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iPhone 13 pro lens flare

Are these signs of camera defects with my iPhone 13 Pro Max? I keep getting these lens flares when taking photos and videos with bright sources of light. Happens allot with the sun during day and bright lights during night.

iPhone 13 Pro Max, iOS 15

Posted on Sep 29, 2021 2:11 PM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Sep 29, 2021 2:38 PM

Yes and they're normal. Before you take the photo, you can easily see the flares on the screen. Alter the angle of the phone relative to the bright lights and you can eliminate the flares.


While these two photos were taken on iPhone 12 Pro Max, you can see what I'm talking about.


This photo show lens flare:



Simply angling the camera differently without moving at all produced this photo:


323 replies

Dec 13, 2021 8:31 AM in response to Dæniøl

I’m a pro photographer and I think there’s being a bit if a misunderstanding here. Flares are unavoidable on any camera because of the light bouncing around the glass of the lens. Also, flares are beautiful (you’ll even find filters that accentuate the flares). What bothers me about iPhone 13 images are not the flares. It’s the full blown reflections. Every time I see them I ask the photographer “were you behind a window? In your car?” Because they look like the kinds of reflections you would get if you shot at night through a window or any kind of glass panel. With my mirrorless cameras, I would get them if I kept the UV or Polarizer filter on at while shooting at night.

Dec 13, 2021 8:43 AM in response to Dogcow-Moof

Bare with me, I'm not saying that there's faulty optical engineering. I think it's probably a tradeoff in the amazing engineering that builds such a performing camera in such a small device.

And I'm not saying that it's not common with any other camera. I'm just saying that *in my experience* I've hardly ever seen such pronounced reflections as in many photos I got and saw with the iPhone 13, normal and pro.

Then again, I find the statistical hypothesis perfectly sound: the sensors and AI do better and better work at night, people shoot more at night, people get more reflections. Again, I've done quite a bit of night photography and the only times I got such apparent reflections was when I forgot a transparent filter on the lens.

Dec 13, 2021 8:46 AM in response to mahatma tom

No, I get it, and it is caused in part by the multiple element lenses now used on most smartphone and digital cameras.


Some smartphone vendors have worked with lens manufacturers to try to eliminate it, but their efforts actually made the effect somewhat worse on those devices (there's always a tradeoff.)


All you can do today is try to minimize the issue by selecting your angle better, or divert the reflection to an area of the frame that is unimportant or that will make it easy to remove in a photo editor.

Dec 13, 2021 1:28 PM in response to Dogcow-Moof

No it's not easy to do, maybe in some situations but many times you can't angle your way out of it, I took some the other day of a christmas tree and I got crazy amount of small lense flare dots in the image. No matter how I angled the camera it didnt help. Will post some pics later and with some iphone 8 pics for comparising to show you how many lense flares I get with my 12 pro max compared to the 8 plus where I get none, or maybe 1-2 in some rare cases. Will try to get some pics around xmas from both 8 plus and 12 pro max where I will take photos of the same things with both so you can see the difference.

Dec 13, 2021 1:32 PM in response to Salvida

I saw similar flares with the iPhone 8 and do with the iPhone 13 Pro Max.


You can find an angle that works.


For better or worse, Christmas trees are a worst case scenario as they are lots of pinpoints of intense light that reflect well, but it is possible, I've taken Christmas tree shots every year without them, and can easily induce them should I so choose.

Dec 13, 2021 5:23 PM in response to Dogcow-Moof

Then you'll have to teach me how to do this cause no matter how I went around the tree or tried to angle my way out of it it didnt work. Also the pics you guys post are always the same ones showing some rare situations of flares from the iphone 8.


One thing I noticed on some of the pics I took the other day was that a few times there was some bigger lense flare dots on the screen but after I took the shot and checked the photo those bigger flares were sometimes gone, so that tells me that the iso 15 is doing some magic here in some situations like I also talked about before on this forum. It was someone on reddit who first noticed this.


Will try to get some pics up as soon as I get my hand on my old 8 plus, my dad bought it so I have to wait till I go home for christmas.


