iPhone 11 Pro Max Camera issues

Has anyone tried screen shotting an image they have taken and then flicking between them to compare?

I have, and the screenshot looks much more vibrant. Surely this indicates the issue is the photos app?

It also rules out a software issue in the Camera app. Have you tried viewing the same photos in another app on your iPhone? Have you tried viewing photos that are taken with another device and sent to your iPhone and then viewed in the Photos app? This would help narrow things down even further.

So I take photos on the 11 and they look gross. I have iCloud photos turned on and also set to keep the originals on my phone. They still look bad. When I go to my iPad and look at the very same photo synced via iCloud, it looks beautiful. My iPad is also set to keep the originals as space isn’t an issue for me. So somewhere on my phone is a software issue. I’ll screenshot the same photo on both my phone and iPad.

I definitely see the difference in clarity and focus. Clearly the photo is fine or it wouldn't look better on your iPad. This has to be a software issue as to how it's rendering on your iPhone. Which is actually good news as it demonstrates the camera took an in focus photo. It's not being shown fully in focus on the phone.

I'm actually glad I ran into your post, was on discussions regarding not getting any sound or vibrate notifications when getting text messages (not all the time, and random), since updating to iOS 13.1.2. But I have been looking at a bunch of reviews of the 11 Pro, from photographers and videographers. For the most part they love it. And unlike some people who don't have an eye for detail, these reviewers were more precise (some reviewers would post a pics from an the XS and 11 pro, and say they don't see the difference, but I can totally see the difference).

And the one thing all of the pointed out, was the "blur" on the edges, just as your pics show. But that was because they were using Portrait mode. By chance, were those pictures taken using portrait mode? If they were, try testing with just regular Photo mode. Then take a pic of an object set against a background with other things in it, using Portrait mode. If the quality is still shoddy, I'm guessing it maybe a software issue. Something these reviewers also mentioned. That some of the minor issues they had with the photos, "Are hopefully fixed by Apple in the next update".

Perhaps I will hold off upgrading to the 11 pro until the next batches come out. Or maybe even wait till the 11 pro "S". Next year. lol

If you are taking photos in lower light indoors, you MUST make sure you are holding the phone absolutely still or you will take blurry photos, especially if the phone is using Night Mode. Even if not using Night Mode, you need to hold the phone as still as possible to take indoor photos. Based on the photos you posted above did you turn Night Mode off?

In my experience since the iPhone 3G, bad batches do happen. I've had a couple over the years. When replaced, issues were gone. Kind of the reason why I always wait till the second iteration of a brand new phone. ie. The "S" series that comes out the year after. Basically the same tech, just improved upon from the previous model. Where they ironed out the kinks. But the 11 Pro, for the most part is impressing me. And a big jump from my X.

You are correct and you should see what you call static fuzziness (which is actually digital noise) on the screen. This is completely normal and expected behavior. BUT, when you take the photo properly, using Night Mode, and you hold the camera perfectly still for the number of seconds shown on the screen it says it needs to take the photo, the actual photo, if you don't jostle the camera, will be really good. Far better than any previous iPhone has EVER been able to do.

Rbrylawski is right. If you go back a little bit, you’ll see I posted a photo using the ultra wide camera on my regular 11. It came out great. That’s because I used the railing of the bridge I was standing on to make sure I was steady. Any slight movement will cause a smear because it doesn’t have ois. Way too many people here have gotten offended because they don’t understand that.

I have had Macs for decades and have been with iPhone since the original iPhone. My friend said I was dumb when I dropped $600 on a cell phone 12 years ago lol, my have things changed. In all my time with Apple I have spent dozens of hours combing through the discussions trying to find answers to problems for every new device I buy or update I make. That time has increased exponentially in recent years. Apple products use to just work but now it takes days of trouble shooting or product replacement before everything is on the up and up. And in all these years of looking for answers I have never been fed up enough to actually take the time to a thread or start my own.

But here I am.

Last new phone I got was the 7 and overall great phone. After having that for 3 years figured it was time to upgrade to the latest and greatest. (Almost wanted to wait another year hoping they'd drop lightning for usb-c, but I needed a new phone.). So got the iPhone 11 Pro 256. Apple and every tech blog out there has been hammering away touting the PRO as the best camera yet so I was excited to take plenty of pictures with my brand new phone. (Do not even get me started on all the iOS13 problems I had right out of the box and new problems with every update). Long story short the camera quality is bad! Images are heavily blurred and distorted and grainy. My 7 pictures were crystal clear so explain to me what went wrong with the 11Pro Apple? Surely I must have got a lemon.

