Camera
Tamron 17-70 F2.8 Di III-A VC RXD field review
Introduction
The Tamron 17-70 F2.8 Di III-A VC RXD is a very compact general-purpose lens for Sony’s APS-C, E-mount mirrorless cameras. Think of it as roughly equivalent to a 24-105mm F4 lens on a full-frame camera, but scaled down to match the APS-C sensor format.
Although it’s designed for cameras with APS-C sensors, it can still be used with full-frame models when cropped to APS-C. We tried both approaches for this review, pairing it with the Sony a6600 as well as the Sony a7R IV in APS-C crop mode.
With a constant F2.8 maximum aperture across its zoom range, the Tamron 17-70mm makes a great travel lens for photographers on a budget. It also shows potential as a video lens thanks to its vibration control and lack of focus breathing. It’s available now at a price of $799.99 USD.
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Key specifications:
- Focal length: 17-70mm (25.5-105mm full-frame equivalent)
- Aperture range: F2.8
- Stabilization: Yes, Tamron Vibration Compensation
- Filter thread: 67mm
- Close focus: 0.19m (7.5″) wide / 0.39m (15.4″) tele
- Maximum magnification: 0.21x (wide) / 0.19x tele
- Diaphragm blades: 9
- Hood: Included
- Weight: 525 g (1.16 lb)
- Optical construction: 16 elements in 12 groups
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| With a generous zoom range and good detail out to the corners, the Tamron 17-70mm F2.8 makes a great travel-zoom lens. ISO 100 | 1/30 sec | F8 |34mm equiv.| Sony a7R IV (in APS-C crop mode) Photo by Chris Niccolls |
Tamron launched the 17-70mm F2.8 Di III-A VC RXD in late 2020. It’s both the company’s first F2.8 zoom for sub-frame mirrorless cameras, and the industry’s first to achieve a 4.1x zoom ratio, so we were keen to try it in the real world.
For our review, DPReview TV host Chris Niccolls took it on a road trip to the Calgary Zoo and the nearby town of Okotoks, Alberta, while editor Dan Bracaglia gave it a whirl closer to home around DPReview’s headquarters in Seattle.
Let’s take a look at what the Tamron 17-70m F2.8 can do and what it’s like to use.
All sample images edited in Adobe Camera Raw 13 with adjustments limited to white balance, exposure, highlights, shadows, white and black levels. Sharpening and noise reduction at ACR defaults.
Handling
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The 17-70mm F2.8 is pretty typical of Tamron’s modern product line. At 524g (18.5oz), it’s very lightweight, but build quality is nevertheless pretty good.
A pair of rings encircle the lens barrel, with the smaller of these near its tapered base controlling manual focus, and the larger one adjusting the focal length. Up front there’s a 67mm filter thread, a size that’s also common on many of the company’s other lenses.
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Absent from the lens, though, are any buttons. We found that to be a somewhat perplexing omission; with no dedicated controls for focus mode or vibration control, owners of the Tamron 17-70mm F2.8 will have to spend more time in their camera’s menu system than would otherwise be the case.
The good news is that Tamron’s vibration compensation is generally really solid, and functions well in combination with in-body stabilization if supported by your camera body.
The zoom ring is very smooth and well-balanced. The manual focus ring has relatively little damping and so feels very light in use, but that’s pretty typical of lenses in this category. An internal focusing design means that focus adjustments won’t change the lens barrel’s length or cause filters to rotate, although turning the zoom ring will cause the barrel to extend or retract to match.
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Autofocus and manual focus
The Tamron 17-70mm F2.8 foregoes the fancy linear motors typical of higher-end lenses, opting instead for a stepper motor-based autofocus drive. Yet despite that choice, AF performance is nevertheless very impressive, with even significant shifts in focusing distance taking just a fraction of a second on our Sony a7R IV body.
And while this is by no means a macro lens, it can still focus fairly close. At wide-angle, the minimum focusing distance is as little as 19cm (7.5″), yielding a maximum magnification of 0.21x (1:4.8). At telephoto, meanwhile, you can focus to around 39cm (15.4″) for a slightly lower magnification of 0.19x (1:5.2).
