iPhone 13 Camera is blurry

I know. My sister has the maxed out +1000€ iPhone pro max ultra titan signature edition. And what it does is make use of the ultra wide angle lens when coming closer to an object. The pictures are still looking like garbage compared to any older iPhone. Because with those fisheye lenses you have massive distortion everywhere but in the very middle of your picture. See the comparison I’ve attached a couple of days ago. The pro is listed there too. Apple states „beautiful and sharp macro pictures“. And not the pro, not the normal and not mini is capable of doing so. Same with the iPhone 14 I’ve tested recently. But the 12 for example has no problem at all doing any of that. Or the 11.

Also my mini and the normal 13 and the 14 have said ultra wide angle lens just like the pro has. And because of this, I also don’t understand why we don’t get at least the bad looking close up feature on our non-pro phones. Even tho they’re capable regarding the hardware.

So when it comes to camera, I simply can’t recommend anyone to get an iPhone 13. But just go for the cheaper and in any aspect better 12.

And until I don’t get a prove that the loss of close up capabilities is justified somewhere else by being substantially better in another discipline, I have to stay with this statement. Since I don’t see any other improvement over the normal 12 camera.

well… apart from the „cinematic“ feature. But that’s just another software trick. So this doesn’t count.

What you describe is how ultra-wide angle lenses work, whether in macro mode or not and whether on a phone or on a $5000 DSLR or mirrorless camera.

They will be sharpest in the center with distortion and blur occurring the further you get toward the edges due to the curvature of the lens and the relatively large aperture.

For example, you can see the blur at the edges here in a photo taken with a $900 lens on a $4000 DSLR even though it was taken at the comparably very small (high depth of field) aperture of ƒ/6.3 as opposed to the 13 Pro/Max Ultra-Wide’s ƒ/1.8.

As I already said. I was at the Genius Bar already. Asking what is going on with those cameras. The people there tried my phone, were bummed and confused too, and convinced it’s a hardware issue. That’s why they changed the camera. We also ran diagnostics and everything. The camera just is like this.

Pointing out how wide angle lenses work is informative for sure. Thank you for that. But misses my point a bit.

The camera with all the lenses together aren’t just made for close ups anymore. At least for all the devices me and my friends received. Not with the pro, not with the mini and not with the normal iPhone. They’re either blurry altogether, zoomed in and artificially scaled up or distorted and a little bit blurry too. Those are the three options.

In that case I pick the „zoomed in and artificially scaled up“ method. Because it is the least bad of the options. But still a bummer. Because my blackberry passport from 2015 makes it better.

Thats all.

I am so glad you posted this!! I actually already thought about visiting an Apple Store in order to show this to an Apple Genius. It literally is horrible!!

My partner and I notice the same problem on our iPhone 13 pro and iPhone 13 pro max! Very blurry!

Yup, same for me - iPhone 13. Photos from front camera in low light look worse, than from SE 1gen that I used before. Horrible.

There's no general case hardware issue. I certainly see nothing in 4K videos like that.

If you feel there is one:

Contact - Official Apple Support

Welcome. DO NOT use liquid on your camera covers. It will only serve to distort images.

Do you have any photos you have taken with it and would be willing to share? Ones at various focal lengths, and even a photo of the settings you used for each photo?

I did take it to Genius Bar, they acknowledge there is an is an issue with my device. I will send it back, and I’m hoping the new one will function properly camera wise…

"clearly you" have never heard of LR mobile and it's ability to take DNG shots:

Lightroom Mobile and Lightroom Classic are two entirely different products.

The better test would be to shoot in RAW using the Camera app, then load the photo into Lightroom Classic on a Mac.

Looks like the difference you will always see between a fully processed photo and a RAW when first brought into Lightroom on a Mac, which is the point.

Looks like a Night Mode photo, which will always be a bit processed by definition plus there’s a bit of motion blur.

These cameras are at their best in bright light, though I love your skyline photo.