Iphone 11 Pro Extreme lens flare

Thats what is infuriating...I can’t believe Apple didn’t see this in testing. It seems like every phone is affected to some degree.

I’m noticing a lot of social media posts with flares and spots and no mention of it. Just the basic iPhone 11 lens flare issues that have already been reported.

Can you post some pictures after the lens replacement showing the improvement? Because if true then everyone in this thread, myself included, has a defective device which needs to be either replaced or have the lenses replaced. Up until your comment it seemed to be that this was just normal behavior for the iPhone 11s but you are saying it isn’t.

The issue with Apple software updates these days is that they can brick the phone with bugs... My iPhone 11 Pro is on iOS 13.1.1 and I am not keen on updating it after reading iOS evaluation on Forbes where it is said that updates are riddled with bugs and best would have been to remain on iOS12... but these phones were delivered with iOS13...

Now, I am wondering how Apple shoot their advertisement footage at night and with all sorts of lighting conditions without any flare and ghosting whilst the issue is rather extreme.

I think that is an excellent question as it seems we do not have the same device at all as we cannot reproduce such scenes without severe flare and ghosting...

Forbes has had a beef with Apple for several years. If you use Forbes as a resource, they are highly negatively biased. I have updated to iOS 13.3 without any issues whatsoever. And iOS 13.2 included some camera upgrades and fixes. If you are not updating and you are having issues, you would be advised to update.

In the blog post you posted, the photos that he took didn't challenge the lens, if you noticed, there's no real contrast in the light sources nor does the examples have any strong by sources or contrast in the back ground.

I noticed that most of my shots that I have learned flare have an extreme contrast in the lighting conditions that caused the lens to reflect.

In this series of photos, I couldn't avoid the Lens flare no matter what I did.

https://youtu.be/HAUb-gKR34A

In this video, I was able to push the lens flare off of the video by zooming in and turning my phone down word. If you note, I was showing a protester and when I got to the end of the video, I could not avoid it and it was a horrible reflection In this video, I was able to push the lens flare off of the video by zooming in and turning my phone down word. If you note, I was showing a protester and when I got to the end of the video, I could not avoid it and it was a horrible reflection

https://youtu.be/nydXvgB7TcE

I read it yesterday and I agree.

To my humble opinion:

The flare is due excessive refraction & reflection of incident light rays due to improper anti-reflective coating.

The ghost images are due to reflection on the camera sensor. Now I have no idea if cameras sensors should be coated with anti-reflective coating although I believe it is standard as well as for each optical element of each lens.

Hi !

You may have a read of this which is just out and which I received directly from Gordon and let me know what you think.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/gordonkelly/2020/12/29/apple-iphone-upgrade-iphone-11-pro-max-update/

Pouria81 wrote:

All I’m saying here is that these flares appear because the iPhone 11 has a more sensitive/capable sensor. Perhaps it’s also over exaggerated compared to other flagships since the camera holes are larger and maybe apple’s AI system treats it as a detail and tries to sharpen it.

FWIW, the same level of flare can easily be seen under the same conditions in the Samsung Galaxy 10+ and Google Pixel 4.

I believe everyone enjoys their iPhone 11 series cameras phones functionalities, however:

Clearly if these lenses covers had been properly treated both sides with anti-reflective coating then the flare & ghosting would have been much better handled. After all we are only dealing with miniaturised cameras... what else ? And the anti reflective coating is pretty much standard on all cameras lenses these days... why dont we have it on these lenses covers ?

Another thing which it seems no one has noticed or reported is the fact that we are dealing with a camera which body surface finish is mirror like, even with most protective cases, whereas one would definitely have noticed that standard cameras surface finishes are matt or frosted such as to avoid unwanted interfering reflections... Pro-summers and professional cameras push even further with matt black and there is a reason for that: avoid un-wanted parasitic reflections.

I am therefore searching for options to obliterate the iPhone 11 Pro 3’s lenses square area and ringed surrounds mirror finish... A frosted finish would have been much preferable in these area... If I could find some better anti-reflective coated lenses covers then I would certainly test these. A friend of mines works with lasers, we may get some custom made lenses covers for testing...

Pjphilippe wrote:

Clearly if these lenses covers had been properly treated both sides with anti-reflective coating then the flare & ghosting would have been much better handled. After all we are only dealing with miniaturised cameras... what else ? And the anti reflective coating is pretty much standard on all cameras lenses these days... why dont we have it on these lenses covers ?

On lenses this size anti-reflective coating would reduce the light transmission of the lenses to the point they would be largely useless in anything but brightly lit conditions, and people want their phone cameras to work in even dim light without night mode.

iPod Touch 4, iPhone 4S and iPad Air 2 are rather dated instruments which I still use. From their cameras it can be said:

Lens covers are all anti-reflective coated,

Sensors technology has much lower performance i.e. less sensitive, already back illuminated ? Smaller aperture,

Slow electronics.

Then considering such defavorable conditions, why anti-reflective coating was retained for these instruments whilst further to your quote it may have been preferable to ommit it ?

The iPhone 11 series cameras in turn have:

Un-coated lens covers,

Back illuminated & larger sensor,

Much larger aperture,

Faster electronics.

I very much doubt _ but fairly enough I dont remember the scientific facts _ that under such favorable conditions that an appropriate anti-reflective coating on both faces of the lenses covers would so severely affect incident light rays transmission. For the answer, I shall consult a friend who is a laser researcher. We may even be able to perform experiments.

Dear William,

Part of my curriculum I studied optics physics but this was years back and I have never gone back to the equations except last year when trying to re-calculate the curvature radius of a convex rear view mirror for a vintage racing car... But that was different to our discussion today.

1) It seems that you may have mixed up anti-reflective coated lenses with polariser lenses... please confirm.

2) Wikipedia Quote: “Anti-reflective coatings are used in a wide variety of applications where light passes through an optical surface, and low loss or low reflection is desired. Examples include anti-glare coatings on corrective lenses and camera lens elements, and antireflective coatings on solar cells.“

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-reflective_coating

3) You wrote: “On lenses this size....” Why mentioning the size ? What do you mean exactly ? What have these lenses diameters _ note these have black masks to adjust their respective effective diameters hence could be even larger _ to do with light transmission ? To which optical phenomenon or law are you making reference to ?

Dear William,

Furthermore, the mirror like surface of the iPhone 11 camera Square is a “reflection nest” which under certain circumstances will further degrade picture quality when strong light beams are reflected from it.

To my humble opinion, some very simple, non-onerous and well known camera technical rules could improve the iPhone 11 performance and immunity to flare & ghosting...

Dear William,

Here is a quote from an interesting article regarding flare and ghosting as well as the ways to minimise it:

“How Do You Stop Lens Flare at Night?

If you want to reduce lens flare when shooting at night, you should avoid using small apertures that can increase the effect of lens flare in your images. Additionally, try to use a high-quality prime lens with good coatings, which should help deal with lens flare. Lastly, make sure to remove all lens filters from your lens.”

https://photographylife.com/what-is-ghosting-and-flare