Photographer Austin Mann puts the iPhone 14 Pro through its paces

As is tradition, travel photographer Austin Mann has provided a first look at what the iPhone 14 Pro can do in the hands of a skilled photographer.

This year, Mann has headed to the Scottish Highlands to test out the cameras in the new iPhone 14 Pro, showing off the results on his blog.

Mann is quick to praise the new iPhone's new 48MP resolution, allowing him to crop his images to help draw viewers' attention where he wants.

He also notes that if your ultimate goal is to print photos, the 48MP resolution offers significantly more flexibility for large format prints.

Image Credit: Austin Mann

Even though he praised the 48-megapixel option, Mann notes that he still shoots many of his pictures with ProRAW at 12 megapixels.

"12 megapixels is still where the camera really shines — it's lightning fast, it's the same resolution across all lenses, and it's fantastic in low light."

As it turns out, it also preserves battery life and saves storage space on both the iPhone and iCloud.

Mann also points out that the quad-pixels and low-light settings keep image grain smoother and detail sharper. As a result, he saw a "modest but noticeable improvement in detail" between the iPhone 13 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Night mode shots.

Image Credit: Austin Mann

The photographer also tested the iPhone 14 Pro's new Action mode. He was impressed with the feature but notes that it needs quite a bit of light to work. For example, he found that he could not use Action mode indoors in an airport as there was not enough light.

He also reminds readers that the field-of-view crop is significant, as it tends to be with software-based stabilization.

As a frequent traveler, Mann had thoughts on the upcoming SOS Satellite Emergency feature. He currently pays $30 per month for a Garmin inReach MINI satellite phone and is happy to see that the iPhone 14 Pro will offer satellite emergency features in the future.

However, he's concerned about the practicality of eSIM-only iPhones. Currently, when traveling, Mann uses local SIM cards that he swaps in and out of his phone. This provides cheap and easy communication in-country. By ditching the physical SIM card slot, Apple has eliminated this option.

He points out that Apple says you can use eSIM to get an in-country line sorted ahead of travel, but hasn't had enough time to sort out the process.

Mann has also reviewed the iPhone 13 Pro in 2021 when he traveled to Tanzania.

In 2020, he took the iPhone 12 Pro to Glacier National Park in Montana.