iPhone 11 Pro Max Camera issues

Also have issues with my iPhone 11 Pro camera that I preordered in September. And no it's not normal since Apple also agreed that this is not normal and accepted my phone for a replacement. I just hope that all first batch phones are sold out and I get a newer one...

If you have a phone that legitimately has a bad sensor, it will be fixed or replaced if you take it in to be examined.

To date, no one has posted a photo taken with a camera with an actual bad sensor.

https://www.apple.com/retail/geniusbar

I've been reading this thread for some time now and I don't understand how you can deny this iPhone camera looks like a crappy android from 2012. I had to return mine twice because of the horrible selfie camera quality and ghosting on the back camera. Now I just got my 3rd one in today and got the same problems. I got to Apple on the phone and they LITERALLY said:''We know about the camera issues, the only thing you can do is go to the Apple store to claim (lens) replacement or keep trying until you get one with less/no issues.

For 1300 euro's this is total madness. I'll be returning mine and just stick with my WAY WAY better iPhone X camera.

First, my iPhone 11 Pro Max is launch day and my wife's 11 is within a couple of weeks of launch. Both are perfect.

Second, is your phone a launch-day phone? If so, why have you waited this long to get it fixed? If not, then why are you saying that it is an issue with earlier models?

Third, Apple is still doing repairs via delivery. Call them and they will send you a box. The turnaround time is a few days. If you don't want to wait and have room on a credit card, ask for expedited processing. They will send you a replacement iPhone that you can use immediately and a box to ship yours back. I have done this multiple times over the years and it is a great option. They just put a hold on your card for the full amount of the replacement phone and release the hold when they receive yours back.

Finally, please please please try to refrain from making claims that this is a widespread issue. It is not. I don't care how many hundreds or even thousands of people in this forum had a similar issue. That is a drop in the bucket when compared to the number of phones released. If you are experiencing an issue, please get your phone replaced. But this idea where people want to extrapolate their isolated issue out to all iPhones 11 is beyond ridiculous at this point.

So, as for me and my situation the answer to fix the issue is as follows which was provided by multiple apple support techs:

1. do a hard reset
2. reset to factory settings
3. erase all content, conduct factory reset and then restore from a saved backup
4. make sure the phone has the most updated software
5. allow techs to remote in and do a hardware diagnostic test
6. send the phone in for warranty repair via mail
7. take the phone in to a store for diagnostics / repair

Due to my job and requirement to have a phone, #6 is not an option for me. hope these options help someone. #1-4 can be done yourself.

Hello,

I hope this thread is still being read by a few people even in these crazy times. I would like to thank every poster who was able to stick to the issue.

I have had my new iPhone 11 Pro for two weeks now and am by now convinced that what bugs me with my iPhone 11 Pro is a software issue. On top of that, the wide angle lens is bad but for hardware reasons. I have very much looked forward to the wide angle lens but in its current state it’s worse than a bad panoramic shot cropped afterwards.

I would like to describe an effect which caught my eye on the first few pictures that I took with this camera and which seem to have to do with some kind of filter action that the iPhone applies to the image. If there is very fine detail in the image, whether it is letters from a newspaper page or blossoms on a tree a couple of yards away, it will over-enhance the edges almost as though I was treating the image with that dreamy google software. It seems as though this software has the goal to make the image as such look good on the iPhone screen or any other small screen, which I could understand as a objective because many people post the images that they made with their iPhones to Apps on small screens. So maybe this is equivalent to musicians optimizing the sound for their music to bad speakers on MP3 - Horrible quality but sounds good on on bad speakers or headsets.

I also have the impression that the pictures that I took with my iPhone 6s and 6S plus are more “true” to the surface of or texture of the scene. As far as filter functions go, I think it’s awesome how the filter which is being employed on the 11 pro optimizes the image for inspection on a small screen, however I really don’t like what this filter does to the texture of things... somewhere in this thread someone mentioned it looks as though someone took a grass brush to the texture of the grass. I agree. I am seriously reminded of that Google software which is supposed to bring forth animal faces in random scenes. Someone else mentioned that he was told in the Apple Store that this is supposed to be reminiscent of the grain that one would get from analog film material. I beg to differ, I remember what that looked like, not like that.