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| The Tamron 17-70mm F2.8’s wide maximum aperture helps portraits pop from their backgrounds. ISO 250 | 1/100 sec | F2.8 |102mm equiv. | Sony a7R IV (in APS-C crop mode) Photo by Chris Niccolls |
The good news, though, is that there is almost no focus breathing regardless of focal length. What that means is that the focal length doesn’t noticeably change when focus is adjusted. Along with its quiet autofocus drive, this makes the 17-70mm F2.8 an attractive option for videographers.
Image quality
The Tamron 17-70mm F2.8 pairs nicely with either Sony’s APS-C mirrorless bodies, or with its full-frame models when using the APS-C crop mode. Sony’s APS-C cameras currently top out at 24 Megapixel resolution, while the full-frame a7R IV can extract just a smidgen more detail from its 26.2 Megapixel APS-C crop. We used the latter for our image quality comparison.
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| ISO 160 | 1/250 sec | F2.8 | 26mm equiv. | Sony a7R IV (in APS-C crop mode) Photo by Chris Niccolls |
Sharpness
Near its 17mm wide-angle, the lens is pretty sharp across the entire image frame when shooting wide-open at F2.8. In fact, we didn’t notice much difference in detail levels when stopping down to F5.6, even in the corners.
And the news is almost as good at the 70mm telephoto end, too. Again, sharpness was very good across the frame at F2.8. We did see some improvement to detail when we stopped down to F5.6 this time, even towards the center of the frame, but it was a relatively subtle difference.
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| ISO 100 | 1/500 sec | F2.8 | 105mm equiv. | Sony A6600 Photo by Dan Bracaglia |
Vignetting and distortion
The 17-70mm F2.8 exhibits quite strong distortion throughout its focal length range. At 17mm there’s significant barrel distortion, and as you zoom in, pincushion distortion is readily visible at mid- to tele-photo focal lengths. While distortion is easily fixed in post-processing, the large amount of it present in this lens means it’s likely to impact corner sharpness and, furthermore, will mean a slightly longer corrected minimum focal length on the wide end.
Vignetting is well-controlled throughout the zoom range, with some darkening of the corners which is easily corrected in post-processing.
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| Although there’s quite strong distortion at wide-angle, it can easily be corrected in post-processing. ISO 100 | 1/1000 sec | F2.8 | 26mm equiv. | Sony A6600 Photo by Dan Bracaglia |
Bokeh
There are a couple of weak spots in the Tamron 17-70mm F2.8’s image quality, and unfortunately bokeh is one of them. Amateurs and enthusiasts will likely find it more than acceptable, but users on a quest for maximal image quality may want to spend a bit more for a higher-performing alternative.
The problem, specifically, is quite strong onion ring bokeh. Out-of-focus highlights in images shot with the Tamron appear to be patterned by numerous concentric circles, giving their bokeh an undesirably busy appearance.
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| The 17-70mm F2.8 is quite prone to onion ring, giving its bokeh a rather busy look. ISO 1600 | 1/250 sec | F2.8 | 105mm equiv. | Sony a7R IV (in APS-C crop mode) Photo by Chris Niccolls |
Cat’s eye effect – which causes elliptical rather than round bokeh as you stray further from the center of the frame – is relatively mild, and mostly goes away once you stop down to F4. However, wide open the circle of confusion is increasingly truncated at image peripheries as in the image above. In other words, you may notice chopped-off out-of-focus highlights and generally busier – or sometimes swirly – bokeh as you stray away from the center of the frame.
Flare and sunstars
If you’re a fan of sunstars in your landscape images, the Tamron 17-70mm actually puts up a pretty good showing in this regard, with pretty 18 well-defined ‘spikes’ coming from small, bright light sources in the frame.
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In this, an odd landscape photo of a dystopian future where we are ruled by cameras and smartphones (wait, we’re in that world already, aren’t we, and this is just a gear cabinet), you can see that at smaller apertures the Tamron 17-70mm F2.8 produces some pretty solid sunstars. ISO 12800 | 1/20 sec | F16 | Sony a6600 |
On the other hand, the Tamron 17-70mm is rather prone to flare, which could prove more of a concern. If bright light sources like the sun can be kept out of the frame, though—and the provided compact lens hood certainly helps here—then things aren’t too bad.
