Iphone 12 pro max odd camera reflections and glare

If this is your first phone to have Night Mode photography, you will soon learn, this is completely normal. You can avoid them easily as flares can be clearly seen on your screen before you take the photo. Simply altering the angle of the phone (camera) relative to the scene can easily fix a lot of the flares.

See this link for some guidance on this topic --> How to Fix The Green Dots

Here are two photos I took to illustrate this as well. I didn't move my location for the second photo. I altered the angle of camera relative to the scene:

yes uncomparable between mobile lens & dslr lens

but to compare 11promax, 12promax & huawei p30pro, I can compare because all three of them are in my hand right now, and the huawei has almost zero flare/ghosting12Pro Max

11 Pro Max

Huawei P30Pro

I don't mind if all got the ghosting, but if only Apple has it, then Apple has a problem

That professional photographer is in a sense right, but completely wrong. If the lenses were coated, you would not be able to take night mode photos. There is a trade-off here. Huawei, partnered with Leica, one of the worlds greatest lens manufacturers to try to coat the lenses on their phones. They failed. If the lenses were coated, night mode photography wouldn't work.

The end result means that if you return the phone and get a new one, the new one will do the exact same thing. To compare the lens of a DSLR with the lens of a small compact lens on a cell phone is an Apples to Oranges comparison. Thus not valid. And I would love to know the name of this so-called professional photographer as I would never hire him or her do to anything professional for me.

People keep saying Apple gave them (what I call a mercy) replacement because Apple agreed (placated actually) them and guess what? Their new phone did the same exact thing. No, I haven't examined all phones, you know I couldn't. But I'm willing to bet you the reality of defective units is so infinitesimally small as to be statistically insignificant.

The reality is people are for the first time experiencing night mode photography. Do you have an iPhone X or Xs or 8 or Xr to take a night photo with? If you did, you'd be incredibly disappointed at the night time photos they took. They will exhibit "some" flares, but likely NOT to the degree the new phones take. Why? Because in using Night Mode the shutter has to be open far longer than it was ever possible for it to be open on phones without night mode. That in itself presents issues for a camera sensor, especially one confronted with bright lights hitting the sensor for an extended period of time like what happens when you take a Night Mode photo.

I'm not trying to argue with you. I've spent years studying photography (as a hobby, I'm not a pro), learning about focal lengths, ISO, Aperture, etc., so I am pretty educated about the subject and I understand why the flares occur. And I understand as I demonstrated in the side by side photos I posted above HOW to minimize or eliminate them.

I know you're hoping to find out there is something wrong with the camera system. The reality is there simply isn't any defect. What you and others have to do is learn how to work with the camera system in your phone to minimize the flares and that takes more than just point and shoot.

Take care and I honestly mean that.

Returning the 12 mini and 12 Pro Max we just purchased. Upgraded from a 7 plus and extremely disappointed in the lens flare, ghosting. Taking pictures of family in front of Christmas tree, as we’ve done for years, results in colored spots in all the faces. While I understand optics this is not normal and I consider it a design flaw. Anti-reflective coatings work well and the glare should not be this strong. Our 7 plus in the exact same spot, conditions has zero flare. Crazy you spend almost $2000 for an upgrade and out of the box it’s worse at indoor photography. It’s a phone, I shouldn’t have to compose and look for the right angle to take a picture. Funny how all the reviews don’t even mention it, but google it and tons of posts on this flaw.

Yep, same issue. Took a photo of my dog and the snowflake from the tree got imprinted on his face. I get that this is normal for regular photography with a DSLR. What people excusing Apple for this oversight is this: This isn’t a regular camera. NONE of the pictures you see in your photo album are RAW files, they’re processed photos. Every pixel selected from a set of 16 images that the iPhone deems best to create the image you see in the photo app. There is no excuse that the programming couldn’t have been designed to detect a ghost image, reflection or lens flare and to take them out.

