The iPhone 11 is an ideal phone for a photographer
When I first got the phones, I thought the new ultrawide-angle camera might be more of a gimmick. But I later became a fan of how it can show more of a scene in my frame. For example, I was at O'Hare airport in Chicago and wanted to take a photo of a dinosaur skeleton wearing a Bears jersey. I couldn't get the whole dino in frame with the main camera, but when I switched to the ultrawide angle camera, the entire skeleton fit into my photo. (For the record, I'm not a Bears fan.)
I also like how the ultrawide-angle camera challenges me creatively. I have to hold the phone differently to avoid getting my fingers in pictures. Also, the ridiculously wide field of view distorts shapes and forces me to find interesting ways to frame my subject. For example in the picture below of the Milwaukee Art Museum, I was able to find an angle that exaggerated the building's curved lines to make them look even more dramatic.
The new phones also have Deep Fusion, which is a new processing technique that makes photos taken under medium-to-low light sharper with less image noise. It offers improvements, albeit subtle ones, for photos taken indoors and with the Pro's telephoto camera. Look at the pictures below of a pay phone I took in a dimly lit subway station. One is taken with the iPhone 11 equipped with Deep Fusion and the other with the iPhone XR. The iPhone 11 photo is sharper and has less image noise and less noise reduction blur. The best way to think about Deep Fusion is not to think about it and just let the iPhone do its thing.
When I first got the 11 and 11 Pro, I tested Night Mode out heavily. It's absolutely impressive how it can seemingly see in the dark. I like that it just starts working. I don't have to think about toggling on a button or changing a camera mode. While some might like having more control over Night Mode, I like just being able to take a photo. Check out the Night Mode photo below of the Chicago Water Tower.
The iPhone 11 Pro and 11 Pro Max have a third telephoto camera and the iPhone 11 doesn't. For the most part, when I was using the 11, I didn't miss having a dedicated telephoto camera. If I needed to zoom in on a photo, a 2x crop of a picture taken with the main camera worked fine. With the Pro models, it was nice being able to switch to the telephoto camera. And compared with the XS, the updated telephoto camera on the 11 Pro combined with Deep Fusion processing had better image quality. But having the telephoto camera on the Pro models is a bit like the famous scene from This Is Spinal Tap when Nigel Tufnel explains how the dials on his amp go to 11. "If we need that extra push over the cliff, know what we do? 11. Exactly. One louder."
The selfie camera is a welcome upgrade. I can really notice the improvements when shooting videos. Colors, especially skin tones, look more flattering, objects and faces are sharper and have better contrast.
Video capture is one area Apple is consistently ahead of its competitors. Extended dynamic range, which is kind of like HDR for videos, now works across all 4K frame rates, meaning I can record 4K video at 60 frames per second of a scene with really bright and really dark areas. It's kind of amazing how Apple is able to get that kind of image quality from such a tiny image sensor. It's also fun to be able to record video with that ultrawide-angle camera, especially the way camera movements become operatic in scope. Also, I like that I can finally change the video resolution and frame rate straight from the Camera app instead of having to dive into Settings.
One criticism, however, is that in low light, videos suffer from image noise and heavy noise reduction smear. Most other phones struggle with this though.