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| Cherry-red flare artifacts can prove problematic if you can’t keep the sun out of the frame. ISO 100 | 1/200 sec | F4 | 77mm equiv. | Sony a7R IV (in APS-C crop mode) Photo by Chris Niccolls |
If the sun is in your shot, though, the lens hood can’t help you, and you’ll see rather intrusive cherry-red ghosting, something that can be a pain to fix in post. Again, for Tamron’s target market it’s not likely to be a big issue, but it may push more advanced users up the line to a more-expensive rival.
Lateral and longitudinal chromatic aberration (fringing)
Lateral CA is a type of fringing around high-contrast edges near the edges of the frame; it’s called ‘lateral’ because it appears to the left or right (or top or bottom, depending on the orientation) of these edges. While it’s not attractive, it’s usually easy to remove, and not a particular concern for the Tamron 17-70mm F2.8, largely because with this lens it’s automatically corrected for in JPEGs and in Raw converters.
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| Longitudinal CA or LoCA can be seen as cyan / magenta fringing in the bokeh circles of this shot. ISO 100 | 1/1000 sec | F2.8 | 105mm equiv. | Sony a7R IV (in APS-C crop mode) Photo by Chris Niccolls |
Longitudinal CA, which appears as cyan / magenta fringing just in front of and behind the plane of focus in the Tamron, can be far more troublesome and difficult to remove. It’s not terrible, by any means, but it’s definitely there, and something to be aware of. Note the cyan fringing around highlights around the lettering behind the plane of focus.
Conclusion
| What we like | What we don’t |
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Despite a few minor issues that may cause users chasing ultimate image quality to look elsewhere, we think the Tamron 17-70 F2.8 Di III-A VC RXD shines at its $799.99 USD price point. That’s great news, because there really aren’t a lot of alternatives.
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| ISO 100 | 1/400 sec | F2.8 | 80mm equiv. | Sony A6600 Photo by Dan Bracaglia |
If the sometimes-busy bokeh, strong distortion and flare aren’t big concerns for you, and you can live with the slight inconvenience of its lack of physical controls, there’s a lot to recommend this lens. We found ourselves especially surprised both by its corner-to-corner sharpness across the focal range, even when shooting at or near wide-open. And autofocus performance is very impressive, too.
Yet it’s a good 20% cheaper than its nearest rival, Sony’s Zeiss Vario-Tessar T* E 16-70 mm F4 ZA OSS ($999.99), which does not offer unequivocally better image quality. And it’s in a totally different league to the only more-affordable option, the Sony E PZ 16–50 mm F3.5–5.6 OSS ($299.99), a lens which we honestly can’t recommend for anything other than the portability offered by its small size.
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And of course, neither of those lenses can match the Tamron’s continuous F2.8 maximum aperture. For that, you’d need to look to the much-pricier Sony E 16–55mm F2.8 G lens. That optic, while excellent, is priced at $1,299.99, and is nearly two-thirds more expensive than the Tamron 17-70mm F2.8, despite offering a narrower zoom range (though some will prefer its wider starting focal length).
Despite some optical flaws, the combination of edge-to-edge sharpness, versatile range, bright aperture and great value is currently hard to find in the APS-C E-mount lineup. If you’re in the market for a new travel zoom for your Sony APS-C camera, the Tamron 17-70mm F2.8 Di III-A VC RXD unquestionably deserves a spot near the top of your shopping list, and easily garners a Silver Award from us here at DPReview.
See what our team at DPReview TV has to say about the Tamron 17-70mm F2.8.
| Images: Tamron |
Tamron has announced a firmware update that it says will ‘significantly’ improve the autofocus tracking performance on the Sony E-Mount versions of its 70-300mm F4.5-6.3 Di III RXD and 18-300mm F3.5-6.3 Di III-A VC VXD lenses. The company’s press release says the lenses should now ‘keep excellent track of moving subjects.’
The updates also add support for Sony’s AF Assist function, which lets you manually focus even when autofocus is enabled. That should be handy for videographers who want to use autofocus to initially grab focus but then rack focus to something else in the frame, provided they have a Sony body that supports the feature.
The firmware is now available to download from Tamron’s site.
| Image: Apple |
It’s that time of year: Apple has announced its new suite of iPhones, raising the question of whether current owners should upgrade or stick with their older model.
