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How to activate macro mode on iPhone 13 Pro? HeyPhone 13 Pro and Pro Max have excellent cameras, some of the best you can buy on a phone. They also have a unique new feature that Apple has never offered before: a macro mode that lets you take close-ups – from just two inches away! – of complex things that you can barely see with the naked eye. Your pet's incredibly fine fur, leaf veins and subpixels on your computer monitor screen are now at your fingertips.
But Apple doesn't offer a button of Macro mode itself – it is automatic. When you place the phone within 10cm of an object, it automatically switches to the ultra-wide lens, which some users found jarring enough that Apple now lets you turn off automatic macro switching in iOS 15.1.
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But if you do that and then manually switch to the ultrawide lens, you won't get that close by default. Here is a full resolution example:
So how do you actually use macro mode?
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HOW TO USE MACRO MODE ON IPHONE 13 PRO
Again, it's automatic. You don't need to look for a button, you just need to get close. Open the camera app and get very, very close to what you want to photograph – so close that it becomes blurry. Then slowly back away until it looks sharp. If you want to be extra sure, pull back just enough for the autofocus (yellow square) to activate.
Hold yourself incredibly still at that distance (two hands are good, armed is better, tripod is probably best!) and take the photo. If you're shooting handheld, you might want to take a few more to pick out the brightest – at this distance, any amount of movement can result in blur.
And that! Unless you've turned off your phone's automatic macro mode, of course.
HOW TO TURN OFF (AND ON) AUTOMATIC LENS SWITCHING ON IPHONE 13 PRO
I hate how yours iPhone 13 Pro or does Pro Max automatically switch from the normal (very good) lens when you get too close? You can now turn it on and off starting with iOS 15.1.
Open the application settings , go to Camera and scroll to the bottom to find Auto macro . Disable this option to disable switching.
How to activate iPhone 13 Pro macro mode manually
Hopefully Apple will add a manual button soon, in the same way you can manually jump to the ultrawide camera by tapping “0.5” or the zoom lens by tapping “3” (unless it's very dark). In the meantime, you can still take macro photos with Auto Macro turned off – they won't necessarily be as close.
Switch to your ultrawide lens and follow the same instructions as before: get close, move away, stay still. Autofocus will still kick in, but not as close as in auto macro mode.
But you can also trick the iPhone 13 Pro and Pro Max into giving almost as good results if you just zoom in. Apple told The Verge that its auto macro mode is effectively cropping 3 megapixels from the 12 megapixel image, which is then upscaled to 12 megapixels once again, with a bit of additional processing on top. So if you want to emulate the same jump from a 13mm equivalent field of view to a 26mm equivalent field of view, just hold down the 0.5x button and drag the zoom wheel for about 0.9x magnification.
Here are three photos of a bamboo roller coaster I caught on Maui with burnt wood letters, taken as close as I could. The first is an auto macro photo, the second a 0.5x photo that I cropped to about 0.9x on my Windows PC, and the third photo at 0.9x magnification on the iPhone itself. They're almost the same, right? I think the auto macro looks sharper with Apple's processing on top, but none of them are great and they're all fine.
