TL; DR
- Apple brings new professional camera controls to iPhone 18 Pro models, including shutter speed, white balance, aperture, and histogram.
- The new 48-megapixel main camera has a physically variable aperture, with four manual settings from f/1.48 to f/4.
- Similar professional camera controls already exist on Android, and Samsung introduced physical aperture controls in 2018.
The iPhone has long been one of the best phones for photography, but Apple hasn’t given the same freedom to adventurous photographers as some of its Android competitors. That looks set to change with the iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max, which finally bring a more comprehensive set of manual camera controls.
Apple announced two phones todayFeatures a new customizable Pro control interface in the Camera app. It lets you manually adjust settings including shutter speed, white balance and lens aperture, and the histogram can be used to check exposure levels across the scene.
