Genius or cheating: Chameleon Phone 16 camera can shoot like a Samsung, Pixel, and Xiaomi

Now, to be clear, Apple isn’t “collaborating” with anyone for the camera tuning of the iPhone 16 series – God forbid we saw anything other than Apple’s own logo on the back of the iPhone! But the idea of what Tim Cook & Co are going for is similar, or actually… even better.Long story short, Apple has taken the “Photographic Styles” it introduced a few years back, and made them actually useful. You no longer have to choose between four styles – you can now tweak the original output of the iPhone’s camera to take exactly the kind of photos you like.

We’re talking about being able to control the shadows, highlights, brightness, exposure, and colors to a level we haven’t even dreamed of. Apple took Xiaomi, Vivo, and OnePlus’ awesome camera tricks and made them even better.

In simple terms, you can have the equivalent for Xiaomi’s “Leica” style image processing on iPhone – but it’s even more powerful and flexible.

With iPhone 16, Apple gave up on deciding what kind of photos the iPhone camera should take – you have all the power now

Add to that the three new cameras in the smaller iPhone 16 Pro, and suddenly we have an exciting cameraphone for those who like taking photos with character but aren’t pro photographers.

Now, the choice is yours – do you want to use Apple’s default image tuning? Or do you want to go for something natural, or stylistic? The great news is that you can set up the Photographic Styles and switch between them as you wish. Or simply choose one and make it your default style, which means every photo you take will have a similar vibe – of course, this will vary depending on the scene.

For example, certain settings might work best for bright scenes, where the iPhone is usually known to make things too bright. In that case, dialling down the brightness and shadows could result in a more dramatic, more natural picture.

However, the same Photographic Style might make things too dark in low-light. Therefore, it’d be awesome if Apple’s planning to introduce a quick toggle, which lets you switch between at least two styles with just one tap on the screen, without having to go into the Photographic Styles menu at all.

Samsung and Google can’t compete with iPhone 16 in pro-grade flexibility when taking photos now – Apple’s Photographic Styles should come to video

All in all, I think it’s good to understand exactly what’s happening here.

With the powerful updates to the Photographic Styles on iPhone 16, which used to be pretty basic before, Apple gave up on deciding what kind of photos the iPhone camera should take.

Instead, you have all the power now, and you can make the photo output of your iPhone truly your own, and that’s a big statement from the same Apple known for making iPhone users settle for what Apple thinks is best.

As you can see in the photo from above (courtesy of SuperSaf), Apple’s default shooting mode can sometimes make darker skin tones appear quite muted. Just like Saf mentions in his evaluation, applying the “Amber” Photographic Style easily solves this, making the iPhone’s photo more similar to that of the Galaxy. But you can adjust the look even further if you wish.

Apple’s Photographic Styles are next-level stuff – they should come to video mode

If I have one “complaint”, it is that I’d love to see the same level of freedom in video mode. Of course, I know allowing such a level of editing in video mode would be way more challenging as it requires more processing power, but I’m sure Apple can eventually pull it off.

Usually, I find iPhone videos to be 20-30% brighter than they need to be, which is why I’ve set up the default exposure of my iPhone videos down to -0.3, which helps but it’s nowhere near the flexibility you now get in photo mode.

Lowering the shadows and making the highlight control a little less aggressive could bring the iPhone’s video way closer to that of a “DSLR” – at least in style.

I say… keep going, Apple! This is the level of flexibility a “Pro” phone deserves.