So I went to the Genius Bar. I showed him my old pictures and new ones and expressed my dissatisfaction. The Genius' answer was well try taking every picture with the 2x lens or only using portrait mode. What kind of answer is that? I mean I pay hundreds for Apple Care and that is the Apple employees answer.

So now I'm here writing this hoping a software update is in the works that could remedy the camera quality. If not I will be insisting on a replacement.

No one is saying any such thing. What we are saying is that we have seen example after example where people have done the following:

1. Not tap the screen to put the right area in focus, thus allowing the phone to decide and it focuses on something very close, thus blurring the bulk of the photo.
2. Using the ultra wide angle lens inside in low light.
3. Using the ultra wide angle lens to take a photo of a person up close.
4. Complaining about photos that have absolutely nothing wrong with them.
5. Taking photos of subject after subject that are absolutely awful choices for testing the ability of the camera.
6. Expecting the camera to be able to take tack sharp images of every element in a room that is absolutely cluttered from front to back and left to right with completely different items and different lighting.
7. Say that they have photos from older phones that are awesome but then showing us photos taken of completely different subjects in completely different lighting as if we can compare them.

Some people actually do have a problem. For example, there was a person earlier in the thread who had a spot on every photo they took. However, there are too many people in this thread who are expecting their phones to defy the laws of physics. You can't just say that your old phone took better photos. Show us photos of the same thing under the same condition with both cameras.

I and so many others have seen absolutely amazing results from these cameras. I wish that I could stand with some of you when you were taking photos and see if it was really the phone or just poor choices of subjects. I would just ask that people stop snapping photos of just anything and share some photos of things that you would actually take a photo of. Too many of the photos we are seeing seem like they are open the box and snap wherever you are at that moment.

The crop serves only the purpose of demonstrating the problem here... I discovered the problem by using the camera normally and looking at the full size photos on the phone and on my desktop.

I've been using professional "real" cameras for decades, and I understand all the photographic issues at play here... I still think this ultra-wide camera is not very good. The difference in detail/information, compared to the wide, is huge... it's in fact a very low resolution UW camera that I will probably almost never use because I can't trust the image to be acceptable.

So, in a way... I feel like this was advertised incorrectly by Apple, it was one of my top 3 reasons to upgrade my iPhone 8 (the others being battery life, and screen quality), but the truth is this UW camera adds very little to the overall camera experience.

I'm hoping they can improve this with software, maybe Deep Fusion will help...

I'm happy that the other 2 reasons for upgrade are living up to my expectations, battery life is amazing and so is the screen quality. But this UW camera seems like something they didn't really take care to do right...

It's just silly to talk about the kitchen photo... I was not taking a kitchen photo... I was taking a sample photo to demonstrate a technical issue hehehehehe, it's not a "standard" photo... it's not a choice I would have made, or a photo I would take for any reason other than to "take a quick shot to test something". Can we stop talking about it as if I took a road trip to my kitchen and decided to take a glorious UW photo of the sink? hehehehe it's hilarious...

So, in any case, rbrylawski I think you're missing the main point... even in the Grand Canyon on a perfect day, your iPhone UW photo will capture a larger piece of the view, but it will still have less detail and look worse than if you took the same shot with the W camera. It's just the way it is... the UW camera in the iPhone is just not as good as the W camera.

Trust me there are incredible UW lenses in the world, matched to a great sensor they will provide great detail and sharpness. Such combination can cost as much as a house... so I know it's not something easy to fit in a phone and sell for less than 2000 USD.

They certainly didn't use a great UW lens/sensor combination in the iPhone, and Apple wasn't clear enough about how much less quality the UW they used is when compared to the W. That's basically the only problem with this matter, Apple marketed the UW in a way that is not correct, it is vastly inferior to the W camera.

To be fair... probably other phones with UW cameras have similar or even worse performance... I'm not sure about that but I would think so. However, that is no excuse for the way Apple advertised their UW implementation.

I should not have to preface this like I will, but here it goes. I’ve been a professional photographer for decades. I teach photography at a university. I’ve owned literally almost every version of the iPhone since the very first model. I’ve watched cameras be introduced, changed, improved, etc. My last phone was the iPhone X Max Luckily, I still have my old phone, and I can compare it with the 11 Pro. Every once in a while, I’ll take a picture, notice how awful the compression is, and take another picture with the other phone. This is a good example. The lighter images are from the 11 Pro, and the darker images are from the previous phone. Keep in mind, the lightness has absolutely nothing to do with the complaint. Look at the compression. These photos were taken with the 2X option. The first images are not edited in anyway. The second ones are cropped.

Yes. Lots of razor sharp photos.

Looking closely at that photo, it looks like the focus point was the grass in front of the child rather than the child; did you tap and hold the focus point on the child before shooting the photo?