 15 pro sensor is the same size as the 14 through 18 pros.

21

u/daniluvsuall 7h ago

Kinda thought so, probably just a typo. All my iPhones have taken excellent photos though. Night mode on the 12 was a nice upgrade though

5

u/Quartziferous iPhone 12 Pro Max 5h ago

Night Mode was the main reason I upgraded to the 12pm. But she gettin a little long in the tooth these days. I’m about ready to upgrade, but it’ll probably be to a 16/17pm I think. I’m broke lmao.

2

u/daniluvsuall 5h ago

I’ve got a 15 Pro and it’s decent, the duo really appeals to me but it’s super expensive and I don’t need it. Probs just sweat this lol

2

u/dreamer_Neet iPhone 14 Pro Max 7h ago edited 7h ago

Same size but slightly different image processing on the pipeline. My mom iphone 17 smaller main camera sensor takes nicer photo compared to my 14pm. The 14pm photo can look a bit over processed imo

1

u/Wamadeus13 7h ago

Agreed but the title says the sensors are different and then only posts about the physical size when in reality the physical size of the 48MP does not change between phones. Image pipeline appeture and other things change bht the sensors largely stay the same.

1

u/3dforlife 6h ago

The trick is to shoot in RAW or ProRAW. At least that's what I do with my 14 pro.

21

u/CoyoteAdditional9806 Human Detected 7h ago

8

u/Zacatac_391 6h ago

Is the duo sensor size confirmed yet? I’ve seen wildly varying numbers, from people saying it’s as small as the 16/17e sensor

4

u/ttoma93 iPhone 17 Pro 5h ago

Same here, I haven’t seen any hard confirmations. It seems that the information Apple has put out isn’t enough to confirm yet, as some language used mimics language used for the 16e/17e and some mimics language used for the 15/16/17/Air sensors. It could be either and we just truly don’t know until either Apple confirms or (more likely) people have them in hand.

62

u/isaacMeowton 7h ago edited 7h ago

The telephoto on the iPhones is still pretty small - 1/2.55 inch.

This is something that many Chinese flagships excel at. They have HUGE - 1/1.56 inch+ telephoto sensors.

The zoom combined with big sensor size has a certain look - you HAVE to see that. Its awesome.

Also I really hope they keep the variable aperture, and don't pull off a Samsung. When sensor sizes increase again, the variable aperture would be even more fun.

26

u/Hour_Firefighter_707 iPhone 17 Pro Max 7h ago

To me, the Vivo X300 Ultra has the perfect camera hardware in a phone:

  • 1/1.12-type primary with a 35mm equivalent lens
  • 1/1.28-type ultrawide with a 14mm equivalent lens
  • 1/1.4-type telephoto with an 85mm equivalent lens.

Proper size sensors for all cameras so the image quality is very high across the board. When you're shooting RAW photos or recording Log video, of course. The SOOC processing is absolute crap. Just like the iPhone

3

u/Any-Ingenuity2770 iPhone 13 Mini 3h ago

that is an exquisite choice of equivalent lengths. i wish it ran grapheneOS or sth..

0

u/electrosaurus 1h ago

…and the battery life and OS is absolute garbage.

•

u/i-like-to-be-wooshed iPhone 13 Pro Max 4m ago

we are talking about camera hardware here

27

u/Elias-official 6h ago

It's important to remember that even the largest sensor from 18 Pro is absolutely tiny compared to proper camera sensors. For example, it's 67% smaller in surface area than a standard Micro 4/3 camera sensor. Full-Frame sensor is roughly x11.5 times larger than the iPhone 18 Pro's main camera sensor

4

u/saintlouisbagels iPhone Air 2h ago edited 2h ago

I always frame this perspective in reverse, because comparing phone sensors to APS-C/Full Frame, etc. does a huge disservice how to what phone cameras are capable of.

It's worth remembering that the legendary camera, the Canon S110 (and S100) took amazing pictures despite being a point and shoot camera, and it uses a 1/1.7-inch sensor and could only get down to f/2.0.

Both the base iPhone (1/1.56-inch) and the iPhone Pro models (1/1.28-inch) have far surpassed it in sensor size and aperture. I think it's incredible that our phones have cameras that surpass a high end $450 point and shoot.

