iPhone 13 Camera is blurry

>> No, you cannot force use of the optical 3x lens, the scene has to be bright enough for the camera to tell it would result in a better image than the digitally zoomed wide lens

<<

I used the same trick to 'force' Camera sticking to 3x lens in several indoor and outdoor scenes.

Here are two sets of photos just shot a few hours ago at two scenes. In each set, one was taken in full auto mode and the other one purposely dialed down 1/3 or 2/3 EV.

Both photos in full auto mode was siliently switched to 1x lens and zoomed to 3x.

Both photos with dialed down EV sticked to 3x lens.

They also manifest IQ discrepancy; the darker pair may be a little more noisy but are way better in color reproduction, texture detail and outline definition.

Set 1:

A: -0.3 EV, 3x lens as selected

https://www.icloud.com/iclouddrive/0j9CoQdNGrwF-yJxZdk35ikNg#IMG_9261

B: full auto mode, switched from selected 3x lens to 1x lens behind my back:

https://www.icloud.com/iclouddrive/0KqZV4yysEvW_TCiIH94exMDg#IMG_9258

Set 2:

A: -0.7 EV, 3x lens as selected

https://www.icloud.com/iclouddrive/0j1rwAXs4pWjR51DtImeUMAPA#IMG_9252

B: full auto mode, switched from selected 3x lens to 1x lens behind my back

https://www.icloud.com/iclouddrive/0z1BXbb-y62fOaYFgf3TVuFcQ#IMG_9251

You wanna see bad? Zoom into the smaller dog's face. This was taken at distance, in sunlight. It doesn't even look like a picture. It looks like someone was drawing in MSpaint

Here is the same dog taken indoors with a Galaxy Note8

Yes, believe it or not, that is the same dog!

I think I'll take a little noise that I can smooth out later and get what looks like a real dog. I hope this is addressed in the 13 pro soon!

No, it is not correct; I have too many photos to count taken with the telephoto lens.

Rather if the phone believes a better, less noisy image can be created using digital zoom on the wide lens rather than the optical telephoto lens, it will do so.

As long as the light is reasonable, the telephoto will be used, as can be verified by the EXIF data for the photo as can be viewed by tapping the "i" in a circle icon while viewing the photo in your photo library.

If your phone is truly never using it, it likely indicates an issue with your phone and you should have it examined:

Genius Bar Reservation and Apple Support Options - Apple

What was the shutter speed on the 13 Pro Max? The difference in ISO and aperture don't account for the difference shown. Looks to me more like a difference in how the images were processed, or maybe the 13 Pro Max is a digital zoom?

It‘s only 1.5 vs. 1.6. Made a couple of shots on both phones. With the 12, almost every shot was crisp and clean with perfect sharpness and colors. On the 13, this shot was the best I got. Focus was on the writing every time.

New iPhone 13 Pro, I am shocked at what poor quality photographs this POS produces. I have visited all the online forums suggesting fixes by turning off all the settings that was supposed to make this photographic experience better. Turn off Auto Macro, done, turn off HDR done, change format to best suited, done. Still the photographs are shockingly bad. It feels like bad Len

alignment of post processing gone awry. I am taking mine back tomorrow. So disappointing and I am not alone. There are literally hundreds of complaints about how blurry, over processed and generally terrible quality this device produces. I will try a swap and hope I just got a bad one? Quality control?.? Or Downgrade to the iPhone 11 Pro which takes much higher quality images.

“It just works”, well no it actually doesn’t.

This is due to depth of field.

• iPhone 13 Pro: ƒ/1.5 aperture
• iPhone 7: ƒ/1.8 aperture

This means less of the frame in front of or behind the focus point will actually be in focus due to the wider aperture of the iPhone 13 Pro's "wide" lens.

I restored my 13 pro hoping that would help but no. The version of camera/software combination is shockingly bad. It make me auestion the honesty, integrity and skill all the so called expert reviewers. A mostly the quality of the folks at apple pushing this 3rd rate iPhone as the next big thing. Apple use to stand by the motto “it just works”. Expensive *****. By the 11pro, side by side image examples in Adobe Lightroom are so different. 11 pro being the gar better device if you are looking for camera quality.

Hello ~ Remember we here in this forum are users just as you are. We don’t work or “review” for Apple…that is made pretty clear when you sign up to use this forum. If you don’t like the camera or iPhone get something else. I have owned more cameras than I care to discuss and had some kind of problem with each one of them…. every single one of them. What I did was learn to work around each short coming or issue and if it were too much of a hassle…into the closet or junk drawer. I don’t have any iPhones in that drawer however. Complaining about it certainly does not solve one thing. Sell it and get something else. The people who help in these forums are volunteers like myself. I do as much as I can to help as many as I can every day. If you need further assistance go to upper right hand corner and click on Get Support and discuss your particular issue with Apple or take your device in for a checkup:

Genius Bar Reservation and Apple Support Options

Product Feedback - Apple

~Katana-San~

Hi! Just tried it out and didn’t change anything, when a person comes in frame you notice it the most, face is smooth (especially in low light) and too highlighted. Had to take a picture from snapchat to show how his hair is in real life because others where to big to upload here.

This oversharpening effect on iphone 13 models are DISGUSTING! I can no longer post videos on my social media of my pets etc. The quality is horrendous. My Iphone X has great video quality while the 13 is horrid.

Please address this issue Apple! We want the HDR effect turned off asap!

My IPhone 8plus takes way better pictures. Online reviews made it seem the camera was better but it literally is terrible compared to my iPhone 8plus. ESPECIALLY the front camera. Front camera should’ve been taken off. It looks like it has a Instagram smoothing skin filter. My 8plus is clear and you can see all the pores on my face, the 13pro max just looks like I’m another Instagram person with the said filter. I’d be so embarrassed to release this phone and over advertise something that actually isn’t what it is.

I guess we all have a different standard of what constitutes a quality image. For me (and obviously a huge amount of dissapoited iPhone 13 pro users) it is sharp details, well-exposed shadows and highlights, good color balance, and consistent results and a clean image we can filter later if we want to. None of which the iPhone 13 Pro gives me. I get oversaturated, blurry over-processed images. My iPhone 11 Pro was really amazing and I am looking for another 11pro. I do like the lidar on the 13 pro so for my set design work that is a plus. but camera/image wise it a total bust.

[Edited by Moderator]

So I did exactly that what you said and I can confirm the processing of the pics that cause this issue looks exactly the same with ProRaw. It's definitively something in the camera's hardware that it's doing prior to saving the file or even processing the file (obviously if it's happening in ProRaw).

one trouble could be many people traded their older phones and they have no second iPhone to send compare images.

I still have the 8. here is an indoor lighting compare, along with a mirrorless aps-c 18mm. all on tripod and focusing in the center.

originals with exif available at https://emma.cloud.tabdigital.eu/s/sjLAkfTNmqL3CWN