Green orb in iPhone camera

In every one of those images you are shooting into the sun or a bright source of light. Any photographer, professional or amateur, will tell you that is a huge no-no. What is happening is the image of the sun is reflecting back and forth between the lens elements in the camera. This will happen with any camera, from an iPhone to a $10,000 professional DSLR.

The only way to avoid it, with any camera, is to keep a light source out of the image, either off to the side or behind the photographer.

starstuff1313 wrote:

I don’t think you understand. In the three second live shot the blue dot is in focus, out of focus, in focus again moves in four directions and in and out of the frame. In three seconds. While nothing else in the photo moved. There is NO WAY that was the phone moving. Software updated, phone checked at Apple, no smears, smuges or case covering the lens.

No, it is you who don’t understand. The phone is moving very slightly. It is not physically possible to hold a camera perfectly steady in your hand for 3 seconds. The flare (the spot) movement is an artifact of the fact that there is a multiplier of thousands of times in the movement of reflections of the bright light source in the lens (because of the distance from the light source to the lens vs the distance from the lens to the CCD sensor) , so the very slightest movement of the phone will move the spot. The spot is not dust or an insect, it is an internal reflection of the light source between elements of the lens. It is called “lens flare” and it will happen with any camera when there is a light source that can be “seen” by the camera’s lens. That’s why real cameras have “sunshades” around the lens for outdoor photography (or indoor with bright lights). You can get a sunshade for the iPhone’s camera if you want to better control lens flare.

There is no such multiplier in the physical objects in the image, so they don’t appear to move. Did you read my post that you responded to, and the link in it? Here it is again: https://photographylife.com/what-is-ghosting-and-flare/amp

Here's an even better example of flares versus no flares, simply by angling the camera differently:

So, you tell me. In the first photo, is the phone faulty? Of course not. The angle of the camera relative to the lights on my deck caused the flares. Simply reangling the camera, removed them.

Any iPhone is very capable of capturing lens flare. iPhone 8, X, Xr, Xs, 11, 12, doesn't matter. Camera lenses when confronted with bright lens reflecting against the lens can cause flare. If you take a photo of the sun directly for example, lens flare is inevitable. Bright lights at night, the same.

You ask how to avoid flare 100%? Honestly, there is no way to avoid flare 100%. What you need to train yourself to do is to look at the screen and see what your phone sees before you take the photo. Lens flare will be seen before you take the picture. You can then reangle the camera to reduce or eliminate the flare. The photos I posted demonstrate this. But to tell you there is a way to eliminate flare 100% simply doesn't exist. Not in a cell phone camera. Not in a camera and lens system costing well over $100,000.

Then you are very lucky. Have you ever wondered why professional (and advanced amateur) photographers have monster “lens hoods” around their lens? And have you noticed that iPhones out of the box don’t? You can get clip on lens hoods for iPhones if you would like to try one.

Did you READ the link I posted? Do you understand it? Here it is again if you missed it→https://photographylife.com/what-is-ghosting-and-flare/amp

When you purchase the forum, you can tell me what I can or can't say or when I can move on. Until then, as long as I'm not breaking any forum rules, I'm entitled to post as are you.

You ask why this all of the sudden started to happen? It didn't all of the sudden happen. The flares which are now much more visible in iPhone 11 and 12 with the introduction of dark mode are getting more notice. Before these phones, it was almost impossible to take pictures in such low light situations. So, there are much fewer photos with flares in them because the digital noise in low light photos made the photos hardly worth taking and poor at best.

As to why it happens sometimes, not always is because you're using a hand held device and the angle of cameras relative to the subjects and light vary with every slight movement of your hand. You can easily see the flares before you take a photo and easily move the angle of the camera to eliminate the flare. This takes more effort and time of course, but I have shown how to do this in other threads by posting photos of a scene with flares and without flares with me doing nothing more than angling the camera differently. Taking videos in low light however and hoping to eliminate all flares with direct lights facing the camera is much more difficult. The best advice is to try to avoid videos in low light facing lights directly. But that may not always be possible, so living with some flares in videos in low light is inevitable.

You can keep your path here and continue to deny the physics of photographic optics all you want. I won't ever attempt to stop you. I will however, point out where I am convinced you don't understand the physics of photographic optics. If you don't understand or accept my points, that's OK too.

Here is an example of two photos, where I never moved, but did change the angle of the camera to eliminate flares:

They're not random. They are also on your iPhone screen before you take the photo. And changing the angle of the camera relative to the subject, can eliminate them.

Watch this video, which may help you --> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTGn9LAZ_3M&feature=youtu.be

There was a technical information posted in this thread which you apparently didn’t read. To save you the trouble of going back a page here it is again→https://photographylife.com/what-is-ghosting-and-flare/amp

But the key takeaway is that this is not an iPhone issue. Every camera ever made will have this issue when you have a light source in the picture, whether it’s a $10 disposable camera or a $100,000 cinematographic camera, or anything in between, if you have a light source in the picture.

Unless you have the phone on a tripod you can’t possibly hold it completely steady. Each photo of the live photo sequence will mean a slight shift in position of the camera. The lens is essentially the fulcrum of a lever; the light source is at the end of the long arm of the lever, and the CCD is at the short arm of the lever, so even a tiny movement of the lens will move the reflection in the lens. If you want to do a better experiment mount the phone on a tripod, and use a Bluetooth shutter release so tapping the button doesn’t nudge the camera. The fuzziness confirms that the camera was moving when that frame was taken.

VioletM wrote:

To clarify, I have an iPhone 8, and have had it for years. I meant it has all of a sudden started happening to me, specifically, not in general society. Why would my phone all of a sudden create this effect?

Because you haven’t taken photos with a light source either in the photo or just off to the side of the camera in the past. Or if you have you haven’t noticed it. Since you are a scientist here is a scientific explanation of lens flare from an expert in that field. I’m sure he doesn’t know as much as you do about biomedical engineering, but he clearly knows just about all there is to know about the optics of cameras→https://photographylife.com/what-is-ghosting-and-flare/amp

I’ve been a photographer for over 50 years and all I see are internal reflections of bright points of light bouncing off various lens elements within the lens assembly. They can appear to move because as a lens focuses or zooms some lens elements shift back and forth. The “blobs” can be different colours depending on what anti-reflective coating was used on each element. End of story. Take it or leave it.

The dark isn't really dark, now is it? There are light sources unless you are shooting in a totally dark room with no light sources at all. And that's highly unlikely. With Night Mode, you can take a photo in a dark room without a light source, but you have to hold the camera absolutely still for multiple seconds. As long as there are light sources, your sensor picks them up. And the flare moves as Lawrence so well explained above because you are NOT holding the camera absolutely still as it's not possible to do so handheld.

I'm glad you're a biomedical engineer. That has nothing whatsoever to with photography. But I'm sure you're very intelligent and what you do I hope helps the world greatly.

I'm not going to provide any equations of any kind. Camera lenses capture lens flare. That is one the "physics" of photography. And good photographers, who practice the physics of photography know how to avoid taking photos with lens flare and if they are unavoidable, they use post editing processing software (such as PhotoShop) to fix their photos.

Thanks for the reminder on the forum goals and rules. Having been on this forum for more than a decade, I'm more than aware. If you think ANYONE can bring you more helpful information than to avoid photographing bright lights directly, you're going to be disappointed.

Thanks and take care.

Sorry, what you are seeing is a normal artifact of including a light source in your photo. It will happen with any camera from an iPhone to a $100,000 Cine movie camera.

It's a phenomenon known as lens flare.

https://photographylife.com/what-is-ghosting-and-flare/amp