iPhone 13 Camera is blurry

Using a third party app only solves half of the problem and additionally introduces a new problem:

1. The soft lens effect remains, despite the oilpainting gone. My perception is as if the sensor is able to capture details but the lens do not feed it good angular resolution
2. Third party apps cannot replace the swipe gesture at lockscreen which defies the point of having a point-and-shoot camera replacement in the pocket. That's one big marketing point of iPhone. If I have to unlock first then postprocess, this is no longer a "point and shoot" concept.

>Then your camera is working as designed.

How do we know for sure this isn't instead a small percent of manufacturing defects?

If is working a designed and the majority of iPhone 13 users are satisfied with the results, but there is a small percent dissatisfied, how do we know the cause is "working as designed" and not "a small batch with manufacturing defects"?

I mean, Apple managed to anger and frustrate photographers, not just regular users. At least from what I've seen commenting here.

>The comment "Local service has replaced the camera without any change." Granted, that sounds like a service provider, not Apple

Sorry I rushed typing. It was a local AASP. Which pretended they replaced the camera (and it shows in About that is genuine replaced), but I use a publicly available software that can read serial numbers and it shows the same camera serial numbers before and after "replacement".

I then contacted Apple support to complain and best they could do was to advise to go to a second opinion AASP. I went to the only available second AASP and they refused to ackowledge the issue.

Went back to Apple support and they again left me with no options other than recommending to proceed with local laws about customer reglementation authority, which is notorious for being mostly unhelpful in my country.

Good to see that now that Lightroom mobile, Halide etc are indicated to bypass the processing that still lies in the apple pro raw files

it took time but at least we agree on that ;))

I also noticed that now (not sure if after updates) oil-painting effect on iPhone 13 pro is not there if shooting in portrait mode (x3) but only using normal telephoto x3.

I tried shooting same subject with x3 versus x3 portrait mode and the result is very different .

in telephoto x3 without portrait mode text look “oil-painted” as well as people skin, especially faces etc.

are other user experiencing the same?

Make sure your 3x photos are being taken with the telephoto lens as opposed to being just digital zoomed versions of the 1x photo.

You can check by viewing the photo in Photos and pressing the information logo.

View photos in the Photos app on iPhone - Apple Support

Can you please send me the part when I’m saying that I like portrait mode ?

I would be grateful because I can’t find it :)

I outlined that portrait mode doesn’t have the strong processing as x3 because this can be a useful workaround for users that don’t want this processing.

“Substantial processing” to simulated bokeh can be decrease editing the focal length option later.

thanks for outlining again things I did talk about month ago (proRaw, third party app).

it means that now we are aligned :)

note that I m talking about producing images with high consistency with reality, which I prefer, opposed to processed.

”photos that look good” is a highly subjective way to define pictures and I m avoiding this to keep the conversation healthy.

note that I outlined that i used a tripod as well and this unluckily didn’t improve that on distant subjects like buildings.

A big part is the AI doing stuff. Look at it change the colors live while recording video, but the same goes for pictures. This is not brightness, so you have no control. It also does that when the light source is not in frame, before someone tells me to not record them directly. „itwasbetterbefore“ uploaded photos in which I found out which is the 13 Mini just by the light being far to white.

https://youtu.be/Vhzp-G9xDo4

No, this is a forum to allow users to help other users with their technical issues.

It is not an Apple Support forum, nor do Apple Engineers post here.

If you wish to speak to support, you may do so here:

Contact - Official Apple Support

I hear you. I returned the 13PM and went back to my 11 Pro Max for that reason. Other than the battery life, it's been a huge relief both in terms of ergonomics and camera performance.

When it comes to the cameras of the 13 generation, I was just talking about it with my bff who recently "upgraded" from the XS to the (regular) 13. He's thoroughly disappointed with the camera, and he hasn't noticed any overall performance improvements other than it being "a bit faster". He showed me just how hard it is for the 13's camera to focus on items like the fabric of his pants, whereas his XS does it immediately. He said he realised the issue when his phone would struggle to focus on QR codes on the spot, and he'd have to pull back and forth until he got it right.

I find it completely unacceptable on Apple's behalf to sell something "new" that's not even on the same level as a device that's existed for 4 years already.

Mine too! it's driving me mad as i mainly upgraded for the camera and paid over 1k for a selfie camera in low light that performs worse than an iPhone 4!!

2 images attached are last night at 3am when baby woke and just had a lamp on, plenty bright enough for a decent clear photo and then a normal selfie in standard light, as you can see the quality changes dramatically as soon as the light drops a bit

Please. When the calibration is clearly off and is evidenced by tons of people across the world reporting the same drop in quality, telling me it's "not the right phone for my needs" or that it's "me disliking it" but not a structural problem –that is a talking point straight out of Apple Store employee instructions.

I've had the same talk, in-person, with Apple Store staff when I returned my phone and their answer was carbon-copy: "it's just not the right phone for your needs". Same with Apple affiliated accounts on Twitter, even as I presented my side-by-side photo comparison: not the right phone for my needs.

This is disrespectful to paying customers who rightfully expect the latest model would outperform its 5 year old predecessor in every way possible. The 13 generation has botched cameras. There's no spinning it and I didn't buy the latest phone just so I could have a workaround with a third-party camera app (which isn't all that effective either).

Looks like digital zoom, which is used if the light is less than perfect and if you are zoomed to something other than .5x, 1x, 2x or 3x on a 14 Pro Max.

Your exposure is also too high, which has completely blown out your highlights.

It's not an issue, it's minimum focus distance, a parameter of every camera system as that's how optics work.

The replacement of the camera shows it's not a hardware issue.

You may be unhappy with it, and I get that, but it's not going to change.

You have to take a step back until it focuses, with minimum focus distance being much more distant on the 13 Mini compared to the better camera system on the 13 Pro/Pro Max.

No, I don’t see your issue except to see that you selected the wrong device. It is working as designed, but it isn’t meeting your needs.

The device isn’t going to change; if you purchase a telescope it won’t focus on anything closer than perhaps 25 feet away. That’s just the way it is.

Apple uses macro mode with the ultra-wide lens to allow you to focus on something closer than the minimum focus distance of the main wide lens. That’s the way it was with the 13 Pro/Pro Max and is with the 14 Pro/Pro Max. Unless the laws of optics change, it won’t be different in future models.

The lenses make for a minimum focus distance and if you need something that focuses on close objects, you need to choose your device accordingly.

What people at the Genius Bar have to say isn’t important except to show that perhaps Apple needs to better educate their employees as to the capabilities of each device; this behavior has been known for well over a year.

A possible workaround is available via the third party photo app Halide, which uses digital manipulation to provide a pseudo-macro mode for the Mini - not as good as what the Pro models can do but sometimes better than what can be achieved otherwise.

A feature or better called: a possible focus range literally every iPhone before had no problem with, that’s I now only available to „pro“ models, is definitely something I would confidently call a downgrade.

Also the close up picture quality of the pro models is also garbage compared to older devices. There are so many people being angry about this. I stopped counting the articles talking about it. So it’s not like I’m just an unsatisfied niche customer that wants to randomly complain. It’s a major issue for many people that negatively impacts their daily usage. And that’s what counts.