[Edited by Moderator]

Dec 13, 2021 2:11 PM in response to Salvida

Okay i'll admit the 8 plus do have some flares but not as prominent as on the newer iphones 11 - 12 - 13, might be due to better lenses on the newer phones. I found an older pic I took with my 8 plus of the same kinda tree, a big one at the town square in the city where I live. I zoomed in a little bit and did see some flares but they were much smaller so didnt noticed them the same way as I do now with the better / bigger camera lenses on the newer iphones. But less prominent on the 8 plus for sure. I will still say that you cannot always angle your way out of it, all you can do is try to make the flares align with the lights so you dont notice them so much.

Dec 14, 2021 3:05 PM in response to lobsterghost1

Yes I did see some flares on a photo I had from my old 8 plus, just didnt noticed them so much cause they were smaller. One thing I noticed on my 12 pro max is that sometimes I do see some medium dot flares on the screen but then when I checked the photo after I took the shot, those flares were not present in the image, so the software must be doing some work here now and then, which has also been reported before that this is something they implemented in the software. Might be similar to some phones where you can remove an object manually after you have taken the photo, only here it does it automatically in the post processing sometimes for these flares, so this was good to see. I know some who said this wouldnt be possible for the iphone to do, but I seen it now myself and it's def. possible for the software to do sometimes. For smaller lense flare dots I didnt see any changes, but sometimes with medium / bigger flares they were removed.

Dec 14, 2021 3:32 PM in response to Salvida

No. If the dots were there before you took the photo, when you actually took the photo, you without realizing it angled the camera a slightly bit different in the process of tapping the shutter button. Apple software does not now, nor has it ever analyzed images to remove artifacts from photos we take. I would be extremely upset if they did. But trust me, they don't. And they likely won't ever do something like that. I don't want anyone to decide what data to keep in photos I take. If I take a photo with artifacts, I can either delete the photo and take it over - OR - I can use any of the photo editing tools I have access to fix a photo after it's taken. But that would be ME, making the decision to alter the photo. I have the right to do that. Apple, nor anyone else has the same right.

Dec 16, 2021 7:29 AM in response to lobsterghost1

Not true, the dots where there when I took the shot, did not angle it differently somehow, also tried with my phone on a tripod/selfiestick so I know it was stable and not moving when the shot was taken. I did try to chance the angle and they didnt go away so I just took the shot cause there was nothing I could do, and then after when I checked the pic they were gone. This happened a few times but not all the time though. It has also been confirmed by others that this happens sometimes. Not sure why you think the software can't do that? Do you work for apple? Ofc. it can be done and it clearly shows that during my testing and others have confirmed it. If you have a 12 pro max like me or maybe a 13 you can test it out for yourself, make sure you have one of the latest iOS15 updates.

Dec 16, 2021 8:09 AM in response to lobsterghost1

So if you dont work for apple how can you know this? Why dont you test it yourself instead, I already told you my testing proved that in some cases I had 2 flares that came from light sources, they were present on the screen all the time while I pressed the shutter button, checked the photo after and they were gone. And like I said it has been confirmed by others that this is a thing they been working on to minimize some of the unwanted flares. I don't know what more I can say really other that you can test it out for yourself, maybe you will be lucky and see what I saw. But remember this doesnt happen all the time, only a few times with a couple of flares. Small flares was not removed so I think they have to be a certain size maybe for the system to recognize them as unwanted flares. You can also do a google search and find some articles about it. I was thinking maybe I can use iphones inbuild screenrecorder while I take a photo, that way I could show you that what im saying is true, weather you believe it or not :)

Dec 16, 2021 8:31 AM in response to Lawrence Finch

I already seen that link many times, not sure what you are trying to say with this? I know what flares are and how it works, what you need to understand is that sometimes you get unwanted flares, and the camera app in iOS 15 is now able to somehow remove some of them automatically when it think it shouldnt be there. You can't test it our for yourself, sooner or later you will see what I mean and that what im saying is true. Don't take my word for it test it out yourself is not that hard to do :)

iPhone 13 pro lens flare

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