iPhone 13 Pro camera not focusing on subject but on background

Ok - so I am having the same problem with autofocus on my 13 PRO Max. I came from 12 PRO Max - and didnt have ANY problems there. I am not sure if this is related to macro mode, becouse I cannot manually focus (taping on screen) on objects that are far from my phone when they are in the center of the screen if there is anything CLOSE at the edge of view for the photo camera. I supose there is some problem with the lidar / other focus mechanism - it detects something on edges but does not see that there is nothing in center of the screen. It is very sad becouse I can compare photos from both phones (take same photos with both phones in both hands) and there is a lot of blur on some of my photos taken from 13 PRO Max. Apple - please fix this as the rest of the phone is great! Screen in beautiful, battery is great, but... photos are definnetly worse...

I got my 13 Pro Max back from Repair a week ago. They swapped the whole camera unit after seing the glitches in Color and focus themselves.

IT DID NOT SOLVE THE ISSUE!

the camera is still unusable in telephoto mode and in video mode since the macro even with the control switch will continue to glitch its way into the video. And that is without being even close to a foot away from the objects!! The camera does NOT know what to focus on, when to focus and the Colors are completely bland when shooting with telephoto in any conditions that involve the low light feature.

UNBELIEVABLE!!

No way. This is not a problem just she’s having. I have a 13 pro max and am having the same problem along with numerous other camera issues. Apple needs to do something — and fast. This is truly unacceptable.

This does not fix the issue the OP is talking about. I’m having the exact same issue after 15.1, it’s not macro in the sense of the camera switching at super close. It’s a focusing issue at about 12-6 inches away on both photos and video. The camera wants to focus only on the distance no matter how much you tap the screen on the subject and no matter how much percentage of that subject takes up in the foreground.

Still december and i have the same issue since i bought the phone… im recording with 1x camera and if i move the phone its like it switches to the stupid macro…. It cant barely focus a complete video… If i use the wide angle or the 3x camera it doesnt happen… probably the most annoying stuuf in this iphone for sure!

here you have a screenshot of the same video, the difference between both screenshots is 1secs aprox, you also have the video line below so you can see they are from the same video

I'm experiencing the same problem as well, brand new phone and it seems to be switching back-and-forth between macro and normal lens or simply failing to focus on the area I tap. My broken iPhone X camera worked better than this, hopefully they have a software upgrade that fixes it.

Was experimenting.

Relatively small objects like bag, vase, are out of focus if there are space behind it. But putting it close to the wall - and pictures are sharp.

I hope service center will take my phone back, huge load of money for such poor camera!

I bought it only because of the camera ratings on Dxomark and reviews with stunning sharp and colorful pictures. Big marketing tricks?

I tried my camera out for the first real time today at my son’s soccer game. I could barely get the thing to focus at all! I’d get the image I want and it was like it was focusing on the glass on the lens and if I tried to tap on my screen to focus on a subject it wouldn’t refocus. It’s like it was locked on what it wanted to focus on. Also noticed that if I moved my camera to follow the activity and shoot later it did the exact same thing. It would suddenly try focus on extreme close-up. I tried shutting off all the auto tools in the settings and closing and reopening the app but nothing helped. I upgraded to this phone for a better camera and feel totally cheated. I had iPhone XS before and it shot way better photos. I also can’t seem to not get a pixelated picture out of the wide angle no matter what. It’s like the ONLY good pictures are from the preset zooms, 0.5, 1, or 3.

My issue is with the 3x lens mostly. If I try taking a photo in the mirror, it focuses on the glass itself even if it's clean, it's never sharp or clear on me if im snapping a pic. If I adjust to 2.9x (the 1x lens) it becomes much sharper. I've had this issue since iPhone 12 and thought it was just my hardware, I've wiped the device, got a brand new device, and now a brand new iPhone 13 and it's the same.

I’ve posted here lately about having my camera module swapped but it didn’t do anything about the problem. So they gave me A NEW PHONE! And guess what: THE CAMERA IS STILL GLITCHING AND FAILING THE COLORS!!

so it’s is an iOS 15.X thing! I can’t believe they haven’t addressed this yet

I agree that it is well nigh impossible to get the iPhone 13 pro camera to focus properly. I having been trying to record videos of a professional skier travelling towards me and the subject looks like a fuzzy mess until you move from zoom (x3) to normal photo (x1). I’m well rehearsed with videos and normally use a Nikon DSLR but was hoping my new iPhone would save me carrying around such a heavy piece of kit on the mountain. Is Apple going to correct this issue as the main upgrade from the iPhone 12 was the camera?