Zeche Zollverein Museum seen with the lens of the iPhone 16 Pro Max
Lately I visited, in my journey to test the iPhone 16 Pro Max as a replacement for my system cameras, the museum of the Zeche Zollverein (Ruhr Museum). The exhibition is in the surrounding of the old industrial halls where the coal washing has taken place. As you can see, you are entering the welcome hall which is almost at the top floor of the building by a very long red and orange lighting futuristic escalator. Also the stair ways to the other levels of this museum building are connected by a similar futuristic painted in light stairs. In the museum they show everything related to the location Zeche Zollverein. From archaeological findings of fossil plants and animals thousands of years old to many things that have been used during the normal life of the people working in that coal mine over many, many years. Over all I can only advice to visit that location where students and children’s below 25 can visit the museum for free.
From the photographical view, this museum is a challenge. Dark areas, strange light situations, reduced color in old machinery, and interesting lightning of many objects. A situation that can be managed with some experience very well with a modern digital system camera and the right lenses. The iPhone, from many people named a good weather click and run device, should not be the right camera for such a situation.
With out jumping to conclusions, this is WRONG! The pictures in the Gallery in this post are all taken with the new iPhone 16 Pro Max. I used the ProCamera App and have chosen 48 mega pixels resolution and saved the image data as ProRAW file. The Apple ProRAW files I have been processing with Lightroom. I did not use any AI tools or Filters Adobe offers in Lightroom but just worked with adjustment tools as Black Level, improving the lights, added some color intensity and dynamic and used the automatic lens correction setting. That’s it! Afterwards I exported the images to the JPG format to be used on my blog.
I do not know what your opinions are but I like the results very much. I am even sure it would match the results I would have got using my Fujifilm X-PRO3 and a 16mm (FF 24mm) lens.
The ProRAW data, in average 72mb big files, produced by the iPhone 16 Pro Max are proving that the sensor, lens and data processing has been optimized to a very high degree by Apple. Even the noise level in dark conditions, a difficulty for most small sensors in Smartphones and small compact cameras, is kept to a minimum. The development of the RAW picture data in Lightroom is asking only small adjustments to optimize e.g. the depth in the image by leveling the black level of the image and improving the lights. I can tell you a lot but have a close look to those fantastic results with many details, low noise and great sharpness.
I need to tell you I start to believe the iPhone 16 Pro Max will be a full replacement for my system camera. At least I am sure it will be for all my photography during my business trips and a lot of my street photography. More tests will follow soon. Stay tuned.