The iPhone 12 Pro and iPhone 12 Pro Max are both great smartphones by Apple. However, the 12 Pro Max has a slightly higher spec camera than the 12 Pro, and it is becoming clear that there are some important performance differences between the two.

As developer Sebastiaan de With noted on the Halide blog, there is not much difference between the iPhone 12 Pro and Pro Max in normal daylight photography. In low light, however, the difference becomes more apparent.

The main lens of the iPhone 12 Pro Max has the same 12MP f/1.6 aperture as the iPhone 12 Pro, but the sensor is 47% larger. It also features sensor-shift image stabilization, which allows the entire lens to move to compensate for camera shake when taking pictures or shooting video. In comparison, the iPhone 12 Pro only uses standard optical image stabilization.

This means that the iPhone 12 Pro Max can capture more detail in low-light scenes; Sebastiaan de With demonstrated how the 12 Pro Max captures more detail in a city scene as the sun sets.

While the difference is night and day, a comparison between the iPhone 12 Pro and iPhone 12 Pro Max showed that the 12 Pro Max had better texture and detail, and was in focus even in low-light photos.

The iPhone 12 Pro Max also uses a system that blends a wide-angle lens with a 2.5x optical zoom of a 65mm focal length telephoto lens to achieve a 5x optical zoom range. In contrast, the iPhone 12 Pro has 2x optical zoom. Naturally, this allows users to get closer to their subjects without encountering the distortion and loss of detail of digital zoom.

The Halide blog points out that the 12 Pro Max's telephoto lens has an aperture of f/2.2, which is smaller than the f/2.0 of the 12 Pro telephoto camera. This means that zoom photos taken in low light might suffer a bit on the 12 Pro Max, but our tests have not found this to be the case.

Thus, if you want the best in Apple smartphone photography, and indeed, if you want one of the best camera phones overall, the iPhone 12 Pro Max is the phone to get.

However, at a starting price of $1,099, it's hardly cheap, and it's $100 more than the $999 iPhone 12 Pro. You'll have to weigh whether the larger 6.7-inch OLED display, bigger battery, and slightly better camera are worth the splurge.