There are many factors to consider – those still using the Lightning port could potentially justify an upgrade for USB-C alone– but we’ll mainly focus on the cameras for this article. This year, more than ever, the price premium on the Pro phones doesn’t make much sense if you’re not using them for photography and videography, so we’ll be trying to answer a straightforward question: will upgrading let you take better pictures?
Note: unlike last year’s models, the iPhone 16 Pro and Pro Max appear to have identical camera setups. We’ll talk a lot about the ‘iPhone 16 Pro’s’ cameras in this article, but anything we say will apply to both size options.
Scenario 1: You have an iPhone 15 Pro
We’ll start by comparing the 16 Pro to the last-generation 15 Pro since it lets us talk about the brand new features that will be an upgrade over the 14 Pro and 13 Pro too. However, we’ll start by saying it’s hard to recommend the year-over-year upgrade unless you have a specific use case that requires the new features.
Even Apple quietly admits this; during the announcement, whenever it compared the iPhone 16 Pro to previous models, it was usually put up against the iPhone 14 Pro instead of its direct predecessor. The iPhone 15 Pro is also the only other phone in Apple’s lineup capable of running all the Apple Intelligence features, which are the main selling point of the iPhone 16 line.
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| Image: Apple |
However, there are still some improvements to be found in the iPhone 16 Pro’s camera system. Apple says that the 16 Pro uses a ‘second-generation’ sensor for its main camera, which can read out data two times faster, ‘enabling zero shutter lag’ even when taking Raw photos.
The 5x, 120mm equiv. camera from the 15 Pro Max is also now available on the regular-sized iPhone 16 Pro, replacing the 3x, 77mm equiv. camera from the 15 Pro. That’s not necessarily a clear win, though. The extra reach may be useful if you often shoot far-away subjects, but it makes it a little bit harder to take portraits; you’ll have to stand further away from your subject if you want to get the classic 80mm portrait framing, which will also compress the foreground and background more. However, if you want a 5x camera in a smaller phone, the 16 Pro is Apple’s first model to offer it.
iPhone 16 Pro cameras vs iPhone 15 Pro cameras
| iPhone 16 Pro / Pro Max | ||||
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| Focal length | Pixel count | Sensor size | f/number | Crop factor |
| 24mm equiv. | 48MP / 24 / 12MP | Type 1/1.28 (9.8×7.3mm) | F1.78 | ~3.5x |
| 13mm equiv | 48MP | Type 1/2.55 (5.6×4.2mm) | F2.2 | ~6.2x |
| 120mm equiv | 12MP | Type 1/4 (4.5×3.4mm) | F2.8 | ~10.8x |
| iPhone 15 Pro / Pro Max | ||||
| Focal length | Pixel count | Sensor size | f/number | Crop factor |
| 24mm equiv. | 48MP / 24 / 12MP | Type 1/1.28 (9.8×7.3mm) | F1.78 | ~3.5x |
| 13mm equiv | 12MP | Type 1/2.55 (5.6×4.2mm) | F2.2 | ~6.2x |
| 77mm equiv / 120mm equiv. (Max) | 12MP | Type 1/3.5 (4x3mm) / Type 1/4 (4.5×3.4mm) | F2.8 | ~8.7x / ~10.8x |
There are a few other minor improvements to the 16 Pro’s camera system compared to the 15 Pro’s. It can now shoot 3D-esque Spatial Photos, and Apple has upgraded the Photographic Styles system, which lets you apply different looks to your photos straight out of camera. Previously, they were baked-in, meaning you couldn’t shoot a picture with the ‘Warm’ Photo Style and then change it to the ‘Cool’ or ‘Rich Contrast’ one – now you can.
The 16 and 16 Pro also have slightly larger screens than their predecessors, which makes taking and viewing photos nicer, and the QuickTake video that you can access from the photo mode is now 4K60p instead of 1080p30p.
The most significant changes relate to the iPhone 16’s ultrawide camera and video modes. That brings us to a few reasons you might be able to justify an upgrade.
Scenario 1a: You’re a macro/wide-angle photography enthusiast
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The ultrawide camera used for macro shots now has a much higher-resolution sensor.
