iPhone 13 Camera is blurry

I have had the same problem! I’ve compared the pictures of my Note 10 plus with the IPhone and the photos are better on my two year old device! Apple should do an update to fix the blurriness issue, especially when trying to take a picture in low light, it’s not focused at all.

You did a digital zoom on the portion of the photo I posted which is already a downsampled JPEG of the original and claim there’s a problem?

I don’t know what to say about that except digital zoom is always problematic in any context.

Exactly Dogcow. People here are all too often basing their perceived negative impression of iPhone 13 Pro photos using digital zoom, which is simply only going to provide the results they're complaining about. If iPhone cameras had Optical Zoom, that would be great. The added cost and complexity of lenses which can optically zoom out would be cost prohibitive in a cell phone for sure.

No matter what anyone does, there are always going to be tradeoffs and digital zoom uniformly is not good. So, I don't EVER EVER use it unless I simply have no choice and then, I accept the results will be poor at best.

isazavakos wrote:

...[snip]...

Left is iPhone 13 Pro camera app using RAW settings. Right is the same photo file put into Lightroom, with no adjustments made by me. The over processing on the left apparent. Nevertheless, while I don’t have a good flower comparison at the moment because I do not have access to all of my old photos:

Words almost fail me. If you are using RAW files I'm sure you will agree they are intended to be post processed by a human with relevant skills. Everyone with two brain cells to rub together knows an automated rendering from RAW capture is only a mean best guess to allow viewing and rapid assessment.

It is verging on delusional to think anyone can make a valid comparison of image quality from natural objects taken at different times, with different instruments, under non-standard lighting.

The spelling is different, and the adjustment is applied at a different stage of the process but IMO it would be difficult or impossible to distinguish between the results simply by looking at the image and pixels (using the functions available in current iPhones and iOS).

Kind of.

Digital crop is usually considered to be when you take say a 8K x 8K image and use it to make a 2K x 2K image by cropping an image that size out of the larger image.

Digital zoom is when you take an image that is 2K x 2K and resample the pixels there to make it a new 2K x 2K image.

That trick works in movies and on TV crime/spy shows but not in real life.

You’re correct here; I often will use digital zoom to try and figure out what a distant object is or read a distant sign and in those use cases it means little if the resulting object or letters look like they are made of Lego® blocks.

I’m thinking about swapping my new 13 PM too.

Please tell us what happened at the Genius Bar. I see your photo examples are over processed, like a software bug, and wondered if you got to test another 13 pro to compare with that had no issues? Did you get new evidence that a replacement phone would solve the problem?

I went from the iPhone X to the iPhone 13 pro. I thought I would be wowed by the improvement but it has been rather disappointing if not worst. I thought it was just me because all the reviews having been raving about the camera. Glad I’m not the only one who noticed that iPhone 13 pro camera is terrible. Photos are blurry in some spots and too sharp in other spots. Wish I could return it.

Actually I think its not too bad. The focus is right in the middle. Like where the spoon is. Also in this range is the coffee crema where you can see the foam. This camera seems to have a very thin focus area with the 1.5 aperture...

nuama wrote:

I have taken same DNG scene shot with 8 and 13 using Lightroom and 8 clearly shows better details.

13 is only better in low light, but in bright daylight 13 is garbage.

(oh and portrait is also a total disaster... 🙈)

Every single post you've made here bashes the cameras in your iPhone. If the camera is really that disappointing to you, I'd sell the phone and get something better suited to your expectations.

My iPhone 13 Pro Max takes the best photos of any iPhone I've yet owned and of the more modern ones, that includes X, XS Max, 11 Pro Max and 12 Pro Max before the 13 Pro Max.

lobsterghost1 wrote:

nuama wrote:

I have taken same DNG scene shot with 8 and 13 using Lightroom and 8 clearly shows better details.

13 is only better in low light, but in bright daylight 13 is garbage.

(oh and portrait is also a total disaster... 🙈)

Every single post you've made here bashes the cameras in your iPhone. If the camera is really that disappointing to you, I'd sell the phone and get something better suited to your expectations.

I wouldn't waste your time arguing with someone who thinks Adobe Lightroom is used for taking photos.

Good point.

So many in this photo thread are simply have no photographic expertise at all. None. Zip. Nadda.

They choose to believe cameras take bad pictures. It's people who take bad pictures. The camera is nothing more than the tool the person uses to take the picture. There's an old saying in photography which is just as true today as ever........"It's not the camera, it's the person behind the lens." Something people here simply don't understand.

I think the new cameras are perhaps too much for some here. They don't understand which camera to use for which subjects. They don't even try to adjust anything. They don't look at their screen to see exactly what the camera is capturing. If they did, they'd recognize they either are using the wrong camera or settings or they're too close or any number of issues the vast majority of photos posted here demonstrate. Instead, they get a less than Ansel Adams result and blame the camera. Many here would benefit from a single camera iPhone like they had in the iPhone 8 days. We've even seen some posts lamenting how they believe iPhone 8 took better photos. Of course it didn't. It was just way less complicated for them to take a picture with.

Clearly you DON'T understand Lightroom is a photo editing tool from Adobe. Lightroom doesn't take photos, because Lightroom isn't a camera. You so clearly have no clue what you're talking about. Your statement above that Lightroom can take raw shots on iPhone is 100% wrong. iPhone 13 Pro can take Raw shots. Anytime you take a Raw shot you MUST edit it to use the available data to its fullest potential. You can use a tool like Lightroom to do that.

No wonder you don't understand how to capture great pictures with iPhone.

dcdandan wrote:

Lol why be on support page and bash ppl

there has been many discussion on macrumors and other forums too. In some instances it does perform worse than prior models and seem much more over processing than before

Dogcow offered good responses to the sections I'm not addressing here.

I'm bashing no one. But when people make claims which are completely false, hearing the truth they took a photo not too well can be hard to accept.

I can show you many many many reviews which suggest the new cameras on iPhone 13 Pro are not only better than previous iPhones, they are the best Apple has ever introduced.

You can believe what you choose. Having had my phone now for weeks, I can tell you the cameras are exceptional. And yes, I am better informed on photography than some people. I've been into photography a long time. That just means I know more about how to take good pictures. Many here simply don't and all they can do to make themselves feel better is blame the cameras. In other words, not knowing how to best utilize the tools, is not an acceptable excuse for blaming the tools.