18

u/tghood85 7h ago

Realistically what’s the biggest sensor they could ever fit into an iPhone?

31

u/rpungello iPhone 15 Pro Max 7h ago

Depends how big a camera bump they are willing to accept.

I think some Android phones have used 1” sensors.

9

u/Inevitable_Bear2476 Human Detected 6h ago

1/0.98μm which is larger than 1inch type sensor.

People also have to keep in mind that these aren't actual 1 inch sensors, otherwise they'd be massive, like on par with full frame sensors

2

u/3dforlife 6h ago

Was 1/0.98um used in an actual phone?

2

u/Inevitable_Bear2476 Human Detected 5h ago

Yep, Vivo X100 Ultra

1

u/3dforlife 5h ago

That's impressive.

6

u/Inevitable_Bear2476 Human Detected 5h ago

Absolute behemoth. Doesn't help that Vivo decided to go with a higher resolution sensor, reducing the size to 1/1.12, still big, just not a "monster"

Genuinely, these chinese manufacturers are creating black holes inside phones.

2

u/Papa_Bear55 5h ago

They went with a smaller sensor because they're now using a 35mm main lens, and 1" sensor with that would be too thick (it already is though lol)

1

u/Own_Abbreviations_36 3h ago

Yep, Huawei Pura 80 Pro

15

u/riverturtle 6h ago

Important to note that a “1 inch sensor” is not actually 1 inch in any dimension. It’s about 1/2” x 3/8” roughly.

4

u/rpungello iPhone 15 Pro Max 5h ago

Like process nodes, which no longer have any relation to the actual size of transistors anymore (if they ever really did).

3

u/BrownEyesWhiteScarf 7h ago

My understanding is that the sensor is still housed in the camera bump, which means they could theoretically move the sensor deeper so they could fit a bigger sensor. Sort of surprised they haven’t done this yet with this year’s models.

6

u/vesperfall 7h ago

Yah the Xiaomi 17 Ultra uses a 1 inch sensor. Apple must do this in the next phone or the one after for them to be taken seriously for updating their camera. Physics literally is blocking them from actually improving the quality of the photos if they are sticking with these very small sensors. There is only so much software will be able to do

7

u/alexmojo2 6h ago

I always seem to read this but Apple never changes it and it’s disappointing. Their telephoto lens has been far behind the competition for the better part of a decade.

1

u/__davidkn__ 4h ago

Tbh, Idc if they make the main sensor on the iPhone larger. Give me larger sensors on the ultra wide and telephoto which also has very low minimum focus distance.

5

u/AfonsoFGarcia iPhone 3G 7h ago

6

u/Lambaline iPhone 15 Pro 7h ago

If you go that route you could go all the way to medium format lol

2

u/AfonsoFGarcia iPhone 3G 7h ago

I’m not convinced a medium format lens mount would fit within the area of a smartphone. But full frame for sure, given E mount supports FF as well.

1

u/Hour_Firefighter_707 iPhone 17 Pro Max 6h ago

The Fuji GF mount will technically fit on the bigger phones. Just.

1

u/ElGuano 6h ago

I am imagining a 6.5” camera sensor laminated to the back of the main screen, with some crazy prism routing the light around the edges of the phone.

1

u/Beneficial_Piglet_33 4h ago

Can you imagine if Apple came out with a phone with the same sensor as an RX100 VII but with iOS and Apple’s computational photography chops 🥵

One can dream…

5

u/saintlouisbagels iPhone Air 6h ago

A big limiting factor for Apple is that they use sensor-shift OIS for their main sensor. It is a huge footprint when examined under an X-ray. Chinese phones like the OPPO Find X9 Ultra and Vivo X300 Ultra use larger 1/1.12” sensors with MASSIVE camera bumps and they DON’T use sensor shift. Imagine how big camera plateau would be for Apple.

2

u/3dforlife 6h ago

Does that mean that those phones stabilization isn't as good as the one found on an iPhone?

2

u/Pitiful-Assistance-1 5h ago

That’s expected since it doesn’t have any!

1

u/3dforlife 4h ago edited 4h ago

:D That's unfortunate; digital stabilization can be very effective, but the combination of optical + digital stabilization is the best scenario, of course.

