iPhone 13 Camera is blurry

I was so excited to purchase an iPhone 13 for the camera and to upgrade from my SE, but wow am I disappointed. I used my phone for my business social media photos when I didn't want to pull out my full size mirrorless camera, with this phone I don't even bother. Nothing will focus, if you do any sort of zooming in the item you're attempting to focus on distorts while everything else stays so crisp it looks questionable. I'm truly considering returning this phone.

For comparison, i once recorded a subject with telephoto lens and wide-angle lens. I subsequently enlarged the image with the wide angle. In comparison, I see practically no difference in the details there. In the end, I no longer enjoy taking pictures with the iPhone 13 Pro. A normal iPhone 13 would also have been enough.

I prefer the telephoto lens of my previous iPhone 11 Pro. This yielded much better results.

Telelens and under there wide angle (enlarged afterwards):

The optical telephoto lens does a substantially better job than digital zoom ever could.

Are you sure there was adequate light for the telephoto lens to actually be used? If there isn't, the phone will simply revert back to using digital zoom with the wide angle lens without telling you in any way that it's done so.

The only way to tell before snapping the photo is to slightly obscure the telephoto lens with your finger and see if you can see the obstruction on the screen; if not it's using the wide angle lens and applying a digital zoom.

Examining the EXIF data after taking the photo will tell you which lens was actually used.

The photo above was taken in conditions that are overcast enough I could easily imagine the two photos look identical because the telephoto photo was not in fact taken with the optical telephoto lens.

This isn't new to the 13 Pro; every iPhone back to the X has done this same "if light is low, use optical zoom on the wide lens instead of the telephoto lens" trick.

Thank you so much! That indeed is very very interesting. Reading all those "everything is good" posts made me doubt my own eyes. ;)

Do you have an older iPhone (i.e. 12 pro) to see, in which way if it behaves different?

That was also my intention to say wanting to edit the post which apple does not let me.

If you have two phones, preferably a recent model like 11/12, not a SE 2016 and 8 like me, you should do the test on both 13 and older.

I showed my samples the best I could.

The instructions I posted are very clear and make precise reproductible results. If you don't trust that I correctly touched the display to select the focus area, I encourage you and the other non-believer to replicate the test with whatever scene you want and skills you think you have.

>the camera photo does what it can to make a sharp photo out of a less than optimal sensor image.

that's exactly what it has been said before, that's exactly what EVERYONE HERE IS COMPLAINING ABOUT and I hope this is a batch of bad camera modules and apple would make a recall program.

it's not relevant what magazines and blogs have raved about the camera.

it's two thousand people complaining about the very same thing. in real world by extrapolation this can be 200.000 devices.

we don't even know if it affects you, since you even refuse to do this very basic test case that would at least clear the mystery of "my phone is amazing" type of replies you keep telling. if it's so amazing, do show us the results of the proposed test case. if you have nothing to hide, do the test. it's simple.

about the Genius Bar. there is no Genius Bar in my country, there are AASP and they replaced my camera. with no change.

[Edited by Moderator]

ItWasBetterBefore wrote:

it's not relevant what magazines and blogs have raved about the camera.

it's two thousand people complaining about the very same thing. in real world by extrapolation this can be 200.000 devices.

Which even at your extrapolated from thin air number of 200,000 is an absolutely tiny fraction of iPhone 13 customers. with Apple shipping around 49 million in Q3 2021 alone according to market analysts.

I'm curious why you think anyone needs to do your little test to validate your unhappiness with the cameras on iPhone 13 Pro? I have posted enough images I've taken with my iPhone, which I think are excellent. It's clear you're not happy with the cameras on your phone, but no matter how many people do your little test, it's not going to make you happier with your iPhone. And since this is a user to user only forum, which Apple (with the exception of moderators) doesn't participate in, no matter how many people you try to convince of the issues you believe are present, it won't change anything at all on your phone.

It's not "barely able" to take a photo, it will use the telephoto lens when there is enough light to make its use to shoot a usable image a reasonable choice.

You may disagree with its decision, but the device can tell how much light is reaching the sensor and reacts accordingly.

There's nothing "defective" here; when there isn't enough light to use the optical telephoto lens, the phone switches to digital zoom.

I recently shot some photos at an event with a stage using the telephoto lens, and the photos all were actually taken with the optical telephoto lens:

Every iPhone with an optical telephoto lens going back to at least the iPhone X has worked this same way.

I've personally asked Apple since the iPhone X to add an annunciator telling the user whether the zoom is optical or digital, but they seem not to want to add one; perhaps you'll have better luck:

Feedback - Camera - Apple

You are imposing your personal definition of "better" upon the results.

Your idea of "better" is not everyone's.

Personally, I find the camera to be better, much better. You disagree, and that's fine.

That however doesn't make it defective or broken.

As I already wrote, it was a test in daylight, i.e. best lighting conditions.

I am NOT dissatisfied with the fact that my telephoto lens subjectively takes bad pictures. I am dissatisfied with the fact that my telephoto lens takes NO pictures at all!

Sorry for all of you.

I guessed it's better to tell you their exposure parameters and found out that I was fooled again!

The bad photo was taken with 1x lens zoomed to 77mm.

We don't need to argue the shoddy IQ of iPhone's zoomed processing here again, but how am I fooled when my purpose was to test if could force the Camera to use 3x lens?

I had taken several shoots aiming at other direction in the same site just a few minutes before these two shots and all of them were verified been shot with 3x lens, with or without dialing down exposure manually, after that I got over this paranoid and forgot checking it.

I really can't understand why Apple refuse to give user the option to disable this auto switching of 3x lens to awful 3x zoom or at least indication/alert of the switch, since it is kindly to add option to disable auto macro mode.

I am having the exact same issue. I take close up photos for my Instagram account but every time it changes to the wide lens it goes SO blurry!!! When I turn auto macro off, the camera then doesn't focus on the object. So either way its not doing what my 11 pro used to do. I way preferred my iPhone 11 Pro camera. Please Apple, sort this!!!