How do I get rid of the circle on my iPhone pictures?

The circles in your first photo are having the typical shape and pattern of Newton rings (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton%27s_rings)

I am seeing them mostly on old slides, that are framed with glass. Does your iPhone have a cover, that is also covering the lenses? A thin, protective cover on the lenses of the iPhone could be causing this rings, if it has not been properly fixed to the lenses.

Well, you can certainly make the picture better-- I used the blur tool in GraphicConverter. Nice Picture! The Retouch tool in Photos may work-- I didn't try. It doesn't solve the problem, though.

Did you (Mint-0) also use an iPhone 15 Pro? If so, that would seem to indicate that it was the camera. Sure looks like Newton's Rings to me. I'd go to Apple. Let us know if they provide any help.

Hello,

Same issue on my Iphone 15 (not pro). All my pictures of aurora last night present this artefact... THAT RAGE!!!

The issue is mainly with aurora...

We can maybe find the cause in this article: https://capturenorth.com/blogs/articles/beware-newtons-rings

In the article, the cause is the poor quality UV filter (high reflectivity) that make light bounce between front of camera and filter.

In our case, we can suppose the problem to be the "protection lens" wich has a bad anti-reflective coating that make light bounce wetween front of camera and protection lens.

As gabrielesns's girlfriend doesn't have had the issue, this is not a problem on all iphone but it is an issue on some series (and it is hardware problem, not software!).

I will ask Apple to change the camera bloc with an other one and cross fingers this change will solve the issue....

I hope apple will accept (lot of proof) and I have to find how to check this after the change and without aurora :-/

It's got to be some type of lens flare which resembles the len's configuration. Instead of coming from a single point it's coming from all directions, thus the flare resembles the lens configuration.

You might take the iPhone into your nearest Genius Bar and have them take a look at it and see what they think it is.

Wow,I gotta say, that's a cool picture! I really want to go see the Aurora-- only seen the northern lights once, and it was too far south to be too impressive.

I notice in your picture that Vega, the bright star in the constellation Lyra to the left of your circle, also has a ring around it. These are diffraction rings--they're always there in camera images, but the background is always so much brighter that you don't see them. The one around Vega is from the lenses in your phone's camera. You see them in all astrophotography.

The big ring in the center is the same sort of thing, but I'm not sure what caused it. The ring is much bigger around, so the cause is very much smaller than the camera lens. It could even be a tiny bit of dust on the lens. It's so perfectly round, though, that it looks like what is called Newton's Rings, and could be caused by the point at which two curved surfaces, like the lenses, are touching-- I think it's part of the optical system in a camera that's required to be ridiculously small.

Thanks for sharing a great picture!

stine241 wrote:

Thanks for the respons!

Is there a way to get rid of it? I took the picture yesterday, but it also shows on the pictures i took today. Not as visuable on all the pictures, but its there and its kind of annoying..

https://discussions.apple.com/content/attachment/4e9494da-90d3-490a-8bb7-13eba0a118d5

I looked at the image in Photoshop Elements, manipulated the contrast but could not see the ring in the photo. Were you zoomed in on the Aurora when you told your first posted image? Shoot the same image of the sky next time both zoomed as far in as possible and the no zoom. See if the ring appears on which photo.

I can't see the ring in the picture as posted but could after manipulating the contrast in Photoshop Elements. Your eyes a better than mine, that's for sure.

I'd take the iPhone into Apple and have them check it out. Get an appointment at the nearest Apple Genius Bar.

Diffraction images are extremely faint-- it's probably in the last picture ( I couldn't find it!) but the exposure is very different. The diffraction image is always in the center-- it's not about the picture, it's about the lens system.

Did you ever figure it out or take it to an Apple Store?

I get the exact same thing. It’s worse when you use more exposure time, which is needed to get clearer photos of the aurora..It will sometimes show up in other pictures randomly for me..but I 1000 get your frustration. Anytime my exposure goes past 5 seconds it’s there 😔

I am experiencing the exact same phenomenon - concentric rings in the center of photos of Northern lights taken on my iPhone 15.

Cool to learn it’s called Newton rings, and caused by the convex lens reflecting against the adjacent glass (I think)!

Thanks for posting this question! I’m sure a lot of people will be wondering the same thing tonight.

Did anybody take the phone into Genius Bar at Apple and get this issue fixed? I called Apple support and after going through this and that just being told that sorry, it's just the way the phones are made. I have an iPhone14 Pro. So wondering if anybody had better luck with taking their phone in? I don't understand what the benefit is with having the night mode with a long exposure time if the pictures are just going to be ruined by having the newton rings show up in the pictures. Extremely disappointed.

Is it only on this photo?

Do it appear in any other view on your iPhone?