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iPhone 15 Pro Max autofocus issue

I've been having weird autofocus issues with my 15 Pro Max - it just always gets the autofocus wrong. This has never happened on my 14 Pro, and the both of them have the same camera system and lens for the main camera, so I'm not sure what's going on.


Take a look at these comparison photos between my 14 Pro and my 15 PM (all photos were taken using the main camera, in HEIF Max, 48MP).



In this comparison image, I tapped on the phone case area at the back of the store to autofocus, but the image from the 14 Pro comes out a great deal sharper than the one from the 15 PM in that area.


However, the Airpods display (the lower red boxes in the original photos) is much sharper in the 15 PM image, which means the 15 PM was actually focused to around that area/plane instead of the phone case area in the back.


I've done the same test in a couple of different scenarios throughout my day, and the 15 PM always misses autofocus on faraway objects when I tap to focus, and instead has nearer objects appear in focus. I can confirm that the autofocus is doing something with the lens, since I can see the preview image moving in and out of focus whenever I tap a different part of the frame.


However, I can manually focus the lens on faraway objects.



In this comparison image, I tapped on the blue skull for autofocus. The skull in the 15 PM image looks softer than the 14 Pro image (and again, nearer objects appear sharp), but when I manually focus the 15 PM on the blue skull using ProCam, the 15 PM is capable of producing an image as sharp as the 14 Pro. So, the lens is capable of focusing on faraway objects, but the autofocus system just isn't driving the lens to focus on where I tap properly.


(I highly doubt that this is due to motion blur - I took multiple shots each time with each phone and the 14 Pro always looked much crisper, while the 15 PM always looked blurry in the tapped area)


Has anyone seen this before? Would this more likely be a hardware issue or a software issue?


Additional info: 15 PM is on iOS 17.0.2, 14 Pro is on iOS 17.0.1

iPhone 15 Pro Max

Posted on Sep 23, 2023 7:11 AM

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Posted on Nov 6, 2023 5:58 PM

I just bought the 15promax. My 11 used to automatically focus close up pictures. However, this one does not. It will not focus a clear close up pictures at all. They all come out blurry.

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39 replies

Oct 4, 2023 1:11 AM in response to FlamingSalad

Hello! My question is with video - my new iPhone 15 pro goes blurry when going close to something while filming. shouldn't it automatically switch cameras while filming? I got this for YouTube where I make videos about houseplants (very niche I know) but I use this all the time, from wider view to close up leaves and it's been so frustrating!! I have to stop recording, go close up to activate the macro flower, then start filming again. this is so much worse than my old iPhone 11 that just would focus on anything! I hope you can help, you sound like you know more than me :) Thank you.

Oct 1, 2023 6:59 PM in response to FlamingSalad

Quick update for anyone who happens to come across this post: I got a replacement device and it does not have this issue. Seems like I just got unlucky with my original device.


Even after a full factory reset, the original device still had this issue, so it has nothing to do with setting up the phone from a backup or transferring data from an existing device. It’s likely just faulty hardware.

Oct 3, 2023 6:28 PM in response to Scott Bernard

Unfortunately, the main camera on the 15 Pro has a minimum focusing distance of about 7.8 inches. This means that the camera will never focus on anything closer than 7.8 inches and those objects will always appear blurry. This is a side effect of how the lens is designed.


In contrast, the main camera on the 12 Pro has a minimum focusing distance of about 3.5 inches, so you can get much closer to objects than the 15 Pro and still have them be in focus.


On the 15 Pro, the macro flower/setting switches the camera to the ultrawide camera to take photos, since it can get as close as 1 inch to objects. If the macro flower isn’t available, a quick hack for taking photos of closer objects is to manually change your zoom to 0.9x. This forces the phone to use the ultrawide camera instead.

Nov 1, 2023 10:02 PM in response to Scott Bernard

There is a lot of reports of close-up focus issues within Apps. I experience it too.


My iPhone 15 Pro Max doesn't focus closel… - Apple Community.


have to resort to taking photo and then loading that into the app or holding phone a long way away.. not very good but assume app makers need to update their software to manage camera, or Apple needs to update camera defaults.


Oct 2, 2023 11:08 PM in response to FlamingSalad

I'm having this issue as well on 15 Pro Max.


I took some lotto ticket pictures for my pool, and they kept coming out blurry. Same exact photo on 12 Pro comes out perfect focus.


I also noticed I had problems trying Macro pictures. I can actually see autofocus hit the subject perfectly, but then it keeps going and ends up out of focus by a bit.


Also, I have an app that scans said lotto ticket bar codes for winners. It works perfectly on 12 Pro. On 15 Pro Max it fails 9 times out of 10.


I'm reading through google results now to see how I can troubleshoot. I'm not a camera pro so I want to make sure I'm not missing anything. I hope I don't end up having to do a replacement.

Dec 22, 2023 2:30 PM in response to FlamingSalad

My wife's iPhone 15 Pro Max does not focus for photos using the .5x and 1x lens, the 5x lens works correctly. Video doesn't focus for any lens. She has been working with Apple Support to fix the focus problem, with no success. Apple engineering claims it's a software problem and they’re working on it.


This appears to me a hardware problem. I am an electrical engineer with much computer experience. Apple diagnostics doesn't detect the failure. You can see the problem with your eyes, the diagnostic is deficient.  


I have the same iPhone, and mine focuses correctly on each lens. Identical camera's using the same software, where only one fails, is a definite indicator of a hardware failure. 


We have asked Apple to replace her iPhone. By declaring this a software problem, Apple prevents the support team from a costly replacement of failing iPhones. There are a lot of iPhones that have the focus problem.  


Apple is trying to find a software workaround for this hardware problem, but have not succeeded so far.  It's now Christmas season and many Apple customers with the flagship iPhone have a useless camera.


Has anyone found a workaround so my wife can take Christmas photos? Does this problem also occur on other iPhone 15 models?

Sep 23, 2023 10:35 AM in response to FlamingSalad

Very good to know. I have the opposite issue on my 14 Pro Max - on the first phone & the replacement. It will focus incredibly well about 1/2” from subject is very low light on macro, but won’t even try to auto focus on any other lens and won’t focus manually either. Here is the macro and the 1.0 to show how zoomed in the macro is. The 1.0 is not in focus, not sure how much you can see here.

Sep 23, 2023 10:48 AM in response to Cherken1020

Does your phone focus on far away objects? The phone not focusing on nearby objects might just be due to the main camera having a minimum focusing distance of 7.8”. That meaning that anything closer than 7.8” will never be in focus on the main camera. (I’m not sure if I’m misinterpreting what you’re saying)


The issue I’m facing is that the autofocus on my 15PM does drive the focus mechanism but is inaccurate - it doesn’t focus to where I tap, but to a focal plane nearer to the camera.

Sep 26, 2023 10:04 PM in response to FlamingSalad

Yes, I believe we’re having different problems. Mine will focus at less than 1/2” when I’m in macro - something I don’t think it’s supposed to be able to do. Looks cool, but is useless to me. Mine won’t focus when using any other lenses. It just tries to focus on the entire area, doesn’t even focus when I tap on a particular area of the screen. Results are nothing in the photo is sharp. I can only take macro pics 1/2” away if I want sharp photos. I was really hoping this would be fixed with the 15s. I have read these issues may be due to the phototonic engine on the 14 and 15. Friends of mine say theirs works great outdoors but I mostly photograph portraits with natural light indoors. 14 PM has not ever worked for that.

iPhone 15 Pro Max autofocus issue

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