Camera test: iPhone 17 vs iPhone Air vs iPhone 17 Pro Max

Apple‘S iPhone setup has never been so diverse. You have four new phones on offer: iPhone 17, iPhone Air, iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max – with very different designs, sizes, colors, battery sizes and camera systems.

And yet it feels like the iPhone 17 has been upgraded to the point where it’s a very good option for many buyers; it finally has a 120Hz display, battery life has been significantly improved and, like the other devices, it starts with 256GB of storage. The iPhone Airon the other hand, has the same chip and screen size as the iPhone 17 Pro, but only one camera on the back.

This is why for many potential buyers the choice will come down to the cameras. Apple has been hyping the iPhone Air’s single camera as a multi-camera system in one, but does it really compare to the other iPhones, let alone camera powerhouses like the Google Pixel 10 Pro? And is the iPhone 17’s camera system just as good as that of the Pro models, just without zoom, or is it noticeably weaker in other areas?

Let’s get started and compare some photos to answer all your questions.

Camera shot: daylight

I’m happy to report that all three cameras capture beautifully detailed images with accurate colors in daylight. Increase the megapixel count to 48 if you want more detail, but only do this if the lighting conditions are just right.

TL:DR: A three-way tie.

Camera shootout: zoom

There’s no real competition here: the iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max have a telephoto camera with a 4x optical zoom, while the iPhone 17 and iPhone Air simply don’t have that lens. Still, you can zoom in on all three phones (yes, even beyond the standard 2x), as Apple takes the zoomed-out photo from the larger 48-megapixel shot.

As you can see above, without the dedicated telephoto camera, the photos simply can’t match the level of detail of the iPhone 17 Pro Max, especially at 8x magnification. Interestingly, I got slightly better results with the iPhone Air than the iPhone 17. This was fairly consistent across different setups and zoom levels, indicating that the Air has a better main camera overall than the iPhone 17.

TL;DR: The iPhone 17 Pro Max wins in this category, which is no surprise. What is a surprise? The iPhone Air beat the iPhone 17.

Mashable speed of light

Camera shootout: ultra-wide

Only the iPhone 17 Pro Max and the iPhone 17 have the ultra-wide camera; the iPhone Air doesn’t even have the option to zoom out past the default setting, 1x. On both the iPhone 17 and iPhone 17 Pro Max, the ultra-wide angle produces significantly blurrier photos than the wonderfully sharp main shooter, so I recommend avoiding it. However, sometimes you just have to use it – usually when you need to fit a large group of people within the frame – and then this option is great to have, photo quality be damned.

TL;DR: The iPhone 17 and iPhone 17 Pro Max have a decent but not great ultrawide camera; the Air misses this completely.

Camera shootout: low light

I was particularly interested in the low-light performance, as this is where you can really see if the iPhone 17 and iPhone Air can hold their own against the Pro Max’s powerful main camera. I’m happy to report that nighttime photos turned out about the same whether I was using the iPhone 17, iPhone Air, or iPhone 17 Pro Max.

TL;DR: All three phones took low-light photos of about the same quality.

Camera shootout: macro

This test may be unfair to the iPhone Air, which doesn’t have a dedicated macro mode. But it’s still worth comparing the results, just to show how better the other two phones are when it comes to this particular type of photography.

The iPhone 17 and iPhone 17 Pro Max automatically switched to macro mode when I got close to the flower, and both captured a beautiful, detailed macro photo with vibrant colors. With the iPhone Air, getting that close would only result in a blurry photo, so I used the 2x zoom option to get some more detail out of the flower. It’s not bad, but it also doesn’t come close to the quality of the other two photos when it comes to details. Additionally, the iPhone Air decided to blur the background, leaving me with a portrait photo; it’s not bad, but not exactly what I needed here.

TL;DR: The iPhone 17 and iPhone 17 Pro Max excel at macro photography; the iPhone Air doesn’t even have a macro mode.

Camera shootout: selfie

On paper, all three cameras should be the same, and judging by the selfies I’ve taken, they pretty much are. I’ve taken a number of selfies with all three phones and they’re always lifelike, with accurate colors and plenty of detail. Here I chose a portrait selfie that looked very similar on all three phones.

TL;DR: A three-way tie.

The iPhone 17 vs. the iPhone Air vs. the iPhone 17 Pro Max: Which is Best for Photography?

The good news is that the main camera on all three phones is very similar, and the iPhone Air performed much better than I expected. For your regular daylight photos, as well as low-light shots, nature shots and selfies, you can choose any of these phones and be satisfied.

Being able to zoom out and in (especially in) makes a difference in photography. Plus, the iPhone 17 Pro Max’s video capabilities are truly professional quality, compared to the more basic (but still very good) video recording you get on the other two phones. If you like to tinker with settings, need a lot of storage space for videos (the iPhone 17 Pro Max goes up to 2TB) and use zoom a lot, then the iPhone 17 Pro Max is a must.

How we tested

The rules of this competition were simple. I took photos with all three phones in a variety of scenarios, doing my best to use similar settings and take the photo from the exact same position. Then I uploaded the photos to my computer to see how different they looked. In this article I’ve used cropped details from each set of photos to highlight the differences between each phone.

This is not a perfect test. Sometimes you get a bad (or surprisingly good) photo for no apparent reason. I took several sets of photos in each scenario to confirm that the differences I saw were real, but for the purposes of this article I only used one set of photos for each scenario.