Image: Apple |
The iPhone 15 Pro’s 0.5x, 13mm equiv. F2.2 ultrawide camera uses a 12MP, 5.6×4.2mm sensor and produces broadly disappointing photos. While the ultrawide camera on the iPhone 16 Pro appears to be using the same size sensor, it’s now using 48MP quad-Bayer technology.
This will allow for pixel binning, though the real-world effect remains to be seen. Given that the sensor is the same size and will likely bin down to the same resolution, it’s hard to imagine there being much of an improvement in low-light performance, which is where the previous iteration of the camera struggled.
If the 0.5x camera is your favorite, it’s probably worth waiting for the reviews to see how much of a difference the resolution bump makes. We’ll be sure to update this article as soon as we can with some wide-angle comparison shots.
Scenario 1b: You are going to shoot The Weeknd’s next music video with your iPhone
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The Weeknd’s new music video is the latest addition to the Shot On iPhone gallery.
Image: Apple |
The next-generation sensor in the iPhone 16 Pro’s main camera enables a big jump in video performance: it can now shoot 4K footage at 120fps, double the speed of the previous Pro. You can even shoot at 120fps in Apple’s ProRes codec, provided you’re recording to external storage via USB-C.
Apple also claims the 16 Pro has much-improved audio with the addition of a ‘studio-quality’ four-microphone array. The microphones allow for wind noise reduction and some fancy software tricks called ‘Audio Mix’ that enable you to fine-tune how a video’s subjects sound.
As with the iPhone 15 Pro, Apple showed off the 16 Pro’s video prowess by having a famous artist shoot a music video with it. This year, it was The Weeknd, whose video for ‘Dancing in the Flames’ (seen above) was shot with the iPhone 16 Pro, making heavy use of the new slow-motion features. Feel free to judge how the footage fares, though do keep in mind that the video was shot by top-tier professionals using thousands of dollars of lighting and grip equipment.
Scenario 1c: You can’t live without the Camera Control
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| Image: Apple |
We get it: new buttons are exciting, especially when they’re providing a new function. Apple’s new Camera Control button promises to let you launch the camera from anywhere, will act as a shutter button once you’ve opened the app, and you can slide your finger across it to adjust parameters like the focal length or aperture.
Apple also promised to improve the button via a software update that will make it act like a traditional shutter button that locks focus and exposure with a half press, and takes a picture with a full press. The Camera Control will also be available for third-party developers, so you may get some milage out of it even if the default iOS camera app isn’t your go-to.
There will be some people who call the Camera Control a gimmick, and who say that there’s no way it’d be worth upgrading from a perfectly good phone that’s only year old for it. And sure, it’s possible it won’t end up being very useful because of its placement, or its relatively complicated control scheme, which mixes gentle taps and press with swipes.
But if it actually improves the ergonomic experience of taking pictures with an iPhone, it could a real nice-to-have – though it’s up to you whether it’s ‘immediately upgrade’ compelling, or ‘look forward to it the next time you get a new phone’ compelling.
Scenario 2: You have an iPhone 14 Pro
The iPhone 14 Pro introduced the 48MP, 9.8×7.3mm quad-bayer sensor that Apple has iterated on for the iPhone 16 Pro, but that doesn’t mean that there haven’t been improvements in the past two years. The 16 Pro’s faster readout speeds should provide the same speed boost compared to the 14 Pro as they did to the 15 Pro.
The lenses on the 16 Pro’s cameras also have a variety of coatings not found on the 14 Pro, and, similar to the 13 Pro, the 14 Pro is stuck with the slower Lightning port instead of the near-universal USB-C one found on the 16 Pro.
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The 16 Pro can shoot slow-mo ProRes 4K. The 14 Pro can’t. (The 128GB 14 Pro can’t shoot ProRes 4K at all; it’s limited to 1080p.)
Image: Apple |
For the main camera, many of the iPhone 16 Pro’s upgrades lie in software, not hardware. The 14 Pro can only shoot 4K ProRes at 30fps, which rules out the possibility of using it for slow motion like you can with the iPhone 16 Pro’s 120fps 4K mode. The 16 Pro also has a ‘next-generation’ portrait mode, which Apple says offers ‘2x better low-light performance.’ Given that the iPhone 16 Pro’s camera hardware isn’t taking in any more light, that’s almost certainly down to changes in how it handles multi-shot photography.
