Wesley's Tool-Box

I went to San Francisco to pick up my iPhone 15 Pro on the launch day, September 22, 2023. The primary advantages of this model over the previous ones are USB-C support and reduced weight. Unless you were getting a Pro Max version, the camera on the Pro series did not get much of a hardware improvement. So when I decided to do some comparison shots with the Harvest Moon photography during the Chuseok holidays, I chose some older models - iPhone 11 Pro and iPhone 13 Pro.

There were expectedly some notable quality differences between the three models. While iPhone 11 Pro does have a three-lens setup like the rest, the telephoto lens is only capable of 2x zoom. As a result, the size of the Moon in the photo was the smallest and least detailed. Both iPhone 13 Pro and 15 Pro have the 3x zoom lens on them, but for some reason the 15 Pro shot a consistently sharper image. Perhaps a slight hardware and software processing differences were at play. In the end, the latest was indeed the best.

Further details of the shooting sessions have been outlined in a separate video.

This year's lunar eclipse was a long one, with the added bonus of having Uranus occulted by the Moon during the totality. This doesn't happen very often, and the next one is supposedly more than 200 years away. So I prepared my equipment and observed the progress at a good spot near home.

I did have some difficulties during the 4-hour session, as one camera battery couldn't last that long and dew was building up on the lens after 9 PM. But using a camera with a powerful zoom worked great for capturing the Uranus approaching and then hiding behind the Moon. It was literally a once-in-a-lifetime observation.

Device: Nikon P1000
Settings: 1500mm - f/6.3 (ISO 800 to 1600 / 1/3 to 1/250s)
Filters: None
Time: 2022-11-08 18:07 - 21:40 KST
Location: Naju, Korea