Iphone 11 Pro Extreme lens flare

It depends on the person, this is definitely not normal. I had my phone replaced with a refurbished phone then they replace the lens, my pictures are worse than most peoples pictures. Are you experiencing anything like this?It depends on the person, this is definitely not normal. I had my phone replaced with a refurbished phone then they replace the lens, my pictures are worse than most peoples pictures. Are you experiencing anything like this Please know my lens is clean.

If this was normal you’d of see bigger YouTuber’s like Marques Brownlee mention it, since he ranked the iPhones camera the best of 2019. I’ve posted previous examples and so have a few others. Since Christmas lights seem to be a big ram of this flare here are two more examples

If I really try I can get flare, but that is normal for cameras with light at weird angles. Even $4000 cameras struggle with this stuff. Everyone in this thread (like 20 people) have the issue, but that’s such a small number compared to the millions of units out there.

Before my replacement

After

Right now, I wouldn't do anything for the phone. I purchased a new phone at the release. I had extreme light flare. They wanted to replace the cameras and I was very upset so I called Apple. Apple sent me a refurbished phone and replacement for my new phone. It's still had the same problem, I asked them to switch it for a new phone and they said OK go to the store But the store would not do it. Instead, they replace the lens. I have no improvement with the photos, MI happened to be really bad if there is a light source nearby I have no improvement with the photos, my happened to be really bad if there is a light source nearby. When I took all of these photos, I made sure the lens was clean and there was no issues. In addition, I did the Apple firmware update that was supposed to help with this issue.

https://youtu.be/HAUb-gKR34A

In addition, the reflection of the light in the lenses in the video is horrible. If you watch this video, I was taking the camera in a minute down word and zooming in to try to get rid of the reflection. But as you see me tracker person in this video, the light gets worse and worse. in addition, the reflection of the light in the lenses in the video is horrible. If you watch this video, I was taking the camera and hanging it down word and zooming in to try to get rid of the reflection. But as you see me track a person that is a protester in this video, the light gets worse and worse.

https://youtu.be/nydXvgB7TcE

even last weekend, I was taking a picture and the light for it was horrible and I could not avoid it.

But if you take pictures with there's no light, the camera works beautifully.

I did note another thing, if you check your cameras and look at your phone, look at your lens, make sure the sun is shining on it, look at the lenses, there is like a double reflection in the lens causing this. You can see how the light enters the lines, we flex into different layers and shoots back into the lens which causes this issue .

if I were to do it all over again, I would contact apple, create a case, show them the distorted images then leave the case open and tell them that you want the phone fixed or replaced one they fix the issue.

right now, Apple says to me, this is the way the phone is and we're not gonna do anything else for you. We find this acceptable.

I don't think at this time anyone's going to get satisfactory results due to the reflections in the lenses.

Professional videographer here. I hadn't previously heard the consternation about the lens flare issue; I've owned my iPhone 11 Pro for a few days. I noticed while shooting this room that a peculiar flare was appearing; a mirrored ghost of this bright, ornate light fixture. I went to our IT department, and we tested every iPhone since the 6s, as well as a few different Android phones.

Here's the verdict: all phones produced this flare, but none as strongly as the 11 or 11 Pro, which performed identically with the standard wide lens. I have my theories about the cause of this, but it's clearly the hardware. It affects both the wide and tele, but not the ultra wide or selfie cam.

Removing these flares isn't a huge deal in photos, but is essentially impossible for video. It's hard to understand why no professional reviewer mentioned this issue, particularly given the emphasis on this iPhone as a video production tool. I haven't decided if I will keep the phone or not, but I don't see how this could be mitigated without a hardware revision. It could be as simple as a change in the coating, but I think it's likely to be a bigger issue.

Unless Apple has secretly changed the hardware, I'm very skeptical of claims that a replacement has fixed the issue. To those who say the issue doesn't exist, it does to some extent on every phone I've tested, so that's clearly wrong.

If you point this wide or tele at a bright light source, it's going to flare, and it's unavoidable. As you can see with this shot, it doesn't even require much contrast--the room is relatively well-lit. My recommendation would be to either learn to live with the issue, or pass on this model.

I was taking pictures the other day, I was on top of the mountain and I couldn't avoid the flares, as you know that i've had the worst luck with The iPhone 11 Pro Max, new phone, refurbished phone And the refurbished phone phone the lens replaced. I'll probably from the original release. https://youtu.be/HAUb-gKR34A

With that said, I got this big lens flare and I'm trying to get this beautiful Sunset over the mountain. I looked at my lenses, and I couldn't believe with the sun, the layers of reflections within the lens, it was ridiculous and there was no way to avoid it.

I decided to try to duplicate it, and show all of the reflections within one lens, I use my iPad to take a picture of my phone to try to capture the reflections.

This photo doesn't do it justice but the layers of reflection within the len is not only causing lens flare but it also causes Green artifacts on some of the photos.

The reflections are multi dimensional, and any light coming through my lens will cause an anomaly on my photos. As long as there's no light sources near the scene I'm taking, I'm getting perfect pictures.

The reflections are multi dimensional, and any light coming through my lens will cause an anomaly on my photos. As long as there's no light sources near the scene I'm taking, I'm getting perfect pictures.