By default, the 16 Pro will also bin images to 24MP, versus the 12MP that’s the only option for the 14 Pro. You also no longer have to shoot in ProRaw to capture a 48MP image, as the 16 Pro has a ‘HEIF Max’ mode that offers compressed images with higher resolution. (Do note that it’s not available in all modes, though; night mode and flash photos are still binned to 12MP.)
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The ultrawide camera is one of the iPhone 16 Pro’s most notable upgrades.
Image: Apple |
The iPhone 16 Pro’s other lenses have more notable improvements. The iPhone 14 Pro’s ultrawide camera is the same as the one found on the iPhone 15 Pro, so any jump in quality provided by the 48MP sensor will apply here as well.
The 16 Pro’s telephoto lens also has a larger sensor, and tighter focal length; the 14 Pro’s 3x (77mm equiv.) camera has a 4x3mm sensor, where the 16 Pro’s 5x (120mm equiv.) camera bumps that up to 4.5×3.4mm – a 27.5% increase. Both cameras produce 12MP images, and have F2.8 lenses.
iPhone 16 Pro cameras vs iPhone 14 Pro cameras
| iPhone 16 Pro / Pro Max | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Focal length | Pixel count | Sensor size | f/number | Crop factor |
| 24mm equiv. | 48MP / 24 / 12MP | Type 1/1.28 (9.8×7.3mm) | F1.78 | ~3.5x |
| 13mm equiv | 48MP | Type 1/2.55 (5.6×4.2mm) | F2.2 | ~6.2x |
| 120mm equiv | 12MP | Type 1/4 (4.5×3.4mm) | F2.8 | ~10.8x |
| iPhone 14 Pro / Pro Max | ||||
| Focal length | Pixel count | Sensor size | f/number | Crop factor |
| 24mm equiv. | 48MP / 12MP | Type 1/1.28 (9.8×7.3mm) | F1.78 | ~3.5x |
| 13mm equiv | 12MP | Type 1/2.55 (5.6×4.2mm) | F2.2 | ~6.2x |
| 77mm equiv | 12MP | Type 1/3.5 (4x3mm) | F2.8 | ~8.7x |
Overall, the 16 Pro’s cameras are iterative improvements over the 14 Pros. However, if you take tons of images on your phone or are serious about video, there’s probably enough there for you to notice a difference. If you’re more of an occasional shooter, though, it may be worth sitting this one out.
Scenario 3: You have an iPhone 13 Pro
If you have an iPhone 13 Pro or one of its predecessors, the 16 Pro’s cameras should be an upgrade in pretty much every way. The 13 Pro has a 12MP F1.5 main camera, while the 16 Pro bumps the resolution up to 48MP. While its F1.78 lens is slower, its 9.8×7.3mm sensor also has 65% more area versus the 13 Pro’s 7.6×5.7mm sensor – that equates to around 0.3EV more light gathering ability, even with the brighter aperture.
That extra resolution enables a lot of camera features on the 16 Pro that the 13 Pro doesn’t have. The most obvious is the pixel-binned 12MP or 24MP shots, as well as the 48MP ProRaw mode. It also allows for the 24mm, 28mm, and 35mm ‘faux-cal’ lengths for the main camera, which work by taking different crops off the sensor. The iPhone 13 Pro also lacks the ‘2x’ option, which crops in to the 12MP middle section of the sensor.
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The 16 Pro’s main camera is a notable improvement from the 13 Pro’s.
Image: Apple |
The ultrawide and telephoto cameras also use larger sensors, and the 16 Pro’s 5x camera offers a 120mm equiv. focal length compared to the 13 Pro’s 3x 77mm equiv.