I tried to deactivate all options of enhancement in the camera app as well as in the photo app but there is one issue that I can’t seem to get rid of, and that is this automatic contrast enhancing effect that seems to happen to the image right after you open the photo app and look at the image that you just took. If you are interested in duplicating this effect, just take a picture of a newspaper page like The NY Times, say, from straight above as though you wanted to reproduce it and see what happens, and if you have an older iPhone flying around, try the same thing with that and compare the effects. I wonder if it might be what Apple calls the spreading of the image dynamic range over the entire dynamic range of the display. However, that doesn’t explain the edge-filter style effect that I observe with fine details - it’s almost as though the iPhone was trying to overdo it with edges or fine structures in general to create an impression of a focused scene via software. An image which looks sharp but isn’t.

I am pretty sure that Apple uses a different filter function for the treatment of the textures in the image than they used before, on the previous models. Sadly my previous models were 6s and 6s plus, But what I read on this thread here, other people seem to have preferred their previous cameras’ performance as well. I personally don’t like it, because it seems to over-optimize for small screens and sacrifice a lot of the actually existing image resolution for that goal.. It looks good when you look at it on the iPhone screen but when you zoom into it it’s quite horrible.

Here’s a question: is there any way how one can deactivate the edge-enhancing effect? The Auto-enhancement that happens right away?

On a side note: I bought this iPhone because I had read an article by a photographer who had taken this unit (iPhone 11 pro) out into the Scottish highlands, and he made truly magnificent photos, and he was also quite smitten with the device, however he had been using the ProCamera app as well. I also can report that some of the more intrusive effects that the Apple app (I haven’t decided yet if it’s the photo app or the Camera app) seem to be absent when using the Pro Camera app, but my research into this topic isn’t concluded yet.

All in all I think Apple has gone too far with the software enhancement and filtering. But I have been able to take great pictures already, and maybe at some point in time I will get used to the swirly texture when you zoom in to the image. I’m not quite there yet though.

I wish everybody all the best in these crazy Corona times. If anybody has a helpful advice on my misgivings, I would be very grateful. Take care.

Welp. I finally got finished with Apple and three of their reps. All three said the same thing that my photos look very grainy and noisy and that my guy needs to be exchanged.

Hi, just go to an Apple store, doesn’t matter where you’ve bought it. I got mine at Media Markt in Germany as well and Apple helped without issue. But let’s wait for the next software update...

Did you try to clean the lenses on your phone? If you did and that didn't help, it would most likely be an issue with the lens or sensor and your phone should be replaced, no questions asked.

Do you have an Apple Store near you? Take it to them and show it to them.

I had the same exact issue, but only in low light. I called Apple and I’m being sent a replacement. It’s taking a long time to arrive almost 5 weeks. I’m assuming it’s a flaw with the device

Schedule an appointment at your Apple Store Genius Bar and show it to Apple. They'll most likely just replace the phone.

At Apple Store earlier today:

• Troubleshooting by tech, confirmed camera malfunction
• restored phone, didn’t fix focus problem
• replaced phone under warranty

If this is the case you have a bad phone. Take it back for a replacement. The behavior you are describing is not normal. This should be obvious.

I apologize if I am stating the obvious here, but judging photos taken with the ultra wide camera by how they look when you crop into a small portion of them is antithetical to the purpose of that lens. The entire reason you would take a photo with that lens would be to get a much larger vista. Think about it this way:

• All three cameras are capturing their image on a 12MP sensor.
• This means that a photo captured by each lens is comprised of 3024 × 4032 pixels.
• The ultra wide angle lens is capturing 4 times as much of the real world as an image that is captured by the wide angle lens. (see the image below from Apple's demo photos where the wide angle capture is highlighted and the additional image that would be captured with the ultra wide angle lens is dimmed)
• Be definition the ultra wide photos will be four times less sharp than an image taken with the wide angle lens. The images are displaying 4 times as much information with the exact number of pixels.
• Solution: stop cropping in closer on images taken with the ultra wide angle lens. Only use it for images where you want the very large image.