iPhone 13 Camera is blurry

Come on guys, this doesn't really make sense or help anybody. As we can read here, there are quite a number of people who aren't happy with the camera of their iPhone 13 pro and two, who are happy. And if the iPhone 13 pro fits the expectations, they had, hey, that's just perfect.

For me, using iPhones since the first one back in 2007 and doing photography as part of my job, it looks different. The results of the iPhone 12 Pro Max made me let my DSLRs stay at home in more and more situations. The results of the 13 Pro Max don't. Maybe for most of the iPhone users who only look at the pictures on their iPhone screen, it works. For me, it doesn't quite as good as before.

Using 3rd party Apps and RAW and turning off the automatic macro switch helped a lot and maybe, we will see an HDR off option in the future. Anyway, the iPhone 12 was more "pro" than the new one. And I think, that's the point we are here for to discuss. How to deal with it, how to enhance the output. And yes, maybe those who are satisfied with their phones might lean back and just enjoy their perfect photos, instead of telling on and on again that for them everything is good. Cause this doesn't really solve the problem or helps the others dealing with it.

My workaround to the bad IQ of 3x lens shot with stock Camera app is to pull down EV by one or two step; this somehow hints the app to stick to 3x lens by exposing with higher ISO or slower shutter. The image will be sharp and natural as expected; it may often be somewhat under exposed but you can easily pull up the shadow area without impact to overall IQ.

Note that the better way of stepping down EV is swiping up the live window to reveal the hidden control bar and press the EV compensation button (a circle with + and - sign in it). A traditional EV scale will pop up, allowing user to adjust the EV in discrete 0.3 step.

This workaround doesn't always works, and will surely fail if the subject plane is not far enough (this sounds making sense but Apple's digital zoom processing is far far behind Google's; the sharpness is definitely worse than just shooting with 1x and zooming it later in decent image editor).

Also notes that night mode may kick in when Camera decides that the field of view is too dark even for the f1.5 wide lens; in this case, Camera will usually stick to 3x lens exposing in one or more seconds, giveing out bright and sharp enough image.

But what a pain to learn this nonsense lesson!

I came from iPhone 6s so I didn't know Apple's auto-switching-from-telephoto-to-wide smartness and never encountered it in any real camera hooked with a zoom lens.

I was very disappointed to find out the IQ of its 3x lens at 77mm is much less sharper than my loved Cannon G7X zoomed only at 50mm (but not really frustrated since smartphone camera could never been in the same ballpark as the pocketable G7X).

There is no way I could attribute this bad IQ to it's been shot with zooming the wide lens, I didn't notice at that time any visual transitions from 3x lens to 1x lens (the switching is so seamless, an Apple magic show), and how am I supposed to check the parameter if it was shot with a 77mm lens? In the info pane there was that '77mm' supposed to be focal length, that 'Wide Camera -- 26 mm f1.5' lens info did not trigger alarm to me who never owned a smartphone with more than one lens.

I didn't figure the root cause of bad 3x IQ until I shot in exactly the same scene and lighting condition using Halide for evaluating apps offering more manual controls. The IQ from Halide is not to be competed with G7X in 55mm zoom but definitely much better than those shot with built-in app.

This forced me to carefully compare the exposure parameters and the first thing I noticed is stock app's f1.5 vs Halide's f2.8, and still didn't notice the lens used were different, because I never saw this kind of thing in my whole life in photography. Aperture, shuttle speed, even ISO may be adjusted depending on the exposure mode, but how can the lens be swapped or zoom setting be changed silently?

So my theory at that instant was the 3x lens is way more blurrier when wide open and Halide developer knew it and decided to always fall back to f2.8 and compensate it with stepping up ISO or slowing down shutter speed. I even proudly announced to my wife that I finally figured out the cause of the bad IQ of telephoto lens and requested a kiss honor.

A few hours later, while I was posting my finding and writing about the 3x lens resolution in f1.5 vs f2.8, it occurred to me that the widest aperture of 3x lens is 2.8! There is no way the stock Camera app could shoot 3x lens in f1.5 and no smartness of Halide developer in avoiding it.

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.

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

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.

What is being described is normal.

However, if you feel your phone's camera has an issue, feel free to have it checked:

Genius Bar Reservation and Apple Support Options - Apple

If you don't have an Apple Store nearby, contact Apple Support directly:

Contact - Official Apple Support

Meaning the regular Apple “Camera” app.

Third-party apps are free to do their own processing or none at all.

The Apple Camera app provides the best results for most people under most circumstances, but if you want no processing to be performed so you can do it yourself, that ability is present with third-party apps.

ItWasBetterBefore wrote:

>Then your camera is working as designed.

How do we know for sure this isn't instead a small percent of manufacturing defects?

The comment "Local service has replaced the camera without any change."

Granted, that sounds like a service provider, not Apple, so it could still be a lens issue, but I am going with the assumption it was a provider that knew what they were doing.

If is working a designed and the majority of iPhone 13 users are satisfied with the results, but there is a small percent dissatisfied, how do we know the cause is "working as designed" and not "a small batch with manufacturing defects"?

See above and the fact that it was serviced.

I mean, Apple managed to anger and frustrate photographers, not just regular users. At least from what I've seen commenting here.

Actually most photographers and regular users are happy.

Apple has frustrated some who want a more raw output from the sensor, but as computational photography becomes more of the norm, what all smartphones is providing is fully processed, filtered images ready for one button posting to social media.

Apple provides ProRAW on the 13 Pro/Pro Max and unfiltered RAW mode access to third party photo apps for photographers and those who want the capability.

Note that when a camera is replaced, it must be re-registered to the phone, so that may explain why the camera serial number appears the same to the third-party software.

Note also that the issue may actually be in the lens assembly rather than the camera itself.

All I can recommend is you contact Apple Support directly again, and ask if your case can be escalated.

Contact - Official Apple Support

Then your should still be within your 14 day return window to get a full refund if you bought it directly from Apple.

Note you should avoid the Galaxy S21, S22 and Google Pixel 6 as well as an Internet search will reveal they perform similar or even more image processing.

Yes, I agree. Switched from 11 Pro to 13 Pro because if camera upgrade but the front facing camera produces horrible images, the telephoto is awful in even modest shade/low light, and shooting video with the wide lens, even using expensive nd filters (that worked great on 11 Pro) produces far more glitches and stutter, making half of the footage simply unusable. All the fuss about pro-res etc means nothing if the lenses themselves (or sharpening algorithm) is so seriously sub-par. I won’t be upgrading or taking Apple’s word again on new phones until I can see proof these ‘upgrades’ are anything more than huckster hype

There are many people who dislike the new camera effect- and if you don't, you should certainly get the best device for your needs.

Right now, though, the best anyone can do is submit feedback - Product Feedback - Apple

That’s what’s great about a market economy; if the iPhone doesn’t work for you you can return it (if within 14 days) or sell it and buy something that does.

Feel free to express your displeasure to Apple here:

Feedback - iPhone - Apple

We’re all just users like you here.

My dad has an iPhone 13 Pro Max and it has the best phone camera I have ever used. It's better than my iPhone 13 mini, my mom's iPhone 14 Plus, and my siblings' iPhone SEs. I think this is a widespread factory error by Apple that needs to be addressed with replacement products.

Return your iPhone 13 Pro Max and get a refund (if it’s been less than 14 days) or sell it, then find a good iPhone 11 Pro Max on eBay, problem solved.