IPhone 12 Pro Max Lens flare

I didn’t mean how many people have iPhones in the world or have discussion somewhere, this was about this discussion with around same people in 22 pages , it’s really cool 👍 , trying to understand and solve problems , I’m agree with you 💯 camera is the person who hold a camera , but I think everyone knows how to do that , some good some not , but sometimes devices not Capable to do that because Lack of Features or has a weakness, at the moment in this discussion pages people Talking not about how to learn to shoot nice pictures , but way Apple did this so hard and sometimes no possible , you need jump to the Bushes :))) or raise the camera up or down or left right to avoid light flare , And then your View gone , There's no creativity of your life how you see world , for my self I found that you need point directly douse dots to the light to Hide them or turn away , but again then your photo to high, or you Lose your view . And in that video no one will escape from that light flare from iPhone because it’s not compatible to do that or has weaknesses ,only the way leave that spot or move to Opposite direction , as you said Different Device different story 😉👌

Whether you agree or don't agree means little. The FACT is with Night Mode photography, the dots are an unavoidable artifact, unless you angle the camera to avoid them, which is totally within YOUR control. You couldn't take Night Mode photos with any iPhone before iPhone 11. The same artifacts are common on ALL phones which take Night Mode photos, including iPhone 11, Samsung Phones, Google Phones, etc.

When you create a camera system consisting of small lenses which need a lot of light to create an in focus image, in the dark, which doesn't do this, you'll be VERY RICH.

I have been conducting a bunch of tests and I think I know what the problem is. The "flares" are exactly the same color as the sensor. Light, coming in through the lens, is reflecting off the sensor onto the rear of the lens, then reflecting off the lens back onto the sensor. The only solution would be to move the sensor further away from the lens, which would make the phone considerably thicker and heavier.

That’s a common lens flare which is caused by the light entering the front lens element at a sharp angle. Easiest way to get rid of it is to use your hand to prevent the sun from hitting the front of the lens. The sun is out of the frame so your hand will not be in the frame.

I Just chatted with an apple care agent and sent her the pictures and she said to me that the phone must be checked if not changed. She also mentioned that this is NOT normal.

It is lens flare. It is just that there are so many specular highlights and each highlight has its own flare. And it really isn’t even the lens causing the problem; it is the quartz bubble over the lens, so that it is reflection off the lens frame rather than the lens surface. The dots are not random. Each one corresponds to one of the points of light.

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Apple is being nice to you, essentially appeasing you on this subject. iPhone 11 did this. iPhone X did this, almost all iPhones have done this. In iPhone 11 and iPhone 12, the camera system is extremely close to each and the Flare threads on the iPhone 11 just as loud and active as this thread. If Apple truly believe there was an issue with iPhone 12, something would have been changed on iPhone 12. So why didn't it? The answer is simple, Apple cannot bend the physics of optics.

Anyone however is welcome to open a ticket with Apple and send all kinds of photos. Apple can't do anything to fix this.

Izemann wrote:

Would going to a apple store help with this issue? I’m having the same problem and ready to return and get a different phone.

No, because this behavior is normal for the phone.

They can help if you would prefer to return it and buy something else.

Defend what? That the photographer didn't do anything to avoid the flares? Had the photographer simply looked at the iPhone screen before taking the photo, the photographer would have clearly seen the flares. And had the photographer simply altered the angle of the camera relative to the bright lights, the photographer could have eliminated the flares.

What the photo you are thanking the photographer for, just shows how little time or effort went into taking the photo.

I have posted this too many times now, but this demonstrates the difference between a Night Mode photo where the flares were easily seen (yes I took it anyway) and how I never moved my position at all and managed to take the photo without any flares. You see, if you think cameras are simply point and shoot and you get perfection in every shot, you're expectation is totally, utterly unrealistic. Good photos, even from a camera in a cell phone still take some technique.

See these two photos to understand what I'm talking about.

In the photo below, notice the flares corresponding the lights on my deck:

Without moving at all, I saw the flares, and altered the angle of the camera relative to the lights and guess what? The flares are gone.

If you cannot understand this, I'm not sure there's anything anyone can do to help you. No camera is perfect. But as the person behind the lens you have more control over the quality of the photos you take if you put some effort into taking better photos.

Finally, if you do take a photo you particularly like and you want to fix it, download the following app from the App Store: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/snapseed/id439438619

Then simply use the Healing Tool to remove the flares.

NOTE: I did not use Snapseed with the photo samples. I really did alter the angle of the camera to remove the flares.

For me, this photo reiterated that the iPhone has a much greater problem with dots. In this photo you have a huge over exposed sun with a tiny dot, iPhone examples tend to have a much smaller light source resulting in a much bigger greed dot.

There's optics, and then there's implementation. iPhone produces worse flares than the Samsung.

Search 'unbiased iPhone vs Samsung vs pixel' on YouTube. It's a good video with all three phones compared with exact shots. iPhone has very clear and persistent reflections, Pixel does to a lesser degree and more blurred, but the Samsung doesn't really suffer from the ghost images at all.

This shows that it's not unavoidable physics and optics, but poor tech implementation on Apples part.

I do completely agree though that it's probably a trade off for the image quality and other features and that Apple had to make a call on what was acceptable to achieve what they've achieved. It'll be improved in later generations I'm sure, and Samsung have shown that much LESS reflecting artefacts is possible, but for the 12s we're probably stuck with pronounced reflections and dots and we don't have many options other than wait to see if Apple can solve these problems in future iPhones.

There are no software filters, and polarized filters do not eliminate lens flare.

Coated and circularly polarized filters can sometimes reduce flare but at the cost of dramatically reduced light transmission, often two f stops or more, turning your f/1.6 normal lens into an f/3.2.

It’s only one way to avoid this , turn your iPhone to other directions :))) every single iPhone and other phones like Samsung S21 Ultra has this problem , some has small dots minimal flare , some Like 12 pro MaX and S21 ultra has terrible flare blue dots, in some picture they are big sometimes small, but there is no way to avoid them where is so much street light or others lights , same video , specially when car lights on you need point iPhone camera Directly to the car light but if you move a little bit to other directions you getting reflection , in single situation you can avoid this I'm agree but not others way where is so much lights, you getting UFO like light:)))) , even if you turn back some how iPhone catching reflections because sensor is a big , the problem is that there All lenses don't have an anti-reflective coating , maybe this is not Apple issue maybe some manufacturers who makes this lenses, anyway Whatever you say or others this is a Definitely a problem of all new smartphones , next step is new iPhone 13 maybe with a DSLR technology, but at the moment for most people this is a sad that you can’t take pictures without this

Nope. It's not a hardware issue. The flares by nature will be in the opposite direction as reflected off the sensor. You can get as many iPhone 12's you want and at the angle you took the photo, they'll ALL do the very same thing.

From Apple’s beautiful short film. One example when you see it (not easy) is in this picture it’s obvious even when watching the film at normal speed. There are a couple of other very small dots in other scenes. I suspect filters were used to reduce the brightness of dots and ghosting. Still “shot with an iPhone”. Even world renowned professionals couldn’t eliminate the behavior of the lens, even with post production efforts.

Any "math" done to "eliminate" flares would also eliminate photo content in the vast majority of photos taken that do not have such things present.

A solution? Many third-party photo apps, notably Snapseed, have the ability to correct for such things.