iPhone 13 ProMax HDR photos oversaturated (i.e look fake)

So why integrate a “natural light” option into ONLY the portrait mode and not the regular photo mode?

The natural light option for portraits is adequate for my purposes as far as the daylight colour rendition goes, although that opinion is starting from a newly low level of expectation, but it doesn’t, by definition, do depth of field for capturing scenery in the background, or restaurant group shots, for which I need the regular photo mode.

And proRAW is not an option on my 13 mini

So far I’ve tried ProCamera, Firstlight and Halide and the best solution seems to be to use the iPhone camera for portraits, in “natural light” mode, where a moving subject isn’t an issue (because it doesn’t allow Live Photo, so not impromptu grandkids or pets) and so far I find ProCamera the easiest to use for quick point-and-shoot that gives the best default images so far, and is easiest to quickly choose focal and exposure points.

I haven’t had an opportunity to test any of the third party apps for hiking scenery etc, but the iPhone photo mode camera is shockingly bad for that, so they would have to be pretty bad to be worse.

My photos of my ghostly-silver husband smiling against a gaudily flouro-painted stage backdrop, on our first walk after buying the new phone, is what prompted me to wonder what hidden setting I’d inadvertently pushed, and to find this discussion.

And it is not the only blog query I found by the way. Reddit is replete with complaints, and the discussion on some

professional blogs I’ve found bemoans the overprocessing and flattened images too.

But if apple allowed customised app launch from the Lock Screen then the main inconvenience for me would be the fact that I need to remember which app is better for what. But capturing a fleeting moment will now be either missed, or relegated to giving a poor colour rendition in the final image, so impromptu nature captures on bush walks or around the garden will be a lot harder.

And before you feel the need to tell me to lodge yet another feedback with Apple, I may just lodge another request to allow customised app launch from

lockscreen.

“Because the photo processing mechanism is an integrated chain now and you can't just shut off a piece of the processing reasonably any longer.”

Yes, that is the entire problem. But someone has made the decisions about what gets integrated and how, and what can be enabled and what can’t and that is precisely what this thread is critiquing.

Lovecross wrote:

Wow! These comments… Really glad I skipped the 13.

You'll also need to skip any premium smart phone from any manufacturer going forward - Apple, Google, Samsung, Sony as well as many others.

Similar to what I have been experiencing on 13 pro. As far I understand, there are no differences between the 13 and 13 pro that would have any effect on this. Same camera and same processors. HDR appears to be blowing things up with no way to turn it off. Best remedy is to set live as default and then go in and select one of the live shots. This seems to mitigate the issue somewhat. Very disappointing for sure.

And again, I have.

Wow! These comments… Really glad I skipped the 13.

I’ve got the 14 Pro Max, and it’s nothing like the complaints here.