The iPhone 16 Pro also includes the latest iterations of Apple’s image stabilization and HDR systems, though the company hasn’t said much about what benefits they offer over the predecessors found on the iPhone 13 Pro.
iPhone 16 Pro cameras vs iPhone 13 Pro cameras
| iPhone 16 Pro / Pro Max | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Focal length | Pixel count | Sensor size | f/number | Crop factor |
| 24mm equiv. | 48MP / 24 / 12MP | Type 1/1.28 (9.8×7.3mm) | F1.78 | ~3.5x |
| 13mm equiv | 48MP | Type 1/2.55 (5.6×4.2mm) | F2.2 | ~6.2x |
| 120mm equiv | 12MP | Type 1/4 (4.5×3.4mm) | F2.8 | ~10.8x |
| iPhone 13 Pro / Pro Max | ||||
| Focal length | Pixel count | Sensor size | f/number | Crop factor |
| 26mm equiv. | 12MP | Type 1/1.7 (7.6×5.7mm) | F1.5 | ~4.6x |
| 13mm equiv | 12MP | Type 1/3.5 (4x3mm) | F1.8 | ~8.7x |
| 77mm equiv | 12MP | Type 1/3.5 (4x3mm) | F2.8 | ~8.7x |
The 16 Pro has several video features not found on the 2021 model, such as Apple Log, Spatial Video, the super-stabilized ‘Action Mode,’ and access to 60 and 120fps frame rates when shooting 4K. And if you’re shooting a lot of video and want to offload it to a computer, the iPhone 16 Pro will offer a much better experience; its USB-C port can transfer files at 10Gbit per second. That’s 20 times faster than the USB 2.0 speeds that the 13 Pro’s Lightning port provides.
Outside of the camera, the 16 Pro has a lot of quality-of-life improvements. To name a few, there’s satellite SOS, tougher front glass, faster charging, an always-on-display and both the Action button and the new Camera Control button. It’s also 5g lighter despite being physically larger because its frame is made of aluminium and titanium instead of stainless steel.
None of this is to say that you must upgrade your iPhone 13 Pro. In fact, two of the winning photos from this year’s iPhone Photography Awards were shot with an iPhone 13 or 13 Pro. If you’re happy with your phone, by all means keep using it. However, if you do feel ready for an upgrade the iPhone 16 Pro should offer enough features and camera improvements to make it well worth it.
Just five days after the arrival of first Mirrorless camera, and 16 years ago today, Canon revealed a camera that would help define the final years of DSLR dominance: the EOS 5D II.
This was no simple upgrade to the original EOS 5D, though in a move from 12.8MP to a better performing 21MP CMOS sensor, the addition of an improved viewfinder and the gain of features such as liveview, it was that, too.
What famously set the 5D Mark II apart was its ability to capture Full HD video, the first DSLR to do so. The Nikon D90 had added 720p HD capture about two weeks before but it was the Canon that caught the world’s imagination.
This was helped by the option to download the Cinestyle color preset developed by film processing company Technicolor and a successful PR stunt that involved an entire episode of the TV show ‘House’ being filmed using the camera.
In hindsight, the 5D II is a relatively basic filmmaking tool: all is footage is 8-bit, so has limited grading (an official Canon Log option wouldn’t arrive until the Mk IV), there were no tools such as focus peaking to help with focus and to monitor your sound you needed all manner of adapters to get at the audio feed from the A/V socket. It didn’t even gain full manual exposure control in video mode until a post-launch firmware update.
The 5D II became a popular video camera at colleges and schools around the world
But the 5D II became a popular video camera at colleges and schools around the world, putting the flexibility and ‘look’ of a full-frame sensor in the hands of budding film makers and letting them use relatively affordable EF lenses.
Beyond this, the Magic Lantern open source software project created an extensive array of video support tools to boost the 5D II’s capabilities way beyond those that Canon had developed for it, including focus peaking, false color and control over the A/V output level.
There are plenty of people that used the 5D II solely as a stills camera, and it certainly represented a major step forward, compared with its predecessor: it had a larger, higher resolution screen, a sensor happier to shoot at higher ISOs and could shoot 30% faster than the Mark 1, despite the much higher pixel count. It also gained features that we take for granted, such as Auto ISO.
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The newer sensor in the 5D II allowed a maximum expanded ISO of 25,600: three stops higher than on its predecessor.
Image: Don Wan |
Its top speed of 3.9fps looks disappointing once you got used to the option to capture the 30fps burst that its spiritual successor, the EOS R5 II can manage. But, even though 4K and 8K modes have become commonplace in the sixteen years since the 5D II’s launch, a well lit, well-exposed and interesting video shot with the 5D II still looks pretty great, even on a big TV.
In the original review we referred to its video capabilities as its ‘party trick.’ Well it proved to be quite the trick, and over a decade and a half later, we’re all still at that party.
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