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I would like to know what the equivalent focal lengths are when in digital zoom on an iPhone 13 Max Pro – greater than 3X to 15X.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ I can't answer specifically, but an idea: take some photos and examine the meta data, with most cameras the focal length is listed. \$\endgroup\$
    – Digital Lightcraft
    Mar 9, 2022 at 9:33

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The equivalent focal lengths of the three cameras in the iPhone 13 Pro Max are:

  • [ultrawide] 13mm [1/3.4" sensor, 8.18x crop, so really a 1.5mm lens]
  • [primary] 26mm [1/1.65" sensor, 4.46x crop, so really a 5.8mm lens]
  • [tele] 77mm [1/3.4" sensor, 8.18x crop, so really a 9.4mm lens]

I referred to this dpreview article for the sensor sizes and equivalent focal lengths; and this chart to help calculate the crop factors.

The optical zoom factors are all calculated relative to the primary camera:

  • 13mm/26 = 0.5x
  • 26mm/26 = 1x
  • 77m/26 ≅ 3x

so just take the zoom factor, multiply it by 26mm and you'll get the equivalent FoV focal length. E.g., 15x26mm = 390mm.

But, of course, digital zooming is really just cropping and upscaling, so it's not really equivalent to using a different focal length. See also: What is crop factor and how does it relate to focal length?

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