What does the camera information in Apple Photos on macOS mean?

Question

The camera information in Apple Photos in macOS is different than what it is on iOS, and doesn't seem to correspond to anything.

For example, for an photo where I have

Telephoto Camera — 77 mm f2.8

on iOS, I get

back triple camera 9mm f/2.8

on macOS.

The former makes perfect sense, but I don't recognize the latter. I get this discrepancy regardless of the camera (my current iPhone, my previous iPhone, others' iPhones) used to take the photo.

What does the macOS information mean? Why is it different from what's displayed on iOS.

Answer 1

I took a photo with iPhone 12 Pro, synced via iCloud to Mac, then checked the metadata using the Photos app on iPhone and Mac. Both showed 'Telephoto Camera - 52mm f2'. However, I have seen iPhone metadata screen showing 'back triple camera 9mm f/2.8'. The iPhone 13 Pro has a triple-lens rear camera with an f/2.8 Telephoto lens, an f/1.5 Wide lens, and an f/1.8 Ultra Wide lens. So it seems your iPhone is showing you which lens was actually used for the shot, while the Mac is showing the generic description.

In the Photos SQL database, this metadata is stored in the ZEXTENDEDATTRIBUTES table. For my test photo, this table's ZLENSMODEL column says 'iPhone 12 Pro back triple camera...', while the aperture and focal length information is stored in the ZAPERTURE and ZFOCALLENGTHIN35MM columns. So that's where the differing information on your devices is coming from. I realize this only partly answers your question. Hopefully someone else can tell us how to set this right.