TRIP REPORT: Experiments with the iPhone 17 Pro Camera around Chicago – New Aircraft, Old Friends

Experiments with the iPhone 17 Pro Camera around Chicago
New Aircraft, Old Friends

It’s an iPod, a phone, and an Internet communicator. And we call it iPhone 17 Pro. Let’s look at the camera too. 

In this Trip Report:

• Well, this year has been a pile of toilet so far
• Take the National Express, when your life is a mess, it will make you smile
• Heathrow Terminal 3 Lounges, featuring The Cathay Pacific and American Airlines Business Class Lounges
• AA087 London Heathrow to Chicago O’Hare – Main Cabin Extra
• Into the USA… and dealing with a Credit Card Fraud Call
• HOTEL: Holiday Inn/Staybridge Suites, Rosemont 
• Airplane Art Extra from the Holiday Inn/Staybridge Suites, Rosemont
• HOTEL: Hyatt Regency O’Hare
• Airplane Art Extra from the Hyatt Regency O’Hare
• Playing with the Apple iPhone 17 Pro Camera around Chicago
• Back to O’Hare Terminal 3
• American Airlines Flagship Lounge
• BA296 Chicago O’Hare to London Heathrow, World Traveller Plus
• Buses and Buses
• The way old friends do

With my bank account aching twice in a month (once from a flight purchase and trip, the other time with a new phone and getting one of my credit cards flagged for fraud), it’s time to put my new iPhone 17 Pro to work.

As usual, I’m using the iPhone very much in a “run and gun” situation, as opposed to posed work.  As such, I’m very interested in performance and recovery, as well as seeing if Apple has done anything about late-night flare control.

Hardware

If you’re interested in the silicon case I got for my iPhone, it was $7 at Five Below. With a Magsafe magnet too. Tidy. 

The iPhone 17 Pro features three physical lenses on the back and one at the front. As I loathe taking selfies with the CenterStage Camera, we’re sticking to the ones on the back for this review.

They are:

• Fusion Main: 48MP, f/1.78, 24mm (wide)
• Fusion Ultrawide: 48MP, f/2.2, 13mm (ultrawide)
• Fusion Telephoto: 48MP, f/2.8, 100mm (periscope telephoto)

I’m not going into the eight lenses in three as Apple cites. That’s a bunch of whatsis, and we all know it. 

For my use, I chose the iPhone 17 Pro over the basic iPhone for one reason – the telephoto lens. Having extra throw in an all-in-one device is always helpful.

The Main and Ultrawide have been carried forward from the 16 Pro, with the 17 Pro having a 4x Zoom lens, with a 100mm equivalent, with different punch-ins using different parts of the sensors.

The front camera is the new “square” 18MP camera, which allows the camera to adjust portrait to landscape selfies. We’re not going to be looking at that, as I try to avoid selfies unless I have to take them these days.

All three of the back cameras have a 48 MegaPixel sensor underneath – but as we all know, MegaPixels mean nothing, it’s how the lens and the sensor combine along with the all-knowing software algorithm.

Software

Apple have fiddled with the iOS stack heavily with their new “Liquid design” interface, which looks like Apple took a look at Windows Vista Aero and thought “that’s a good idea”.

They’ve redesigned the camera app, so photo and video are the first two options available. You then have to swipe to expose other options (be it slow-motion mode, Cinematic Video, Portrait, etc.

I get the minimalism, but it is a step change away, where I could see the options straight away, rather than tapping and holding.  Like any camera, it takes time to get used to and learn how to control it.

In retrospect, buying a new phone the day before I travel is probably not my best idea. Still never mind

Thankfully, tools like ProCam, BlackMagic Camera and so on are still very viable options if you object to Apple’s Camera App.

So let’s work with what we’ve got. These photos were taken over a period of my trip, in various conditions. I’ll add colourful commentary and thoughts as I go along.

