Despite being expensive, there are many reasons why people buy an iPhone. One of these reasons is the potential of its cameras especially when it comes to filmmaking. But how did the cameras of the iPhone 16 Pro Max fare? Despite being an improvement from its predecessor, it falls short of beating the Magic6 Pro in DxOMark’s tests.

Make no mistake: despite the iPhone 16 Pro Max only ranking fourth, DxOMark acknowledges its video recording capabilities. While it still does not have 8K video recording–where most premium flagships have it–the iPhone 16 Pro Max reigns supreme with the quality of its videos even at only 4K60 resolution. Aside from professional features like Apple Log and ProRes, the iPhone 16 Pro Max is a very powerful phone for videography. the broad set of tools found on the iPhone 16 Pro Max makes its cameras better than the Galaxy S24 Ultra even with photos.

This begs the question: what are the iPhone 16 Pro Max’s shortcomings that it wasn’t able to beat HONOR, Google, and HUAWEI in DxOMark’s rankings? It’s with its zooming capabilities: DxOMark noticed a drop in quality when using the zoom range between 2x and 5x. This is where both the Pura 70 Ultra and Magic6 Pro have an advantage, as their zooming capabilities remain among the best with smartphones.

While the iPhone 16 Pro Max remains almost similar to its predecessor, the addition of several features like camera control makes it a more versatile tool for serious filmmaking.