IPhone 12 Pro Max Lens flare

If you feel that way, return your phone for a refund.

It's no more pronounced than it is on any other premium smartphone.

If you honestly believe other manufacturers have done more to minimize it, purchase their product, that's how consumer economies work.

Really, you can do two things here:

1) Return your phone for a refund and purchase something else that works better for you. This seems the most stress-free choice.

2) Don't return it and complain about the issue here, which will accomplish precisely nothing because Apple is not here and does not read these forums except to monitor for adherence to the Apple Support Communities Terms of Use.

These forums do not exist to commiserate or "form a consensus," they exist to provide specific answers to specific technical questions; there are literally hundreds of other sites at which you can do that if you so choose.

Guys, I went to the apple store today and explained to them about the issue. They replaced both my 12 pro max with the new one. However, the issue is still the same and now I am admitting that this is not an issue only with my phone but worldwide and also could be something apple can fix by minimizing the impact of lens flare by adding some UV coatings in the lens.

I am tired of going to the store for replacement, I might have to live with it. ✌️

Thanks,

cjcampbell wrote:

No, I do not expect a camera phone to perform as well as a professional camera. It has a tiny sensor and relatively simple optics. At the same time, I don’t expect it to be one of the worst I have ever seen.

Then return it for a refund.

This is what it does, it won't be changing and short of new advancements in physics and optics won't be changing in the future.

I'm not entirely sure what effect you expect your continued assertions about it being "defective" will have.

It's not defective if it's working as designed and it's clear it is.

These are not flares, these are reflections of images with light sources. I discovered this while taking pictures of shop signs. I have had iPhones for over since iPhone 5 and never saw such refections. Pictures below say it all.

As amazing as the cameras are in the 12 pro max, they are still not at the level of dedicated cameras. Companies who produce camera lenses have spent years developing lenses that reduce/eliminate flare and ghosting. You can’t expect a phone to match the optics. However, shooting into a bright light with a 12 pro max is a disaster, a problem my 6+ did not exhibit (although camera was a dinosaur)

What Apple isn’t telling people is that you can’t shoot a sunset with the wide angle lens without getting a green dot, and other ghost remnants, in the picture. This is going to be a major disappointment for anyone who even care at all about their photos.

My first trip to the beach for sunset was a train wreck. Not a single usable photo shot with the wide angle lens. The ghosting was also terrible shooting video with wide angle lens. As I panned from the beach to the setting sun I had dancing ghosts enter the video and make their way across the image as the sun changed position.

Well then you're letting your Apple biases override your objectivity. Watch the vid, you can clearly see that the Samsung experiences SIGNIFICANTLY less ghosting and reflections. But the Apple takes better photos overall. This is the trade off Apple is asking us to make with with this generation. The Pixel has flaring closer to the iPhone but still a little less.

It’s not just the fact that there is lens flare, it’s how aesthetically unflattering having green balls and globs in photos and in video is.

Also, NO lens flare quality is NOT this bad in other optics. In Canon L glass you get a FLARE not a green glob and yes you can compose even the flare out but when you shoot video there is not ghosting and bouncing green orbs in your video.

Used Snapseed. I was extremely disappointed after I bought the 12pm - thought the camera was defective. Thought I had not had green dotts before now, but when I examined previous photos I also find them in photos taken with iphone 5 and iphone 7 plus. My experience is that they are clearer and larger at 12 (pm?).

Guys

the lense flare is terrible and horrible it is all over the face when you trying to take picture ! I swapped my pro max with a new one with APPLE and same thing happened ! I always been using iPhone and this never happen before . My husband is using Huawei also great camera and his phone doesn’t have these green dot

this is unacceptable quality of phones I will call Apple till the end of it

I spent literally hours on the phone with the Apple Care support. They even escalated the conversation to a better-skilled support team (I sent them pictures and videos full of flares and reflections). The result: they clearly told me the official position of Apple is that this is NOT an issue. I find it ridiculous...

you guys have drunk the look-aid. Those are pretty standard flared light sources that happen as you pan across lights. Nowhere to be seen are the multiple ghost reflections and endless green dots which again goes to show that the iPhone problem is unique to the iPhone and not just an inarguable law of nature

So since the phone did pass the diagnostics test and you are up-to-date, this is normal behavior. This is from apple support agent, so as all phones getting this S21 iPhone 12 and others , We are stuck with this . Until new technology arrives like DSLR , and guess who will make it first :)

If you have a chance , take a same picture with different phones and post here , whit same shooting angle , and I think everyone will see difference . Doesn’t matter who will win just for research , How other lenses work

In other words, you honestly don't know what you're talking about as it relates to lens flare. You are trying to say there is a hardware or lens defect with your phone. There isn't. You could have taken this photo without flare. Before you took the photo, the flares were plainly visible on your screen. You photographed exactly what the camera showed you. Had you angled the camera differently, looking at your screen, you could have eliminated the flares completely.

For the first time many here have a phone which can take night photos they've NEVER been able to take before EVER. Do you honestly believe great photos happen without any effort on the part of the photographer? Especially night photos? Photographs taken at night are NOT easy, even by professional photographers. They will typically use a trip pod, professional lighting, carefully selecting the Aperture, Focal Length, ISO, Angle, and a host of photographic techniques. And THEN, they'll use post photographic processing after the photo is taken to eliminate flares, ghosts, artifacts, etc. Are you doing any of that? Of course you're not. Your taking a cell phone and expecting some perfection that is difficult to get at best and complaining your phone is defective.

Again, it's not.