We are in the midst of a film camera resurgence right now, with some professionals jumping back to shooting with analog cameras, the Gen Z crowd lining up to buy the Fujifilm X100 VI, and most of the best Android phone cameras partnering with legacy imaging brands to produce images that appear more film-like. Iconic Germany camera maker Leica, which already has a partnership with Xiaomi to make a co-branded phone, is now bringing that Leica film look to the iPhone courtesy of its Leica Lux app. I have been a fan of the Leica look — consisting of shots with darker shadows, more drastic contrast, and a slight bit of grain — ever since the first Xiaomi-Leica collab phone two years ago. So I was very interested to see if the app can fix what has been one of my complaints about the iPhone 15 Pro Max cameras — that its images tend to appear too digital and flat.

And of course, since I have the latest Xiaomi-Leica flagship, the 14 Ultra, I decided to snap some side-by-side photos to see if the Leica Lux app can improve the iPhone 15 Pro Max cameras enough to close the gap against the Xiaomi 14 Ultra, which won a head-to-head camera shootout I did a few months ago.

What is the Leica Lux app?

The Leica Lux app is a "freemium" app available to download on the iOS app store for iPhones running iOS 17.2 or later. "Freemium" means the app is free to download and use, but you will need to pay a subscription fee of either $7 per month or $70 a year to use all of its features, which I'll explain in a moment below. The app can shoot in either automatic mode with a series of Leica film simulations (officially named "Leica Looks"), or "Aperture" mode, which uses digitally-generated bokeh and digital crop to mimic the style of images snapped with official Leica Summilux camera lenses.

The free version of Leica Lux offers five Leica film simulations and one lens simulation. If you pay the subscription fee, then you get all 11 Leica film simulations, all four Leica lens simulations, and the ability to get a focus peaking graph.

The Leica Lux UI

The app's default UI interface is very minimal, as can be seen in the image above (it's the middle of the three screenshots). The viewfinder takes up roughly 60% of the screen, with the bottom third and top forehead bit in black. There's a white camera shutter button, and above it is an exposure compensation dial and a single focal length designation. If you want to switch lenses, you have to tap on the focal length designation, after which options to select more focal lengths appear. This means you have to do an extra step before you can switch lenses compared to the native iPhone camera app, which has four focal lengths (0.5, 1X, 2X, 5X) all on display near the bottom of the viewfinder.

At the bottom right area of the app is a mode button. Pressing it will bring up a menu (middle screenshot in the above collage) which allows you to switch between Photo or Aperture mode, and turn on on-screen indicators for features like Histogram, Focus Peaking, and Grid. Do note that there is no option to shoot video at all — the Leica Lux app is purely for photography.

Switching to Aperture mode brings up the option to switch between four lens simulations (provided you paid for the premium features) that are meant to mimic the look of a famous and very expensive Leica lens, such as the Leica Summilux-M 28mm f/1.4, or the Leica Noctilux-M 50mm f/1.2 lens.

The iPhone 15 Pro Max's camera hardware has just three optical focal lengths — 13mm, 23mm, 120mm — so all four lens simulations are doing digital crop. The digital bokeh can be adjusted in this mode, between f/8 and f/1.2. I'm just going to get it out of the way: the f/1.2 mode, which in a real camera is wide open and produces the strongest background blur, is nearly unusable in the Leica Lux app, producing hilariously bad fake bokeh with poor edge detection.

There are 11 Leica film simulations to choose from, including well-known classics like "Leica Vivid," "Leica Natural," and "Leica Black & White High Contrast." These are essentially color profiles that change the image's color rendition. If your smartphone camera experience the past few years has been on the iPhone only, these profiles may seem interesting. But for anyone who's used Asian Android phones (whether it be Samsung or Xiaomi, Huawei or Vivo), these types of color profiles are common features built into the camera app.

At the top left and right corners of the Leica Lux apps are customizable feature buttons that allow you to quickly perform a specific command, like setting a timer or turning the timer on or off. Overall, the camera app is straightforward, but I wouldn't say it is easy to use. Some actions, like switching lenses, require an extra tap, and the app is a bit laggy compared to the iPhone's default app. But how does it perform?

Comparing against the Xiaomi 14 Ultra

The Xiaomi 14 Ultra is the Chinese tech giant's best phone right now, and it has arguably the best camera hardware of any phone right now (although Oppo's Find X7 Ultra and Vivo X100 Ultra can make an argument for being better). As I mentioned in a previous camera shootout, Xiaomi's camera hardware is basically superior to the iPhone 15 Pro Max's across the board: larger image sensors, faster aperture, etc. In fact, the Xiaomi 14 Ultra's main camera has a variable aperture, meaning physical aperture blades open and close to control light intake and depth-of-field.

For these side-by-side samples, I snapped both images at the same time (or one after the other) and I used the same Leica film simulation if possible. Let's look at some results.

This first set I shot with Leica Vibrant on both phones (iPhone left, Xiaomi right). We can see in terms of color reproduction, both cameras produced similar profiles. Notice that in the first set, even though the iPhone's image is shot at f/1.4 aperture and Xiaomi's at f/1.63, the latter's image still has stronger bokeh. That's because the iPhone's f/1.4 aperture is a software simulation while the Xiaomi 14 Ultra's f/1.63 aperture is real. That, plus the latter's larger image sensor means stronger background blur.

And if we zoom into the actual size, we can see Xiaomi's image is much sharper, due to having a larger sensor, which takes in more light information.

If we switch to shooting in Leica B&W High Contrast, this masks the iPhone image's graininess a bit.

In the shot above, because I shot with the iPhone's actual f/1.78 aperture instead of using the Leica Lux's digital aperture, we get a much more natural looking image.

Above is another B&W HC shot with the 5X zoom camera. Usually, the Xiaomi 14 Ultra's 5X zoom will produce shots that have less noise and grain than the iPhone 15 Pro Max, but here, this film simulation adds artificial graininess anyway, so the point becomes moot. In terms of exposure and tones, both shots are excellent. But if we try a 5X zoom in low light conditions with color (in the shots below, using Leica Natural), then the difference in noise and sharpness becomes apparent again.

In the below set, I shot at f/4 aperture with both phones. The Xiaomi 14 Ultra's main camera has a variable shutter that can close up to a real f/4, while the iPhone would use software to recreate an f/4 aperture. I actually think the Leica Lux app just flat out made a mistake here. An aperture of f/4 should not produce such strong background blur. I think the iPhone shot looks great in a vacuum, but the f/4 aperture is just inaccurate there.

The Leica Lux app is fun but not worth paying for

The Leica Lux app adds enough manual controls and different looks to the iPhone camera that it's worth downloading for casual use. But it's a bit too limiting and buggy right now to be worth $7 a month or $70 a year. And the Leica film simulation, while visually pleasing, doesn't hide the fact that the iPhone 15 Pro Max's camera hardware lags behind the best Android phone cameras. And keep in mind, I'm testing this app with the absolute best iPhone available. I don't think an iPhone 12 would be able to do much with this app in 2024. In side-by-side samples, the Xiaomi 14 Ultra is still clearly the superior camera phone, but at least now the iPhone can join in on the film simulation fun too. With that said, the iPhone 15 Pro Max is still an excellent all around phone with the best silicon, battery life, and app ecosystem around.