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11 years. That's exactly how much they are apart iPhone 5 to 15 ProWhile the first was released in 2012, the second only had its premiere at the recent Keynote. And because I have iPhone 5 still at home as a memory of my student years and at the same time as my probably most favorite iPhone years ago, I took it with me on one of our autumn walks around the area and tried to take a few pictures of it for comparison with iPhonem 15 Pro, which I currently use as my main phone. So how did this "fight" between the old man and the young man turn out? You can see it in the photos below, which are accompanied by a short commentary and a reminder of the technical specifications of both devices. However, keep in mind that this photo test is not intended to directly compare the photos and show how they are iPhone 15 Pro amazing compared to the "five", but rather to show what we took as the gold standard years ago and what technological progress can be achieved in 11 years.

iPhone 5 vs iPhone 15 Pro 2

Before you start looking at a few of the photos you took, you might want to take a quick look at the technical specifications of the iPhone 5 and 15. Pro. The first one was released in 2012, was powered by the A6 chip along with 1GB of RAM and took pictures with an 8MPx wide-angle lens with an aperture of f/2,4 and a focal length of 33 mm. The sensor size of its lens is 1/3.2″, and the smaller the number after the slash, the better. As for the iPhone 15 Pro, which came out this year, is powered by the A17 chipset Pro along with 8GB of RAM and its main camera, which I used to take the pictures below, is a 48MPx wide-angle lens with an aperture of f/1,78 and a default focal length of 24 mm. The sensor size of this lens is 1/1.28″. The focal length of the wide-angle lens can also be set to 28 and 35 mm, however, all photos were taken at the default 24 mm. It is precisely because of the different default focal length that the photos from the iPhone 5 and 15 are Pro even differently zoomed in, where the images from the iPhone 5 are "closer".  You can see the comparison below. 

cows on hill cows on hill
Photo from iPhone 5
cows on hill cows on hill
Photo from iPhone 15 Pro
green field under cloudy sky green field under cloudy sky
Photo from iPhone 5
green field under clouds green field under clouds
Photo from iPhone 15 Pro
sunset over field sunset over field
Photo from iPhone 5
green field with trees green field with trees
Photo from iPhone 15 Pro
person standing on road person standing on road
Photo from iPhone 5
person standing on road person standing on road
Photo from iPhone 15 Pro
green field with hills green field with hills
Photo from iPhone 5
green field with hills green field with hills
Photo from iPhone 15 Pro
sunset over field sunset over field
Photo from iPhone 5
sunset over field sunset over field
Photo from iPhone 15 Pro
pond with trees reflection pond with trees reflection
Photo from iPhone 5
pond with trees reflection pond with trees reflection
Photo from iPhone 15 Pro

As you can see in the photos, the difference of a good 11 years is really extreme. The photos from the "five" are significantly darker due to the smaller sensor and therefore lower light output, and at the same time, much less detail is visible in them. Just for fun, the photos were taken on Sunday, November 12th in the afternoon in relatively good weather, which you can also see in the photos from the iPhone 15 Pro. Despite the abundance of light, however iPhone 5 made most of the images unnaturally dark.

 

It is also worth noting, in my opinion, how well today's iPhones handle shooting against the sun, and how poorly they did years ago. While it is now possible to take really beautiful pictures against the sun with effective lighting elements, in the past, shooting against the sun was clearly a guarantee of "poor quality". However, as I wrote above, when I iPhone 5 a good 10 years ago, I found its camera absolutely perfect and I didn't notice any negatives. And now? One is almost amazed at how limited the photography capabilities of mobile phones were back then.

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