Do the new iPhone 11 cameras bring anything new to mobile photography?

It seems that no matter how capable the competition is, everyone is still curious as to what Apple is doing with its latest phones – this year it's the iPhone 11, iPhone 11 Pro and iPhone 11 Pro Max. And that applies to the cameras as much as anything else.

The likes of Huawei, Google, OnePlus and Oppo may have gone to great lengths to push out new combinations of sensor, lens and processing wizardry in their most recent models, and this competition has done a lot to ramp up the standard that's now expected.

Lenses now reach further into the distance than before, while stabilization is more stable, even at these extended zoom settings, and focus even faster. The promise of AI- and machine-learning-based technologies promised to tweak performance for even greater gain.

No light? No problem – today's top camera phones mop up what's there, their work to compensate for it is not there, and it's more than just taking photos.

So, with plenty going in other corners, do photographers have anything to get excited about with Apple's latest handsets?

New camera system

The standard of smartphone cameras may already be quite damn good, but the likes of better autofocus, more accurate color, or improved low-light performance.

Last year's iPhone XS had a dual-camera setup, one bearing a standard lens and one telephoto, but we've become used to seeing triple and quad-camera setups elsewhere, with depth-sensing time-of-flight sensors on hand for even better performance.

While the iPhone 11 – this year's 'entry-level' iPhone – also rocks two cameras on its rear, the iPhone 11 Pro and iPhone 11 Pro Max both sport three, each backed by a 12MP sensor.

But it's the fact that all three models have a wide-angle 13mm f / 2.4 lens that's the most exciting thing. Not everyone wants to splash out $ 999 / £ 1,049 / AU $ 1,749 or $ 1,099 / £ 1,149 / AU $ 1,899 respectively for the iPhone 11 Pro Gold Pro Max models, so it's great to see this lens on the $ 699 / £ 729 / AU $ 1,199 iPhone 11 too.

Much like zooming further into the distance and still managing a camera with a sharp and compact result – there is a reason for compact cameras with huge zoom lenses are still around – previously could not be more useful for everyday imaging.

With the likes of the Samsung Galaxy S10 and Huawei P30 Pro standing out for their ultra-wide lenses, Apple had to match or better them here. So has it? Well, the 13mm focal length is wider than the P30 Pro's 16mm, and that 3mm can be significant at the end of things, much more than at telephoto distances.

The 120-degree field of view of Apple's 13mm lens is more or less the same as the Samsung S10 models, so it's certainly no deal-breaker.

Still, it's a welcome addition, or who frequently shoot group portraits. It is also very useful for indoor shots, although the f / 2.4 aperture is 'slower' than the f / 1.8 aperture on the 26mm main lens, which means you need a faster shutter speed to get shake-free shots – so more focus will be on the OIS system and Night mode, and perhaps the AI, to keep images looking crisp.

So what else is new? Well, you could have your money on a new filter, and we have it in the shape of the High Key Mono option. It looks impressive, but you'll probably forget it's there. The night is now in the sky, but it is not easy to do it.

Similarly, the benefits of being more effectively sensing with the benefits of the future of dynamic range and next-generation Smart HDR will only be discovered in use. And the forthcoming Deep Fusion mode, which assembles a number of images into one for better details and low noise, can be a big job when it is not so important. When is it moving?

What does it mean when it says the iPhone? It delivers the highest quality video in a smartphone. be the runner-up in this particular race, also remains to be seen. But it's not easy to make things easier, but it's not easy to make things easier. Filmic app – it certainly seems to be easier.

Do rivals still have the upper hand?

Ignoring the lack of 5G and other non-imaging aspects, the new iPhone do not trounce their rivals in every way on paper. The zoom range on the Pro and Pro Max, which has an additional 52mm telephoto lens, is essentially a 4x optical zoom, for example, even if it does not have much more than a wide range of angles. True, rivals that claim to reach a 10x zoom might not be so optically, but the quality is good enough, that's less of a concern for the everyday photographer.

Quite how Apple's claims of 100% focus Translated pixels to fast focus is something we'll only know Xperia 5 cameras, with deep-learning-based face detection and Eye Stabilizer technology. Sony's autofocusing systems have gotten away from it's Cyber-shot and Alpha cameras, so the decision to imbue its Xperia line of smartphones with similar tech may gain more traction here.

Overall, it's great to see how to make it easier to capture images that make it easier to use iPhones, while the tweaks to usability to make them easier. And, for the most people, this is perhaps the best partnership.

It seems to be easier to photograph, but it seems to be easier to photograph. Maybe photographers already have all the manual control they need in a high-end iPhone; or maybe there is a lot of things that make sense or is practical to include.

The iPhone 11 range may not have a single photographic USP that elevates the cameras above what we've already seen elsewhere, but when everything-else-iPhone is thrown into the mix, it is the average photographer is satisfied enough to forget Apple's rivals might be shouting about.