It seems my iPhone 13 Pro Max is occasionally using the wrong lens to shoot telephoto (3x). You can see with the incorrect lens that the picture looks like water color. Anyone else experience this?
This one was shot correctly
Here's the photo info, notice Telephoto and 77mm:
Here's where it chose the ultra-wide angle lens.
Here's the info for the second pic, note ultra-wide and 77mm
iPhone 13 Pro Max, iOS 15
Every iPhone with multiple lenses has worked this way, back to the iPhone X.
The digital zoom is a bit more obvious on the 13 Pro Max because the telephoto on past iPhones was 2x or 2.5x and it’s 3x on the 13 Pro/Pro Max.
I’ve been asking for at least an indicator of digital vs. optical zoom and a switch to shut off auto lens switch since the iPhone X, but Apple has not yet implemented one.
The fact that they added a switch to shut off the auto macro lens switch gives me hope if enough other people feel the same they might now add this too.
Please let Apple know your feelings on the matter here:
But this is a different matter than being able to keep it from switching to wide lens and digitally zooming to achieve the same effective focal length just because it wants to use the f1.5 aperture of the wide lens. If I select the 3x camera, I put the control of holding the camera steady enough in my own hands and it should allow me to do so, not change to the 1.5 and higher shutter speed because it didn't think I could get the shot. There is where the problem is. I consider this a faulty piece of equipment if the lens selection does not work.
Nevermind. I guess this has been a "feature" for a while now. Unfortunately, the digital zoom to 3x is quite a bit more pronounced than on past iterations of the iPhone.
I met the same issue, when I zoom in 15x, it always use wider lens to zoom in and output a blur image.
How can it be solved?
I was able to reproduce this on a phone at the Apple Store.
It looks like in the dim environment the 77mm lens will be replaced by 12mm lens, unless the night model allow you to set more than 3 seconds exposure time.
I've been asking for that or an annunciator denoting whether the zoom is optical or digital for years now without success.
iPhone 13 Pro Max Camera Overriding My Choice of Telephoto Lens?
