FaceTime Camera Images Look Poor on New Macbook Pro Retina Models

I was hoping that they would sneak a fix for this into Mountain Lion. Alas, no such luck. The image quality of Photo Booth as well as Facetime looks fuzzy and washed out on my MBPR (first batch from release day), for sure. Incoming video quality in Facetime (from an iPhone) looks great. But outgoing video from my MBPR is fuzzy and washed out.

I really hope this is software fixable...

I also posted the same sort of expereince after ML upgrade on a macbook air. I had been using iChat and beta Facetime in the past which were perfect even in full screen resolution. Something horribly changed after the Mountain Lion upgrade which make the camera useless for Facetime, Photo booth and iMovie.

I'm a little bit amazed at the lack of activity on these threads in that more people are not complaining of the same which concerns me about Apples appetite to fix it.

One last detail: If you stat Facetime and then quit it and then go to the Apple System Log (ASL) Messages I find the log entry as follows:

com.apple.AVconference: -isWidescreen: Built in iSight does not support HD.

I also have a 27" iMac where the built in camera is fine after the the ML upgrade. From the system information, the camera in the iMac and macbook air have exactly the same specs (speed and model).

I did get my RMBP replacement, camera was a bit better however, the image/video still looks like it's filtered or has this bluish-gray color when doing facetime or photobooth. Thing is, I observed the video while on facetime with someone, it seems that the video keeps adjusting to the color, sometimes it will get it right. The other issue I noticed is that when I recorded video via photobooth the video lagged causing it to not be in sync with the audio.

Really hope Apple pays attention to this. Let me know what's happening with yours.

I've just recieved my rMBP, replacement from a 13 inch pro that was stolen and I instantly noticed the bad quality of the facetime camera... Its really washed out and "fuzzy" even compared to the camera on the iPhone 4.... Will be interesting to see what happens. Fingers crossed for a software patch rather than it being a hardware issue!

I have same issue. I talked with Apple Support, they advised me to pay a visit to apple store, which I don't really like going.

Looks like this IS a wirespread issue.

I hope Apple can hear about this.

I have decided not going there after reading your experience. I don't expect they have a solution yet.

But I did read a review here saying the webcam is pretty good, I don't know if the guy's eyes have problems or its his machine is really different to ours.

http://www.laptopmag.com/review/laptops/apple-macbook-pro-with-retina-display.as px

I have just used the FaceTime camera on mynew MBPR and discovered that my image has a very strong magenta cast - and is pretty fuzzy. And also seemed to send the image rotated sideways and my caller could find no way of straightening it. All very odd - do hope there may be a software solution.

I just bought a macbook air and I am also having the same issues with my facetime camera. The picture is fuzzy and the picture is overly dark even when the lighting is strong in the room I'm in. Overhead lights seem to completely fool the white balance detector thing (i'm sure there's a much more technical description of that).

I was interested if it was hardware or software so I downloaded the free trial verison of iGlasses which let's you tweak the settings of the camera and I was able to fix this so I definitely thing it's software related (mostly gamma and sharpness settings plus some tint adjustment as well). Mine came with Mountain lion preinstalled so I can't comment on how it was in previous versions but I did have a macbook pro before with isight and that felt significantly better (on skype, photo booth etc - no facetime back then).

I'd suggest you try iglasses trial and see if it can make things better. If so then we really should push apple for a software update as it's pretty ludicrous to spend $20 on software to make something work the way that it was supposed to. Especially when we spend upwards of 2,000 to have a nice working product in the first place.

IGlasses download here:

http://www.ecamm.com/mac/iglasses/

I'd be interested to see what other people find about their facetime camera.

I have many of the same probelms with the camera on my Retina Mac Book Pro that other here have mentioned. The image quality is HORRIBLE compared to my iPhone and previous 27" iMac. It's grainy, distorted and just really horrible image quality. I thought this was suppoed to be an 720HD camera? Image quality looks like a cheap disposable camera!

I just got my new macbookpro 2 days ago and I realised how poor the resolution is 😟. My previous laptop was a macbook 2.4G and its resolution was so much better. I regretted getting this retina display stuff. Microsoft office looks fuzzy as well and some pictures in iphoto just wouldnt show. Do you have this problems as well? So many hassles in such a short while, Im beginning to to think that this thing isnt even worth it.

It all has to do with lighting. I have the new 15" macbokpro retina and was experiencing the same low quality video while using facetime or photobooth under normal incandecent bedroom lighting. I went into my kitchen which has the daylight flourecent bulbs and the hd quality was excellent. I went outside and it was beautiful just like in the apple ads.

No need for such complicated testing. Just make photo with PhotoBooth on rMBP and then with FaceTime (front) camera on iPhone 5. And compare all on the same display (e.g. open both pics side by side on rMBP). The difference is tremendous. In fact I also made picture on my old MBP with VGA camera. And it has better colors (details are quite the same) than on rMBP.

So what is the problem, Apple? It's 10.8.2 already and still no software fix. If this is not software fix, than why you ship new rMBPs with the same hardware problem?

PS I had LG display and got it replaced (the whole clamshell with camera as well) three weeks ago because of the image persistence problem. Now I have Samsung. FaceTime camera has the same quality.