I tried the iPhone 16 Pro on safari – now I want one for the huge camera upgrade

Look, I’m not trying to be one of those people who go on safari and then won’t talk about anything else... but I just went on safari and it was upsettingly good. I saw amazing animals, marvelled at them through binoculars, and then struggled to take shots of them with my phone – as anyone who doesn’t own one of the best DSLR cameras on the market would.

I’ve got an iPhone 15 Pro as my personal handset, so I’m not exactly playing with a years-old device – but even with its creditable three-times zoom and solid low-light software, I sometimes struggled to avoid grainy shots. Halfway through one of the safari drives I went on, though, someone passed me their iPhone 16 Pro to get a better angle – and from then on I couldn’t find enough excuses to get my hands on it.

A new zoom lens for your iPhone

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When Apple unveiled the iPhone 16 Pro I can't say I was blown away – the annual best iPhone refresh is often interesting specs-wise, but without much of a design change I didn’t see fit to sanction an expensive upgrade this year. Little did I realise how big a simple jump from 3x to 5x zoom would feel in the hand, though.

If you wanted to design an experience to demonstrate the benefits of better zoom, safari would be pretty perfect. While sometimes you’re close enough to smell a lion’s breath, you’re just as often squinting – which means the boosted zoom can be the difference between a superb photo and a grainy mess that can only serve as a memory aid.

Take the Martial Eagle perched in the first photo above – it’s clear enough that I’ll remember the moment easily, but there’s unmistakable grain there, too. If that were on the iPhone 16 Pro, I think you’d be able to tell, and I'd be able to get way closer. Tap through to the next and you’ll see a distant giraffe (I promise you there’s a chilled-out lion cropped out of the bottom of the portrait photo) that would be far easier to get a proper look at with that same boosted zoom.

Camera control enriches the iPhone

The one major design change for the iPhone 16 lineup is the Camera Control, and it too didn’t seem like a handset-seller to me. In fairness, unlike that zoom, I still feel fine living without it.

That said, for those upgrading it’s a welcome bonus that doesn’t have any downsides, and it did make it easier to take shots in some situations. In my case, it’d also free up my action button, which I currently use as a shortcut to open the camera, and there’s nothing like a new button to play with in your setup.

Being able to swap between photographic styles might come in handy if you find one that really vibes with you, but swiping to zoom in and out was the more natural and satisfying factor in my experience. Whether it's so much easier than pinching to zoom might come down to your attitude, but I'm far less suspicious of it – having now used it.

Apple’s photo processing remains top-tier

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The seemingly invincible adapted Toyota Land Cruisers we rode around in were bumpy, to say the least, and while the best animal sightings involved coming to a standstill, sometimes it would be more of a moving situation. That often meant snapping photos without much of an eye on your phone screen and hoping for the best.

Using both the iPhone 16 Pro and 15 Pro in that way was a reminder of just how ridiculously reliable Apple’s photo processing is nowadays. With Live mode on to capture a few more frames, it was a daily occurrence to check out my camera roll after a drive and marvel at the quality of shots that I’d assumed would be blurry messes. We’re living in a long golden age of mobile photography, people!

iPhone video quality remains a strong point

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Photos are great, but when you use an iPhone to take video throughout a holiday it really bumps things up to another level. Do those 4K 60fps files squat on a decent chunk of storage space? Yep, for sure, but they’re worth it. The clarity on offer is just silly at times, ticking that “does real life even look this good?” box. AirPlaying them to my LG OLED TV makes it all the more impressive.

When you add 5x zoom into that mix, you get a camera that can really do whatever you want, smoothly zooming in and out of distant views without breaking a sweat. It really makes the case for the 16 Pro as the best iPhone ever, to be frank. Whether I can stomach the outlay to upgrade now that I've missed my shot at some better safari pics is something I'm going to mull over for a little while, now...