I wish there was a workaround to prevent this, if our using my professional camera, I would have a lens hood to block the lighting from reflecting on my lenses.

I never have these problems with my iPhone X. This phone is just hypersensitive to any light noise.

Hi everyone, i'd like to report also my experience and actions taken. I also noticed the issues with my Iphone 11 Pro 256 GB Midnight Green Smartphone. By now the 3rd repair / exchange try is being conducted and i have not so much hope that Apple by now will fix the issue to my satisfaction. First repair was a swap of phone by my Media Markt Germany, second was a camera exchange by Apple Germany / Europe in the repair center in Czech Republic. The result and some comparisson picture here beneath:

PS: Lense Flare / Issue of internal camera reflections is apparant on normal and zoom camera, however not on wide angle lens.

PPS: If you tap the focus on the lights, the lens flare is not as bad as in auto focus, though the picture will turn out darker: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eTyuROhbNEg

PPPS: Informed consumer protection authorities to make them monitor for now

3rd Iphone 11 Pro 256GB Midnight Green (German or European Edition) Pictures in Night Mode / or dark scene without Night Mode in comparisson to one year old Huawei Mate 20 Pro with Tripple Leica Lenses:

I think I’m done sitting back and acting like it isn’t a big deal. This phone costed me $1200 and I should not be tolerating issues like this, if it was the normal 11 then fine, but I’m paying double the price for the same lackluster experience of flaring. I get ghost images when it matters, i really don’t think Best Buy replaced my lenses at all, or they did a heck of a job covering it back up.

Apple pictures & videos are either heavily edited with specialised software used to erase both ghosting and flare, which would lead to mis-represented advertising, taken with other camera systems or made with aftermarket lenses added to the device, both of which would also be mis-representation...

I very much doubt that these pictures and videos are “direct sensor” or only edited on the iPhone 11 using the Apple OEM software.

Anyway, the colour science is excellent and when the “photo bomb” effects are not there, the pictures are nice.

Night scene, bright lights, NO flare:

And before anyone says this proves they have a defective camera on their phone, let me assure you that when I composed this photo, there was flare. UNTIL, I moved the angle of the phone, which completely eliminated the flare.

And to whoever suggested maybe the Apple promo photos might not have been or couldn't be duplicated on iPhone, Apple noted the photos were taken by professional photographers with iPhone. They most assuredly weren't limited to just an iPhone. No, they would have likely used Tripods, professional lighting and if necessary post process editing tools like Photoshop, which if anyone here wants, they too can use. I use Photoshop a lot when I take a photo which has issues I want to eliminate, but I really like the composition of the photo I took.

Apple is very careful about the wording of this issue.

Apple will say: The flare is an inherited issue of "ALL CAMERAS". (Meaning not iPhone's fault.)

And of course, they are aware of this.

And of course, they still ask you to take it to apple stores to do unnecessary diagnostics.

And of course, they are not going to give you a new iPhone (You seriously think a trillion dollar company would do that?).

Basically, reflections between the lens and the sensor cause lens flare and reflections.

This is basic optics and there's no easy way around it.

It can be minimized with the use of coatings on the lenses, but that would raise prices significantly as well as make the lenses pass less light.

That's acceptable in a $2000 DSLR lens, not so much as a component of a phone.

Supposedly Leica worked with Huawei to come up with a way to reduce some effects (or make them more camera-like) on a Huawei P30 / P30 Pro, but even then there are complaint articles to be found:

Piunika Web: Huawei P30/P30 Pro camera lens flare, forced video stabilization issues come to light

Photo from Huawei P30 Pro:

I saw the same on my newly purchased Iphone SE 2020 today. I could see it in my indoor shot of my apartment window with light coming in. Never seen anything like this in any of my android phones before. I tried it on my 4 years old Oneplus 3. I did not find any reflection issue there(I tried auto mode). I did research for couple of hours on various forums, apple support, youtube etc. It's been argued to be lens flare by most of the pros which I don't think it is due to the way the reflection moves. Flares are normal btw. Finally I tried it again on my Oneplus 3 again but this time in pro mode(I tried this feature for the first time since I am not a pro). I tried changing all the options to min and max one by one. I see when I crank up the white balance to max, the reflection appears there as well on the viewfinder. I think probably this is how smartphone cameras are designed. It should be same with any smartphone camera (less or more based on settings and other camera stats)

(See the reflection of window on the left of AC in the pic below)

Ok I had this issue since I got my iPhone 11 in September 2019.

I just went to the apple store TODAY and they thankfully replaced the entire phone.

however I got home and took this video...the lens flare is STILL there?! (All those little lights in the sky are part of the flare and move with the camera.)

Yes JimP, I had an iPhone 7 till last year and I actually much prefer the camera on that, it had zero lens flare. It’s these new cameras that have it, they try so hard to upgrade it that they ignore all the faults it comes with.

Here is another example of the lens flare, this video is from the previous iPhone 11 I had, which I replaced today with no improvement.

There's nothing to "catch" during Q&A, this is a normal limitation of optics and physics when designing camera lenses that small.

The Leica lenses Huawei has been using have their own, different version of flare; in addition to dots, they get this: