Iphone 11 Pro Extreme lens flare

It cannot possibly be a software issue and the people thinking this are mislead.

It is purely an optics issue which could be addressed through optical changes / tweaks: lenses covers, camera lenses, sensors, anti-reflection coatings for all these elements and matt black non reflective surfaces... The mirror like square which contains the 3 cameras is also wrong, cameras should not have a mirror finish as this is highly reflective...

This is what ghosting looks like with these tiny lenses and sensors.

Read the reviews of any other phone camera and you will see similar artifacts presented.

For example, here’s what Samsung has to say:

Samsung: Why do lines, dots, or lights appear in my photos after using the camera app?

Other people will see that your "problem" is a normal photographic artifact when using a compound lens.

If it is present in a multi-thousand dollar DSLR/lens combination, how would you propose Apple solve it?

If it happens in every other smart phone, how would you propose Apple solve it?

Laws of physics and optics apply equally to all.

Hi Mimifangs. Just so you understand my position on this issue, all consumer cameras will produce lens flare when pointing the lens at or near a higher intensity light source level than the background. Lens hoods, aperture/speed settings and shooting styles can help to mitigate that but not eliminate it.

What I experienced along with an uncalculated number or other users is the "floating artifacts" effect with the iPhone 11 Plus. Your dusk shot of the lamposts shows a duplicated floating image of the higher lit lights against the darker sky. That "dup" layer is flipped on both the vertical and horizontal axes. To me, there seems to be a an orchestrated plan to wed the floating artifact issue to predictable and traditional lens flare outcomes. Their strategy (it seems) is to respond to customer concerns by naming a problem as a technical imaging standard.

I've not heard of any "fix" coming soon, but let's see what the engineers can accomplish.

Thanks Chris for the first hand confirmation that significant flaring is still present on the 12 Pro Max. I've just watched a few comparison reviews and the 12 Pro Max seems identical to the 12 Pro & 11 Pro/Pro Max when it comes to flaring at night with bright lights in the frame - the Note 20 Ultra seems to perform noticeably better in this regard, with the Huawei flagships doing the best (Leica designs their lenses & they know a thing or two about minimizing flare). So like I've said before I definitely think this is something Apple can and should improve on.

I'm not sure what could be causing the video issues you're having, but considering the phone is brand new could just be bugs/compatibility issues that will be resolved in the near future with software updates.

At this point you may as well have your phone replaced.

Basically you want to avoid situations where a very bright light is shining directly into the phone camera lens; you can clearly see the flare on the screen as you compose the photo, so move as necessary to either eliminate it, force it into an area of the frame you know you will crop out or that would place it in an area a third party photo manipulation program like Snapseed could easily cover it up.

Apple representative said it's an expected behaviour and normal. no professional photographer click pic in front of light source.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68WnVfZ_JLM&lc=UgwULcTunHqzP265N5N4AaABAg.9H2DdSOUvnx9KuaDTewUM6

As I posted in the 12 PM flare thread, you may have to change your position or even your your timing:

At this point you may be asking what all the fuss is about since, after all, you dutifully use a lens hood—a product specifically designed to reduce the effects of flare. Unfortunately, if you are shooting in a direction anywhere near the sun, most hoods will have little effect. In particular, the hoods on zoom lenses need to be short enough that they don't cause vignetting when the lens is at its shortest focal length, meaning that they block very little light in most of the lens's range. If the sun itself is the culprit, you can sometimes hold up a hat or card to shield the front of your lens from the most direct rays, but that isn't always practical, and in some cases the sun's glare from the the surrounding clouds and sky create a messy situation all around. In those cases, your only options are post-processing, or some clever use of HDR and image compositing. (I've been known to shoot a scene with the sun blocked out to get a nice rendering of the shadow detail, and then again without it blocked, to fill in the sky.) The two resulting images can be combined into a single image which doesn't have the flare effects throughout.

[ … ]

Often, avoiding lens flare is simply a matter of timing. If you can capture a sunrise early enough, like in this image of the sun rising through the statue of a bull on the top of the Bakong Temple, or late enough as the sun sets, then the sun can become a natural part of the scene. Of course, those images will still have high dynamic range, so they often require a minus exposure compensation adjustment to expose for the sky, which in turn makes the subject a silhouette. 

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/explora/content/taming-sun-lens-flare-and-how-deal-it

I was hoping I wouldn't feel compelled to chime in again on this subject but it pains me to see so many users being misled about the real issues with the iPhone Pro camera's limitations. Those green orbs/dots and floating artifacts (call it ghosting) are NOT what the nice folks defending Apple here would have you believe is predictable, 'traditional' and expected "Lens Flare."

YES, almost all cameras and lens systems will produce lens flare when shooting towards high key lighting sources (like the sun). BUT what us iPhone Pro & MP users are frustrated with are the more defined, easily created in many lighting environments, harder edge orbs and floating artifacts that all too often blemish the captured images and videos.

I've been waving my sword at the Apple Tech windmill since 2019 regarding this technical issue and have gotten absolutely nowhere. Hope for improvements or elimination of the glitches in 2020 or 2021 never materialized.

For the record, I have been in the graphic arts since the early '70's and continue to work to this day as a Creative Director, ad agency owner and also a freelance photojournalist. I wish Apple success in solving this problem.

Hi DogCow: Well perhaps we'll have to agree to disagree. You can categorize these iPhone optic anomalies as "lens flare." I'm not going to argue that – or anything else in this forum. That is a futile exercise.

I've embedded a YouTube link to a little video I shot with my then new iPhone 11Pro back in December of 2019. This is when I first noticed the unexpected bouncing "flipped & inverted" ghost image of the Christmas carriage's lit pumpkin shape. You can begin to see this as the carriage approaches and more easily as the carriage passes and heads down the street. Since I am not the technical expert that some on this forum purport to be, I took the phone to the technical pro at the Apple store in Santa Barbara, CA. He was as surprised as I was and recommended we change out the phone; something wasn't right he felt with my phone.

Three replacement phones later I realized these are the results I am going to get with the latest iPhone camera technology.

As I mentioned Moof, I am not looking to argue with you. My office is filled with Apple products and gear; I've been a Pro user since the iici Apple computer. I'm just hoping that the brilliant engineers at Apple (or any competitor) solves the problem. The iPhone is indeed an amazing device – but it's far from perfect. Neither am I.

All the best.

Yes BUT, the camera lens HAS TO be wiped off constantly to remove flare. It is the first phone that this happens.

Then return it if you can or sell it as used and buy another Huawei if you like.

The design won’t be changing at this time and it’s not a defect as it’s working as designed.

You should lower your exposure and ISO, those lights aren’t even visible being blown out like that. Doing that should reduce the flare

Call and ask specifically for Customer Relations. They offered to refund me my purchase price. Don’t give up.

@danny2009

Try manually focusing on the sign and see if it gets any better.