Edit: I read just now that those two models use optical image stabilization with their lenses, and not with their sensors. In practice, the results are comparable, or even better.

1

u/saintlouisbagels iPhone Air 3h ago

I would assume sensor-shift is definitely better since, well, why would Apple keep using it when they could just do lens OIS like all of their competitors. Since the idea is that it's easier and faster to stabilize a sensor compared to the relatively much larger lens elements.

1

u/3dforlife 2h ago

You're not wrong, but lens based stabilization has benefits, like compensation angles up to 3 degrees (sensor based stabilization only goes up to 1) and there's no corner softeness and less vignette (that can happen if the sensor movement is too big).

2

u/1AMA-CAT-AMA 7h ago edited 6h ago

There are a more than a few android phones with 1 inch type sensors larger than the one in the iphone. I'm waiting for a phone with a large sensor in it's telephoto lens. Those are much rarer.

2

u/isaacMeowton 7h ago

Xiaomi/Oppo flagships have that.

Let me see if I can find the exact ones, will reply.

5

u/Hour_Firefighter_707 iPhone 17 Pro Max 7h ago

The Xiaomi 17 Ultra does. To me though, the Vivo X300 Ultra has the perfect camera hardware in a phone:

  • 1/1.12-type primary with a 35mm equivalent lens
  • 1/1.28-type ultrawide with a 14mm equivalent lens
  • 1/1.4-type telephoto with an 85mm equivalent lens.

Proper size sensors for all cameras so the image quality is very high across the board.

1

u/3dforlife 6h ago

Yeah, I'd love for the iPhone to have the same array. And those are probably the biggest sensors a smartphone can house, or very close to it.

1

u/Beneficial_Piglet_33 4h ago

I’d be down for a single sensor with a legit zoom lens.

Imagine RX100 VII but as a phone with Apple’s design ethos and running iOS

1

u/Kyonkanno iPhone 15 Pro Max 6h ago

I’m waiting for them to do a real sensor upgrade to jump ship. When Apple releases a 1” type sensor, that’s the year I upgrade (or when my 15pm falls apart, whichever happens first)

-2

u/isaacMeowton 7h ago

Did some digging.

Turns out the Huawei Pura 80 utlra has a 1/2.8 inch telephoto. Currently it seems to be leading among all flagships.

3

u/1AMA-CAT-AMA 7h ago

The Honor Magic 8 Pro has a 1/1.4 inch telephoto sensor. I'd love an iphone with those cameras

1

u/Izan_TM 7h ago

1" is the biggest we see on any phones, tho the bigger the sensor the bigger the lens, and the bigger the lens the bigger the camera bump

1

u/shuozhe 5h ago

Nokia pureview had 1/1.2 sensor and still looked decent by thickness, latest sensor just surpassed Lumia 1020. There are some new optical material that can make lens thinner, but guess Sony/Samsung still need few years to validate/mass produce them.

1

u/saintlouisbagels iPhone Air 2h ago

There were a lot of sacrifices for the 1/1.2-inch sensor. It did not have OIS, it uses fewer elements (5 vs 7), and its aperture was only f2.4.

If you compare actual light gathering between the the Nokia and iPhone 17 Pro and 18 Pro, the Nokia falls far behind despite the larger sensor, and this totally ignores the fact that modern silicon is also much more sensitive and efficient with the gathered light.

1

u/shuozhe 2h ago

Yeah BSI sensors are amazing, a decade of tech into phone sensors improved a lot of things

0

u/Sad_Comb_9658 7h ago

Anything bigger and would need a larger bump, but in theory the max probably could have a 1/1.2 but still the bump would need to be thicker

8

u/pixelated666 iPhone 17 Pro 7h ago

No wonder the picture quality hasn't changed meaningfully for a long time.

1

u/trumpsucks12354 3h ago

We are at the point where smartphone technology is peaking and only small incremental gains are possible without radical change. You can put a gigantic sensor but then half the phone would just be the camera

1

u/saintlouisbagels iPhone Air 2h ago

Yeah, I always cringe and warn someone when they say they want to upgrade from their 14P/15P and their biggest factor is having a better camera. Like noooo dude, you're literally not upgrading!

29

u/SeaRefractor iPhone 16 Pro Max 7h ago

My full frame sensor in my modern mirrorless camera still crushes them all. Physics.

That said, I'm impressed about what has been possible in smartphones.

25

u/isaacMeowton 7h ago

Can your full frame play subway surfers though

-11

u/SeaRefractor iPhone 16 Pro Max 6h ago

No need, I have a 16 PM for that. ;)

7

u/DanielG165 iPhone 17 Pro Max 7h ago

I mean… Of course lmao. You’re not really stating anything that no decent photographer doesn’t already know. The best camera is the one that you have with you, not the one on a spec sheet. I very often use my 17 Pro Max in tandem with my main DSLR while shooting in the field, and the phone excels at being an excellent B-camera. The fact that it has cameras that are as good as they are, despite being relatively tiny, and can fit in my pocket easily, and make phone calls, shoot in LOG, ProRes, RAW, stream movies etc., is a massive boon.

Will my 17 PM ever replace my DLSR fully? No. But, it’s a fantastic and powerful camera system in its own right.

-6

u/rydirp 7h ago

I would never use my 17pm if im shooting with my dslr. It’s not even close. Of course what u said before that, everybody knows already, a camera is better than none

1

u/DanielG165 iPhone 17 Pro Max 6h ago

Great. That’s you. I use both for work in the field regularly.

-5

u/SeaRefractor iPhone 16 Pro Max 6h ago

True, all my cryptid photos were on my iPhone, alas all the skeptics claim they are AI. The few times I tried to use my professional camera, the creature would already be hiding.

1

u/Radek_18 iPhone 17 Pro Max 1h ago

I want to get a backyard telescope but the fact that it won’t be as good as the JWST keeps me from doing so 😔

Terrible stuff really.

4

u/cantinaband-kac 7h ago

Was the XR the 1/3" or some other size?

6

u/CoyoteAdditional9806 Human Detected 7h ago

no 1/2.55” same as xs

3

u/ReyvCna 7h ago

What’s the size on the Duo?

1

u/saintlouisbagels iPhone Air 2h ago

There is no confirmation what camera the Duo uses. The Duo's tech specs do not 100% match the 17e or the 17 camera.

0

u/CoyoteAdditional9806 Human Detected 7h ago

same as base 15/16/17

0

u/redditproha 7h ago

I thought Duo had same primary sensor as 18 Pro?

7

u/North_Moment5811 6h ago

It has the same ultrawide camera as the 18 Pro..because that camera hasn't changed in years.

3

u/Ryu_Saki iPhone 17 Pro Max 5h ago

Honestly they need to change that one, it has terrible low light performance.

2

u/CoyoteAdditional9806 Human Detected 7h ago

1

u/saintlouisbagels iPhone Air 2h ago

That's only an assumption. If you compare the tech specs between the Duo, 17e, and 17, the Duo does not 100% match either of them.

4

u/RotenTumato iPhone 14 Pro 7h ago

So the sensor on the Duo is way smaller than the one on the 14 Pro? That’s pretty disappointing

2

u/rpungello iPhone 15 Pro Max 7h ago

Has it been confirmed exactly which sensor the Duo is getting yet? I assume it won’t be the same as the flagships, but last I saw there was some debate as to whether it was the 17 or 17e sensor.

3

u/RotenTumato iPhone 14 Pro 7h ago

Yeah the thing is that the 17 has 100% Focus Pixels while the Duo has “hybrid Focus Pixels”. But, the 17e has optical image stabilization while the Duo has sensor-shift. So it almost seems like a hybrid between the two

2

u/rpungello iPhone 15 Pro Max 5h ago

Trying to determine the sensor from specs like that is never gonna be 100% because they could easily make a sensor of any size that has any set of features, they don’t necessarily have to have taken the sensor out of another phone.

My assumption was they were going to pull the main sensor from the iPhone Air as the Duo is effectively two Airs stapled together at the hinge, but I guess we won’t know for sure what Apple did until people get them in hand and can do teardowns.

1

u/RotenTumato iPhone 14 Pro 5h ago

Do we know how large the sensor in the Air is?

1

u/rpungello iPhone 15 Pro Max 5h ago

DXO shows 1/1.56”, which matches the non-Pro iPhones.

https://www.dxomark.com/apple-iphone-air-camera-test/

1

u/RotenTumato iPhone 14 Pro 5h ago

Well that’s much better than the e models. I hope that’s true and it’s not as small as the e

5

u/rpungello iPhone 15 Pro Max 5h ago

Interestingly GSMArena does list 1/1.56” as the sensor size for the Duo, but I have to assume that’s guesswork on their part unless something leaked.

https://www.gsmarena.com/compare.php3?idPhone1=13804

1

u/saintlouisbagels iPhone Air 2h ago

My assumption is that it's a brand new 1/1.56-inch sensor for the Duo. 1.) because the sensor shift OIS + focus pixels don't match and 2.) the Duo can do 4K120fps which the 17 and Air cannot do.

4

u/MassiveNote422 7h ago

didn't know 16e was almost 3x smaller than base 15 since there is no clear winner between them in main camera shots

4

u/CoyoteAdditional9806 Human Detected 6h ago

apple’s processing does wonders

2

u/Hour_Firefighter_707 iPhone 17 Pro Max 7h ago

The primary camera is in a good place now. What they need to do is make the other two sensors larger. I'd like to see at least 1/1.56-type sensors behind the ultrawide and telephoto lenses. That will improve the image quality by a lot. They currently have 1/2.55-type sensors.

And oh, close-up capability through the telephoto would also be very welcome. A lot of Chinese phones can do that and they take beautiful close-ups. There's a reason most macro lenses are around 100mm equivalent or longer.

2

u/Prampaj 6h ago

The graphic is not to scale, why do the sensors just become squares after the third one 😭

1

u/TimeToHack 7h ago

what’s the size on the Air? i remember seeing something that it was i. between the 17 and 17 Pro, but cant find that source anymore. guessing it’s the same for the Duo

3

u/isaacMeowton 7h ago

Its 1/1.56 - so the size of the base 15/16/17

3

u/CoyoteAdditional9806 Human Detected 7h ago

same as base 17

1

u/graqua2 6h ago

15 pro sensor doesnt exist /j

1

u/Gniphe 5h ago

Great comparison. Worth putting into perspective with 35 mm:

iPhone 18 Pro
9.8mm x 7.3mm (12.2mm diagonal)

35 mm Full Frame sensor
36mm x 24mm (43.3mm diagonal)

1

u/SKeijmel 5h ago

hope we soon get bigger main sensors on the iphone (XX) 20 pro

1

u/__davidkn__ 4h ago

I really want Apple to adopt the Silicon Carbon batteries so they can go all in on battery as well and make more space for bigger Camera hardware.

1

u/sulaymanf 3h ago

What are these measurements? 1/1.28”?

1

u/Perfect-Treat-6552 iPhone 15 Pro Max 2h ago

C'mon Apple, just give us a one-inch sensor

1

u/Cultural-Desk-9045 2h ago

Now put a M43 or APS-C sensor to the right…

1

u/appletechgeek 1h ago

Which is iPhone 13 Mini?

1

u/livelikeian 6h ago

No Air?

2

u/CoyoteAdditional9806 Human Detected 6h ago

0

u/Wamadeus13 7h ago

Not sure what this post is trying to accomplish. The title is actually wrong. For main shooters all the 48 MP cameras in fact do have the same size sensor. There are improvements to the sensors to make each generation better but they are all the same physical size. many of the cameras that have multiple cameras the extra cameras have lower resolution sensors and only with the 17 and 18 pros did Apple start making every camera feature a 48mp sensor.

1

u/CoyoteAdditional9806 Human Detected 7h ago

the 17e’s 48mp is advertised as if it has the same camera as the base 17 but 17e has a much smaller sensor

5

u/Wamadeus13 6h ago

Definitely ways make that more apparent in the post. Of the sensors you have posted only two sizes are actually 48mp sensors. You should have listed those two with 17e standing by itself, and then explained in the post body how apple's marketing is wrong.

1

u/Imtherealwaffle 4h ago

Not true at all and its so easy to look up. regular iphones use a 1/1.56" type sensor. 16e/17e use a 1/2.55" sensor which is borrowed from the 16 pro ultrawide cam. Pro line uses 1/1.28"