iPhone 13 Camera is blurry

I agree raffcol!

Such a pity that the user who take this pic didn't reply yet.

This is the problem i faced with iPhone 13 Pro camera.

Some users are talking about blurry pics etc. but my concern was about this Oil Painting effect that seem to be applied to reduce picture's noise.

I heard that also Halide camera app can shoot a RAW without this oil painting processing (Apple pro Raw still does).

Maybe someone can try and share some shots with this app to find out more about it.

I think that 11 pro and older were had a different kind of noise reduction that looked more PRO and moe similar to film photography than paintings.

To help you understand what this oil painting effect is, you can see same zoom/crop on 2 different Apple devices, 11pro and 13pro.

(Pic from a IPhone 13 Pro user, RuivoM on Reddit to make it clear.

i found this after experiencing same on iPhone 13 Pro and comparing same shot with older iPhones )

You're welcome. I'm sorry you're not happy with the clarity of your pictures. My 13 Pro Max takes stunningly in focus photos. You might want to schedule an appointment at your Apple Store Genius Bar for evaluation if you're not getting photos out of your cameras like these (all taken in the last few days):

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):

According to the exif data, the respective "right" objects were used, which does not make things any better. I don't think it was so noticeable with the iPhone X // 11 Pro // 12 Pro because the 2x telephoto lens was not so weak and 2x digital zoom is not as noticeable as 3x digital zoom. What surprises me is that none of these tech bloggers on YouTube etc. at least pointed this out.

You wanna see bad? Zoom into the smaller dog's face. This was taken at distance, in sunlight. It doesn't even look like a picture. It looks like someone was drawing in MSpaint

Here is the same dog taken indoors with a Galaxy Note8

Yes, believe it or not, that is the same dog!

I think I'll take a little noise that I can smooth out later and get what looks like a real dog. I hope this is addressed in the 13 pro soon!

This is a screenshot from video when I zoomed. The sharpness is here. The processing in images is awful. This look perfect. This need to be addressed quickly. It destroys the images. Check the eyelashes and try to get tips with regular photo mode. You will never get it.

Just made another comparsion between iPhone 12 Pro Max and iPhone 13 Pro Max. Same conditions, 1/100s, iPhone 12 shoots with ISO 100 and f1.6 while iPhone 13 has ISO 80 and f1.5

In result, you clearly see the differences.

Here‘s the 12 Pro Max

And here the 13 Pro Max

I just tried something similar and the minimum focus distance for the "wide" (1x) lens is far enough away that by the time you crop to just the watch face the image is being digitally zoomed to appear the size it does on this site.

At 1:1 I see something more like this:

If I use the macro photo capability with the ultra-wide lens, I can get something like this:

This is what made me notice it the most, it’s the same picture (1min apart, both the wide lens) but one has a beauty filter smoothening everything and changing the lightning (night mode was off and it was as dark as on the first pic). Maybe there was less lighting from the screen, but you could also see this effect in the bright kitchen lights. It also took a couple of second and boom filter (didn’t look like that on the preview). Always focused on his face.

You can often also see that it only focusses on the face of people but the hair isn’t sharp. Plus when you turn on live you can see the HDR (I think) also doing it’s thing and giving everything more contrast/brightness while you don’t want it and can’t turn it off, the other pictures in it don’t have it only the main one.

some examples of what my 7 could focus:

While the 13 pro (can you call this pro??) has weird borders (noticeable on the cereal bowl) and can’t even focus on a full item, just one part of it (while my 7 could focus on different things in the foreground) + the background also is not just out of focus but often double like your drunk (picture of my cat).

and since I didn’t have these problems with a 7, which is stone-age for apple products, I don’t think the problem is me.

But then why are 2 pictures, taken at the same time, focussing on the same thing so immensely different where one has a filter and makes everything smooth and bright and the other you can see the pores etc? Why is the one item I focus on (cup of cereal) not fully focussed and the borders so mushy? And way are the items in the backgrounds sometimes double? They market this as the best phone camera ever, if the 7 can take the pictures it did why not take that main camera and make it even better? Payed 1200 euro’s to still be better of using a 7 from years ago for some detailed pics (even in low light it performed amazing for such an old camera look at the next picture from a dark rainy day)

I know it’s not as sharp as the others but for the circumstances? The 13 pro would just tweak it, put filters over it and make it worse because some software doesn’t believe that the lightning is ok for me?

Sadly, It’s past the return period (also I bought it trough our phone provider with some discount, so yeah) my 7 has horrible battery (it’s already been replaced once) and sometimes glitches. But I did wait for the 13 pro especially for the camera, which I find super important. Watched 100 reviews and no one said anything. Also seems the problems were just getting worse, until the point that now only pictures in perfect outside lightning are sometimes a little better than the 7.

From what I’m seeing I should have bought the 11 pro (which is my fault for believing apple) with the f1.8 because I do like an overal sharp photo not just foreground OR background, also like the fact that the 7 focusses on multiple things in the foreground not just one like the 13 pro seems to do? The 13 pro makes me wonder every time which part of my cat will be sharp when I tap her head idem with people it’s or the hair or the face? Also would rather see the pixels and grain than smoothness and sometimes double borders.

I do travel a lot and find it important to be able to snap a shot whenever I want. Glad I bought the canon R6 but won’t be able to cary that everywhere with me…

Some more examples of my 7 and what I wanted from the 13 pro but even better/sharper:

this I find a good example because the 7 is so old but at least the trees aren’t one green mushy thing, what I do get with the 13 pro even in ideal lighting.

here you can at least still read inside of the dome with non ideal light? A problem I’ve noticed a lit on car plates with the 13 pro, which I don’t see on any of my 7 pictures with cars. Especially with non ideal light its just a mushy mess.

was a dark day, but can still see the separate hairs…

And so on, just all to show that I thought this camera would be a massive upgrade (and I do take my time for pictures, not just conveniently picture anything fast) but is just meh and will need to take my 7 everywhere too now… Would expect better from a phone 5 generations further.

I do sometimes take good pics, it’s just crazy inconsistent and the overal sharpness is mushy and I don’t think the f1.5 is all to blame for that? Rather the overprocessing, can’t even see pixels?

Been feeling so bad as a student, trying to spoil myself, glad one purchase will be worth it… at least the battery is better haha

I definitely do.

The processing can be a little much at times, but the vast majority of the time it does a better job than any other iPhone I've owned, and I've owned them all.

For example, the iPhone 7 might do better to some under certain circumstances but I could list many, many circumstances under which the iPhone 12 Pro and 13 Pro wipe the floor with the iPhone 7's capabilities, especially low light/concert venues.

However if you really dislike the photos the 13 takes, I'd stay away rather than hope it becomes something more to your liking.

I upgrade my phone each year because as, Katana-San mentioned above, your best camera is the one you have with you, and except for particular situations I no longer have a need to travel with my DSLR, my iPhone 13 Pro Max does everything I would have otherwise normally carried my DSLR for.

That's not entirely true, night mode can do some very, very incredible things, but like any automated system it can only do so much.

For example, this shouldn't be possible by just pointing a phone straight up, hand held; it would take a tripod and much experimentation to get a shot of Orion like this with my DSLR.

Yes what I’m saying is that when you just want it how it looks in real life (see first 2 pictures I posted in my first comment) you (most of the times) get an over lightend smooth mess that’s not due to night mode and lots of people hate it.

Incredible picture btw, I love to take those kind of pictures so can’t wait! Already got this from the 7:

you could see some and the most important ones because you can make the southern cross out of it! So actually can’t wait to play with the 13 pro on this one, thanks!!