iPhone 13 Camera is blurry

I guess it's all personal taste; I like the ones from the 13 much more - sharper with better detail and white balance.

It's hard to compare directly given they were taken years apart and the vaguely yellow appearance of the 11 photos is likely due to a lighting switch from sodium vapor to LED by the park.

Thanks a lot man for your reply. I see the same feedback from you in every single page.

You're right - purple snow it’s ok and more natural comparing to yellow and it’s the led lighter with sodium vapor 🤦‍♂️

I don't see purple snow at all, and the iPhone 11 photos have a distinctly yellow cast. If the light is LED, the iPhone 13 is getting the color and quality right - a cool white with a slight touch of blue, but nothing I'd call a purple cast.

Might I suggest you calibrate your monitor?

Mine is calibrated monthly with a datacolor SpyderX Elite.

Anyway white balance and color saturation in iPhone 13 is too match unnatural.

I’d like suggest everyone who has an issue with camera send a report to support and maybe apple fix this trash in future ios update

I just received the iPhone 13 for Christmas I am truly so sad. I feel so bad telling my parents but I want to keep my old phone (iPhone X). I don’t understand why Apple changed the frontal camera! I can’t possible believe there is no one in their team that didn’t think that it just looks terrible. I look like a ghosts and I come from a warm country (i am naturally tanned). I truly believe Apple is behind their competition in various aspects but camera was always first place for consumers choice so why the change?

does anyone have any tips to improve? I’ve even tried to use Instagram filters and it’s dreadful

The front camera actually does a much better job than it did on phones past.

The key is you have to have good light or the processing will do what it has to to make a good photo out of the image data the sensor can capture.

Where previously it would just produce a bad, grainy photo, now it will use Deep Fusion to try and make a "daylight" photo out, often leading to a lot of smoothing.

I have one more question, maybe someone can confirm it or recreate it.

Is it normal that the tele lens cannot work as a separate lens but only works together with the wide-angle lens? This is the case with my iPhone 13 Pro, and I have also found the same thing with another iPhone 13 Pro. Regardless of the light conditions, a picture can only be taken together with the wide-angle lens. If I cover the wide-angle lens, the image becomes blurred at 3x magnification. I have not yet managed to take a picture with the telelens working separately. Not even on the brightest day.

Using third party apps (Lightroom Mobile) does eliminate the cartoonface/oilpainting for me, so clearly one of the issues is caused by Camera app.

I use a mini so no ProRaw for me, but both the DNG as well as the JPG done by LR mobile are free from the exagerated SmartHDR effect done when using native Camera app. (By the way LR DNG result is not a true raw, the compression type in the DNG file is type 7 which corresponds to JPEG)

BUT even without the oilpainting on third party camera app I still get less details than my iPhone 8 in more than half of cases especially on home indoor lighting. I hope to be able to reproduce the experiment using a tripod and upload the samples soon.

I wish I had an 11 or know a friend with 11 to objectively compare same scene at home.

I went to a showroom but it has strong light and it was difficult to tell which one did better sharpness. I airdropped them to my phone and to be honest the 13 is not really standing above the 11 and 12 and the 2020 SE that were displayed in store. Not to mention I could focus a bit closer with the 12 mini and the SE2 and really much closer with 11.

The 13 Pro has macro mode for close photos.

No close focus specification was given for the 13.

Ultimately it's up to the purchaser to decide whether the camera suits their needs, one reason why Apple has their return policy.

Posting examples of various photos has absolutely no purpose here; the camera is what it is, and if you prefer photos taken by your iPhone 8, great for you, there's nothing any of us here can do about it.

That said, I certainly can't stop you, I just wonder what you are trying to achieve.

I just got the iPhone 13 pro and was SO excited for the camera! I was not disappointed when I took a selfie and it was SO FREAKING clear and crazy good quality. I was so excited to shoot some outfit photos. So I had my husband take a photo of me and the photo was horrible. Sooooo grainy and low quality! I’m the exact same light, same settings, I even had him take the photo multiple times and it’s HORRIBLE. It’s literally so grainy, noisy and just bad. My iPhone XR took better phones. And now it’s too late to return this one :( Apple please make an update to fix this camera!!!!

If you "just got" the iPhone 13 Pro, if purchased directly from Apple you have 14 days to return your phone for a full refund.

If it was purchased directly from the Apple online store during the holiday shopping period (November 1, 2021 - December 25, 2021) you have until January 8, 2022 to return your phone for a full refund.

If purchased at an Apple retail store or another retailer, or through your carrier, you have to abide by their return policies.

As an aside, if the first photo was wonderfully clear but in the same light later photos were not, there is something about the photo setup that is causing your later photos to turn out differently.

Yes, because 2x is always digital zoom on an iPhone 13 and is very much not recommended for best quality.

If you have a 13 or 13 Mini, the only optical zoom levels are .5x and 1x.

If you have a 13 Pro, the only optical zoom levels are .5x, 1x and 3x.

Using any digital zoom level will always reduce image quality, as you're effectively zooming in on an existing digital image, cutting resolution in half.

Stick to .5x or 1x, or only if the lighting is good if you have a Pro or Pro Max, 3x.

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.

when you use the back camera it’s fine, but when you use the front camera in dim or dark lighting the camera is really really bad. in good lighting or in light it’s nice, clear, it’s fine. but the low or dark lighting is really a problem. once you open the camera in any app and the phone like detects that it’s dark it’s automatically dims the camera. in the iphone camera app specifically once it dims the camera it puts on the night mode thing and that’s the only thing that helps. the problem with that is it takes seconds after the picture is taken to finally work. you have to take the picture and hold still for very long, sometimes even 10 seconds. in a new update i am hoping they stop making the camera setting for us and letting us choose when we want the camera to dim or not. and it’s also VERY VERY fuzzy in a dark setting. it really is frustrating and needs to be resolved