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DaveTheRave

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
May 22, 2003
790
385
I recently upgraded from a 6s to the 13. The improvements in the selfie cam and the main back camera are great. But the ultra-wide shots seem off. Part of the image on the side seem slightly stretched. I have no use for this second camera and don’t see what the point of it is. What am I missing? What is your use case for the ultra wide camera?
 

turbineseaplane

macrumors P6
Mar 19, 2008
15,285
32,968
I had a 13 Mini for a bit, and my wife still does, and I had the same sort of "what is this really useful for" feeling about the wide angle lens.

I honestly think a telephoto would have been more useful for the 2nd lens on the normal 13's

I'm guessing Apple has data or usages in mind that disagree with me.
I'm curious to hear what folks here say.
 

jav6454

macrumors Core
Nov 14, 2007
22,303
6,258
1 Geostationary Tower Plaza
I use Ultra-Wide to try and capture more of the background. For example, last year I was at Niagara Falls and using Ultra Wide I was able to capture my family and more of the falls.
 

skyhawkmatthew

macrumors regular
Oct 1, 2007
241
276
Australia
I use it quite a bit to capture broad landscapes when hiking. It offers a different perspective than a panorama might. It’s also a fun compositional tool closer in too. If they’re only going to have two lenses, it makes sense to have the UW and standard: you can always crop in but not out (and as has been well documented, often even on telephoto equipped models the system uses a crop from the standard lens anyway).
 

DaveTheRave

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
May 22, 2003
790
385
I use it quite a bit to capture broad landscapes when hiking. It offers a different perspective than a panorama might. It’s also a fun compositional tool closer in too. If they’re only going to have two lenses, it makes sense to have the UW and standard: you can always crop in but not out (and as has been well documented, often even on telephoto equipped models the system uses a crop from the standard lens anyway).
Aah I see. You crop out the weird stretched parts on the side.
 

skyhawkmatthew

macrumors regular
Oct 1, 2007
241
276
Australia
Aah I see. You crop out the weird stretched parts on the side.
No. What I meant is you can get the effect of the telephoto (or near enough) by cropping the normal lens.

The distortion around the edges of the ultra-wide is part of the point of the lens. That’s the “look”. I like it.
 

Mark Stone

macrumors 6502
Mar 20, 2022
497
551
In its case.
I use it to photograph wider buildings for my website (link in sig). Also, the regular lens on the 13 will not focus if the object is only a inch or so from what you want to photograph - for example, a label on a vitamin jar; but the ultra-wide will.
 

caelius

macrumors 6502
Dec 31, 2015
368
384
Innsbruck, Austria
I absolutely loved the UW camera on my 12P at first because it allows for some stunning landscape and great groups shots but the overall image quality and the distortion at the edges is just too bad most of the time unfortunately.
 
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