How to fix iPhone 16 Pro Camera issues?

Jeff is correct. What you are seeing are bright points of light such the train or traffic light reflecting off one of the internal elements of the lens. Even though the lenses have anti-reflective coatings applied to them those coatings do their have limits. I've been able to reproduce the same effect on my DSLR cameras with lenses costing many more times than that of any phone. In the past I've even proven it by deliberately framing the shot to create the reflections and posting it here.

Depending on whether a lens element is convex or concave will determine if the reflection is inverted or not and where the bright point of light is positioned within the frame. The only solution is to take care while framing the shot and not include bright points of light within the frame, or just accept the fact it can happen and ignore it.

The stacked lens elements within a phone are very thin compared to that of one used on a DSLR thus have limits. That said I'm amazed cameras within phones can do what they do.

Those all look normal and exhibit typical optical effects when an extremely bright light source is pointed at an askew angle to the lens.

Were you handholding the iPhone or was it mounted on a tripod? Were you using the native Camera app or a third party app? What was the shutter speed for each shot?

Do you have any protective covers over the lenses? If so, you may want to remove them as filters of any nature exacerbate the effect.

"But nothing else is duplicated except very bright objects."

Which means it's lens flare. Also the fact that it's upside down and backwards to the original light.

I think it may be a combination of Ghost Images and Flare. But the image stabilization in a hand held shot, can produce two images as well. But nothing else is duplicated except very bright objects. If it were the stabilization, there should be two trains etc.,

Means it’s a ghost image. Flare is just the general softening of the image. Ghost images produce the upside and flipped image.

Not the most technical description, but it suffices.

https://youtu.be/nu1kgeYHfZ4?si=OPFasWWYK6iKyYZe

Flare is absolutely not softening of the image, flare is an inverse image of bright lights. Read the information in the link I posted. What she is describing is lens flare, she is misinformed on the verbage.

She’s not misinformed. Your article describes two types of flare, what the author describes as veiling flare and other ghosting flare. They are two separate, but similar optical defects or anomalies.

Using similar terms to describe a two anomalies is confusing. When I taught photography at MSU, we separated the defects. Similar to longitudinal chromatic aberration and lateral chromatic aberration. Now days people just call it CA, but there is a distinct difference and cause.

It’s a characteristic of all cameras. You images above from a Samsung are unrelated to the images you displayed earlier and no comparisons are possible.

The iPhone images all have very bright subjects and you and the camera are physically close to your subject with an askew shooting angle. The ghost images are also associated with the bright highly reflective rails of the tracks. Nothing you took with the Samsung is comparable.

The Samsung images lack the prominent highly reflective metal rails, extremely bright lights close to the taking lens and the angles are different. No conclusions can be made with the images you shared.

You’re using a third party app? For which photos? It certainly could be an issue caused by the processing with the third party app. Which app is it? Did you use the app when you took the photos with the ghost images in the sky? I think the app may be causing these issues? Look at what I circled below.

What I circled below is a processing error caused by the app you’re using. The lights should not be in front of the pole and the pole should not be transparent.

Ghost images are not a software byproduct. Ghost images are an optical anomaly or defect the result of laws of physics. Ghost images are generally easy to remove in software using either AI assisted editing or a healing tool.

Of greater concern is the flare in the Samsung image. Flare is a general loss of contrast within the image, which includes loss of detail and produces notable portions within the image of a general softening effect.

I’m sure that sign is not pink, (see Nikon image by comparison). Samsung is worse by far of the 3.

Less than 10 seconds of editing in Photos, increased Contrast and erased Ghost image.

This was a fun discussion and I enjoyed it. Always happy to take a look at what you’re doing. On a side note, anyone can do the two simple edits I did. Just move the contrast slider and scribble over the ghost image. It literally took about 10 seconds in Apple Photos am.

What app are you viewing the photos in? I suspect it may be related to the Image Stabilization the iPhone is using.