IPhone 12 Pro Max Lens flare

iPhone 6:

iPhone 8 Plus:

Ironically, the message you replied to shows the flares on a Panasonic video camera.

This is normal.

Avoid taking photos specifically intended to induce lens flare?

You would see the exact same effect with the iPhone 13 or any modern Android phone.

Sadly, they will not be fixing this until they lose those big disks that cover the tiny lenses.

those big lens covers are, I believe, there only to make the device instantly recognized. Actually marketing over function. What a flat out disappointment. I returned my 11 for this reason. Most of the pictures and all the videos I took were useless in the short time I owned it. The fact they reflect green light shows Apple knows and tried to fix it. Good phone, really bad camera.

Yes, you should definitely speak with Apple. But if you owned iPhone 11 or 11 Pro, the cameras are almost the same and they did the same thing as these cameras do. And there was a thread of people just like you and many others who had completely unrealistic expectations on threads even larger than this and here we are now on iPhone 12. And people seem to expect Apple to have somehow defied the laws of photographic physics.

I own a Nikon DSLR with lenses costing more than my iPhone 12 Pro Max. I've worked hard over the years to learn as much as I can about photography, including taking photography classes under expert photographers. My fancy dancy NIKON is just as capable of capturing these artifacts as my iPhone. Again, expectations are unrealistic.

I get you want to anoint the iPhone as the holy grail of phones but the 20-30 green dots many are complaining about is far more extreme and not seen at the same level on the other phones that you used as proof to support your claims. This isn’t replicated in my 11 Pro Max or my Note 20 Ultra. So clearly it’s a hardware issue with the iPhone this year.

See my post immediately above yours as well as here:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/252037681?answerId=253947931022#253947931022

You may have just been lucky with your 6S because it most assuredly suffered from the same issue.

Ok, I took my phone to the shop of my provider, as the sale went through them. I showed them my examples, and we tested a bit in the shop and he agreed about the problem.

I had 2 options: file for defect which would mean sending it back and receive another pro max. For me the risk felt too big that this error would also occur in the replacement device as it'll be from the same production version.

So I will ask my money back. And go for another phone. Then the Sophie's choice can start if it should be an Apple or not ;)

good luck to all others here with the same problem.

_leefy wrote:

Provide a link showing a Huawei producing the same 'flare' as the cluster of green dots on the wooden post reflected from the water. That's just obscene.

The more points of bright light in a photo, the more "dots."

Here are three bright points of light and three resulting dot flares courtesy of the Huawei Mate 20 Pro:

They designed the phone poorly this year in regards to the flaring. Previous iphone wasn’t anywhere near this level and neither is my Note 20 Ultra. Flaring happens in all photos regardless of manufacturer but this is clearing on another magnitude. You’ve got two people here who will continue to cast blame on the owners instead of Apple, then you have the rest of us who are in agreement. I know my experience with tech is likely far more substantial than these other two people but they would prefer to make it out to we don’t know anything about the “laws of physics” instead of admitting Apple made a faulty camera in regards to excessive flaring.

This image might help on the annoying issue. You can see the reflection of Aloha reversed and upside down in the black above the letters. My girlfriend has a iPhone 8, took same photo, and no reflections like this. Serious Apple design fail and very frustrating

bobneedham wrote:

Nice job on the green spot. It’s just that after shooting with my 6+ for 6 years without any green dots or ghosting, I’m disappointed that I have to “fix” the sunset shots I take with my 12.

You shouldn't be disappointed at all. Taking a photo of the sun directly is a very difficult photo opportunity. It's not easy for professional photographers using equipment costing many thousands more than your iPhone 12. You actually got a really great shot and you should be proud of the results. And you also learned that angling the camera relative to the scene can provide dramatically better results.

Good Job bobneedham!

I have the same issue. The most annoying part is that I experience it in low light conditions, with a weak light source (such as a candle). This is definitely not a normal behavior and I guess at least a proper lens coating would prevent most of it from happening. When the light source is strong, it is much more common to get streaks and flares in the image, even though changing the angle of the shot helps most of the times. When the light source is so weak, this is absolutely a defect (could it be related also to the night mode feature?).

It is very disappointing to hear Apple support replying that this is expected and it happens also with expensive cameras, especially when one of the biggest enhancements in the iPhone 12 pro is the camera. Never had this issue with older iPhone models, nor with other brands.

Are you absolutely sure you do not have green dots on photos from other cameras? Have you carefully checked photos from other cameras? They are possibly clearer in 12, but I have had these on 5, 7 and 11. But I only discovered these after being very annoyed due to 12pm - I thought this was the first time, but have had these in all mine iphones.

Yes, newer phones have better lenses that focus more and let in more light.

A cheaper lens won’t flare because it’s not as finely manufactured which eliminates reflections like flare at the sake of visual clarity.

I have never ever experienced anything even close to this bad on any previous phones- all of which have been flagship devices. Neither my iPhone 4, 6, 6 Plus, 7, OnePlus 5T or OnePlus 7 Pro had this issue at all. In fact, my 7 Pro could take amazing photos in all kinds of conditions and never once did lens flares like displayed in this thread appear. I believe it's a fundamental problem with the way Apple designs it's lenses, and that they pick form over function in this particular case- hence why they haven't done anything about it.

And your defense about "all flagship phones have it, you're using it wrong" isn't valid at all since not all flagship cameras have this issue- like my OnePlus 7 Pro for example. When paying over 1K on a phone, you have the right to expect the highest quality in all aspects compared to the lower priced competition which is doing it better.

That being said, I love everything else about the phone so far. I hope this is an issue Apple can fix with a software update (perhaps masking it out with A.I, like Photoshop does with it's healing tool).