As I've said more than once throughout this thread the expectation of the cameras in iPhone is unrealistic. If you are comparing m.Zuiko lenses, many costing far more than an iPhone itself, the comparison is completely unrealistic.

Of course the design of the lenses in iPhone limit performance. iPhone is not a standalone camera system. It's a cell phone with industry leading performance for a CELL PHONE.

Gigantic signs mirrored on the sky? That’s a very powerful neon sign! I don’t think so! I have the same problem. I thought it was a glitch in the phone so I went to the store and exchanged it for another one. Same story, it didn’t help. Good thing I’m still on warranty so I will just return the phone and go back to my old phone, so disappointing!

This is not a night mode problem, even if you turn night mode off it still gives you these annoying lens flares. I never had these on my 8 plus so this is def. a problem with the coating or something on the glass covering the lens.

I am having these issue too. I own DSLR, Mirrorless cameras as well. These “flares” are actually reflections. I believe there is an issue with coatings or 2 flat lens faces cause reflective “bounce back” of images. It happens in low light and in normal indoor situations. Video and photo, although it’s really horrible in video! It’s annoying. I came from iPhone XS no issues there.

Lens Flare is Normal and can be very nice “cinematically”. This issue is neither of those things.

They don’t use coatings to reduce flaring because it would interfere with Night Mode? Well that’s a remarkable statement. So it’s a design decision, not just a limitation of the physics of lenses. And one can question their design decision. That’s the point. What’s the use of Night Mode if you can’t shoot into a light source. One might assume that people shooting in night mode would want to shoot directly at light sources.

The day will come when Apple will find a way to incorporate the same flare eliminating/reducing design and technology that lens manufacturers have so successfully utilized. Until then it will be “an expected result” as Apple told me. Notice Apple has never claimed that there is no way to build a camera in a phone with a lens with less flare/ghosting/spots.

Good photographers doe blame themselves but not always. Otherwise there would be no need for camera and lens critical reviews and people should never have to replace their camera gear for something better. Moreover, camera/lens/phone companies should close down their R&D departments. 

Pin hole cameras had their place in camera history, but thankfully lens engineers continually produced better lenses (and cameras) and we could say good buy to those camera’s. Apple has greatly improved the camera modules but they have further to go. It’s not a physics limitation, it is a physics restriction resulting from the conscious design decisions. The problem with the main camera arises from the lens. Larger sensor and stabilization are excellent in stills and video.

The camera needs to come with a advisement, and post a video on how to correct it. A very un-Apple thing to do. Someday Apple will redesign their lens design to limit or prevent spots and ghosting.

You say Apple should change the laws of physics to avoid ghosting and flare. You're right as long as there aren't 100% pure and perfect lenses and coatings. But that's not what this whole issue is about. Nobody claims that ghosting and flare should be 100% absent. What does matter is that a number of users (including myself) believe that the level of ghosting is far too high.

How can you be sure that in all cases where users complain here there is no defect? Have you examined all devices? How can you be sure that in all cases there is nothing wrong with a coating or with the purity of the optical elements or any other defect?

The fact that it's perfectly normal for these kind of cameras to show ghosting and flare doesn't exclude the possibility that there is really something wrong with some of them, does it?

There are just too many issues with the photo you took and the fact that what you are describing (HDR, btw) has nothing to do with flare. The dog is too close to the camera to begin with. I'm not going to list everything you could have done better with this photo, but you could have taken a MUCH better photo. It's not the fault of the camera that's for sure. And I know this isn't what you want to hear. But posting a badly composed photo isn't evidence of anything wrong with your phone's cameras.

Sorry

Go the last page of this thread and look at some of the photos I just posted for reference --> https://discussions.apple.com/thread/251953166

It's quite simple actually. Coatings would reduce the available light which can get through to the sensor. The reason Night Mode works so well is more light makes it to the sensor. Anything you did to reduce the light would make Night Mode not work well.