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Apple’s Newest Phone Is Worth It…for Photographers

How to take great pictures of the Moon with the iPhone 12 Pro Max

Lance Ulanoff
Debugger
3 min readDec 3, 2020

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I took this photo with an iPhone 12 Pro Max. Photos courtesy of the author

Padding down my steps one morning, I noticed the brightly lit reflection of my casement windows on the den floor. It was before sunrise and I quickly surmised that this was sunlight streaming through my window.

Approaching the windows, I could see the Waning Gibbous Moon still high in the crystal-clear sky. I grabbed my DSLR and shot a few photos of it from the vantage point of my window. My 200 mm lens lets me get quite close, but I also tried to get a shot that captured the window frame and put Earth’s satellite in context. The shots came out well and I shared them on Instagram.

Less than an hour later, I glanced out at the now bright blue sky and noticed that the moon was still clearly visible. I had another idea for a photo, but this time I grabbed Apple’s new iPhone 12 Pro Max. It has a 2.5x optical zoom which is no match for my big lens, but I still thought I could do something interesting.

I stepped out into the brisk autumn air, positioned myself behind one of my small backyard trees, and then tried to frame the moon behind some of the leafless branches.

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Lance Ulanoff
Lance Ulanoff

Written by Lance Ulanoff

Tech expert, journalist, social media commentator, amateur cartoonist and robotics fan.

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