I tested the iPhone 16 Pro at a soccer match, and its night photography amazed me

Back in June, I switched from an iPhone 15 Pro to an iPhone 15 and immediately lamented the loss of the former’s 12MP telephoto camera. I wrote at the time: “As soon as I get the chance to return to the iPhone 15 Pro, I’ll be tossing the standard iPhone 15 back in the TechRadar sample cupboard faster than you can say ‘Tim Cook.’” The iPhone 15 is not a bad phone, by any means – heck, it still ranks as the best-value pick on our best iPhones list – but it’s a helluva lot easier to make pretty Instagram stories when you’ve got a telephoto lens in your pocket, trust me.

Five months later, I still haven’t swapped back to the iPhone 15 Pro, but I have been lucky enough to sample the newly released iPhone 16 Pro, which shares 5x optical zoom powers (aka Apple’s ‘Tetraprism’ lens) with the iPhone 16 Pro Max and is an even better Instagram story-snapper than its predecessor. In fact, I’d go as far as to say that the iPhone 16 Pro is the best camera phone I’ve ever used – all it took was a trip to Stamford Bridge (the home of my beloved Chelsea FC) to make me realize that.

Apple has damn near perfected nightography with the iPhone 16 Pro. In low-light situations, Night mode turns on automatically, and when combined with the telephoto lens at 5x zoom – or indeed a cropped version of the 48MP main lens at shorter distances – the results can be awe-inspiring. The below photos were shot using HDR, so what you see may vary depending on your device’s display, but hopefully, you can visualize just how well the iPhone 16 Pro reckons with the challenges of light in difficult scenarios.

At least to my eyes, the iPhone 16 Pro accurately recreates the glare of the stadium lights while also painting details that might otherwise be lost to nighttime shadow. I tend to manually lower the exposure when taking pictures in well-lit scenarios, which explains why these images might appear dark to some (I like it that way), but I think doing so really enriches tones and texture. The darks are dark and the lights are light.

Most of the above shots were actually captured using the iPhone 16 Pro’s main camera at 2x zoom, which crops to 12MP (rather than 48MP) when used like a telephoto lens. Apple calls this the ‘Fusion’ camera on the iPhone 16 Pro, but both the iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro can perform the same pixel-cropping trick, so it’s not strictly ‘new’.

What is new on the iPhone 16 Pro is its 48MP ultra-wide lens, which marks an upgrade on the iPhone 15 Pro’s 12MP ultra-wide (a 4x resolution improvement, no less). I haven’t had a chance to put this new camera to the test just yet, but in his iPhone 16 Pro Max review, TechRadar’s Editor at Large, Lance Ulanoff, noted that the improved megapixel count for the ultra-wide lens “has a measurable impact on macro quality.” Nice work, Apple.

As if I needed more convincing, images shared to X by camera app developer Sebastiaan de With showcase the level of detail achievable with the iPhone 16 Pro’s ultra-wide lens – “it’s legit great,” de With writes – so I’m excited to take it for a spin in the coming months.

The bottom line is this: the iPhone 16 Pro is a photography powerhouse. There’s no longer a distinction between the camera capabilities of Apple’s latest Pro iPhones, meaning you can access Pro Max-level quality in a (slightly) more affordable and (arguably) more palm-friendly package.

I, for one, will be clinging to my iPhone 16 Pro sample like a koala to a tree – if you’re reading this, manager, don’t send me back to the iPhone 15! – but when I do eventually have to surrender my arms, I’ll rest easy in the knowledge that I snapped some damn good Instagram stories.