From wide to telephoto

With a 4x optical zoom with 8x punch-in, I’m expecting minor miracles. Here’s where I was at MicroCenter, somewhere near Logan Square, and I was aiming randomly at the John Hancock building in these photos. These are uncropped.

Ultrawide (.5)

1x

2x 

8x

Not a bad zoom range. Enough to do a bit of photography from the Hyatt Regency O’Hare, if I were desperate.

A Skywest CRJ – punched in at 8x zoom and cropped in a little.

Let’s use the thing. For reference, these are “straight out of the camera” JPEGs. I’d rather use a universal boomer file format that applications understand, rather than HEIF.

More steps when getting items to press or editing are sometimes unwelcome.

During this trip, I haven’t spent much time with Apple ProRAW – mainly as I was getting used to the camera. Who knows, another trip might come up for me to give it further testing.

Daylight

Even in times like there is always hope. The pink pops out here well.

Ornamental Cabbage is a thing I’ve always seen in Chicago. Why it is there, I do not know. 

Mostly in shadow, the Chicago L loop on this corner of Wabash and Lake. 

Chicago’s tall buildings can work in your favour if you want to add a halo around a building. 

2x zoon.

The juxtaposition of public transit and private cars dominates a city. This was shot with the 8x lens from Millennium Park. Not a bad throw at all 

The Monolith Awakens – I love how the sun is just peaking out of the top of the waterfall to light the glass “bricks”, whilst bringing the water into nice sharp brightness. 

Those LCD Displays in the fountains aren’t getting any younger. Although those faces are all frozen in time. 

Insert obligatory Cloud Gate photo here. The camera is working the flair ok… to a point. Look for a bright dot on the right next to a person’s head. 

You ever get the feeling…? 

Shot through the window on an L Train. The wooden entry/exit ways continue to fascinate me. 

Shadows and signs. 

Indoors

When shooting indoors, you are going to be leaning a little more on the image stabilisation and aperture of your lens, as there’s a lot less light to play with. That, or you’re going to need to hold your phone a little more still.

Although this coffee… thing in the Starbucks Reserve Roasty came out well.

Cheezeborger? No Pepsi! Coke! The Neon light pops in this dimly lit spot under North Michigan Avenue. 

Indoor/night shot can always be a challenge, be it a dive bar in a west end town or a pizza joint. 

Suburbia. 

All forms of transit. 

To the trains. 

This is Logan Square. This is a Blue Line Service to Forest Park and Downtown. 

Exit. Although I do wish the CTA would try painting their trains, rather than sticking with the corrugated steel look.

Rumbline away. 

Lens Flare/Refraction is still a problem for the iPhone (and it’s been like this since the iPhone 4. I do wish Apple could work the software a little better to account for it, because it can make some images look awful.

Yes, these are very unfair tests, but life isn’t fair.

You’ll see in these two photos that the four lights of the overhead overhead have magically appeared in an alien formation offset and to the left/right of the floodlight. In the past, these were very purple. These days, it’s more of the tone of the light.

For those of you going to ball games or anything that’s floodlit, be careful out there. You can try to change the angle at which you shoot, or use the cleanup tools in photos (and other tools), but refraction and iPhones continue to be an issue.

Overall

I’ve given it for a few generations since my last upgrade, as I was more than happy with the iPhone 14 Pro, so I was looking for some generational upgrades. For me, the Zoom function is a winner, with clear results at 8x, even if I needed to refocus more than once.

Apple’s processing pipelines continue to give images of a tone and science I like, without looking washed out – although the Liquid Glass implementation of the camera interface is far too minimalist for my liking, and more options exposed from the start would be good to see – and in futrue months, whilst I’ll use the basic camera for day-to-day stuff, for anthing that needs an iota of control, I’ll find another app.

Certainly, the iPhone remains a photography monster – but it’s sometimes held back by Apple’s own decisions, especially with their user-facing software.

Next:

Back to O’Hare T3. Unless I get bored tomorrow and write a food review briefly.

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