iPhone 13 pro “telephoto” issue

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Level 1

12 points

iPhone 13 pro “telephoto” issue

So I’ve had the 13 pro for two days and everything works great, though mostly in broad daylight. Once indoors, the camera system is weird, it seems the phone decides to use the main lens when zooming in instead of the actual telephoto resulting in much lower quality photos OR videos

heres an example where the both photos are zoomed in, the first photo is where it said it was using the “3x zoom” though you can clearly tell it’s pixelated. It took multiple tries to get the telephoto lens to kick in to get the second photo which looks much better only for the phone to switch back to the main lens after a few seconds and it looks like the first photo once again. This also happens with video as well and it gets annoying, knowing I’m spending lots just for the cameras not to be so great. After some research, it seems the 12 Pro max had the same issue with the 2.5x zoom, I found a lot of forums about it though never one discussed on here. I talked to apple support and they said just to get a replacement, though friends who also have a 13 pro have this issue.

iPhone 13 Pro, iOS 15

Posted on Sep 25, 2021 10:48 PM

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Answer 1

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alag145 Author

Level 1

12 points

Sep 26, 2021 6:39 PM in response to stowellt

Ok, so I’m not crazy, apple support has been unhelpful, and yes the ultrawide thing is also seems to be because the phone can’t decide if something is close up for macro shots. The telephoto lens issue is also apparently present on the 12 pro Max, though isn’t very discussed, I wish apple would do something, for now they say to just replace the phone but it’s obvious it’s the software since the phones can in fact take pretty good photos with the telephoto.

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Answer 2

runbei

Level 1

13 points

Oct 26, 2021 5:25 PM in response to alag145

I have the 13 Pro Max and have the same issue. Photos taken indoors with the 3X telephoto lens are completely useless. I called support and the agent kindly researched the issue for me and came back and said that the engineers are working on a fix that will be included in an upcoming iOS update. When I expressed my skepticism, the support person said no, they really are working on a fix. Okay, so it's not included in iOS 15.1 released yesterday.

I didn't notice the issue with the 12 Pro Max because I didn't use the tele much with that camera. But I do need some kind of tele indoors now and may have to evaluate my options if it isn't fixed.

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Answer 3

runbei

Level 1

13 points

Oct 26, 2021 8:08 PM in response to runbei

UPDATE. After updating the phone to iOS 15.1, I shot a few photos with the telephoto lens of books and pill bottles with sharp text, indoors in low light. I'm not sure if anything has changed, but they looked reasonably good to my eyes. Will take more pix as time allows. Just wondering what others might have found after upgrading.

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