Apple iPhone 5S camera has bigger sensor, 120fps slow-mo capabilities

The iPhone 5S has been announced, and its bag of tricks includes a camera with a bigger sensor.

Or, more specifically, a larger sensor area that should help cut down noise. The megapixelage remains the same – 8MP – but it’s got a new five-element lens designed in-house at Apple. The aperture is f/2.2. There’s now automatic exposure adjustment in panorama mode, and a new flash tech called True Tone that claims to create more natural flesh tones. We’ll be papping some pasty tech journos very soon. If anything can make us look prettier, then it might well be worth the price of iPhone admission alone. 

Pressing and holding the capture button will get you a 10fps burst mode. No info was given about whether it’ll manage 10fps until you run out of storage, or whether there’s a limit. On the video side there’s a new 120fps mode that lets you create that epic slow-motion footage you’ve been dreaming about.

Rumours about hardware optical image stabilisation turned out to be unfounded, but it would have undoubtedly created an unslightly hump. And no-one wants that on their spanky new iPhone, do they? Instead the iPhone takes several photos each time you press the shutter button and composes what it thinks is the best image from various constituent parts. Sounds like a fudge, but we’ll reserve judgement until we can try it out in the wild.

We’ll be getting hands-on with the iPhone 5S – and its budget brother the iPhone 5C – shortly, so stay tuned for our first impressions. 

Fraser Macdonald consulting editor

About

Fraser used to wear a Psion Series 3 palmtop in a shoulder holster. Perhaps he still does.Either way, his lifelong mission - including fourteen years for Stuff - has been to see whether the consumer electronics industry can ever replicate that kind of cyborgian joy.So far: nope. Despite a plan to combine a action camera and Olympus Eye-Trek goggles to become Man Who Sees The Vision Of A Man Three Inches Taller Than Himself.He also likes mountain bikes, motorbikes, cars, helicopters. Still thinks virtual surround is witchcraft. Dislikes jetskis, despite never having been on one.