iPhone Xs Camera HDR Not Working

HDR did not work at all on my Max on 12.0. But 12.0.1 fixed it. But remember that you will only see the HDR icon above the photo if you have Keep Normal Photo on and get a duplicate. If you don’t get a duplicate you will never see HDR above the photo.

I’ve been testing this by taking an indoor picture with 2 lamps on. With the lamps in the picture the HDR smooths out the glare of the lamps. Not every photo taken will be HDR but having a bright light on forces the HDR function to kick in.

If you have the Keep Normal Photo enabled, when you get a duplicate one will be HDR, indicated on the white space above the photo, and the other will be the non HDR with nothing in the white space above. If you do not have the duplicate photo enabled you will never see the HDR in the white space regardless of whether it’s an HDR photo or not.

It does not not always take an HDR photo, some will be normal. The background and subject determine this. In my apartment it has been easy to force the camera to take an HDR photo by taking a picture of a wall or part of a room with lamps that are on. It’s easy to tell then which is which because the HDR photo smooths out the glare of the light from the lamps and balances the picture out. The non HDR photo has a lot of glare from the lamps. It’s pretty easy to see.

The other way to force an HDR photo is to turn Smart HDR off but leave the duplicate enabled, you’ll need the duplicate to see the identifying HDR on that one photo. Then on the camera you will see HDR as an option. If you tap it you’ll get a line through it disabling it. If you leave it alone it should take the photo in HDR mode. With Smart HDR the camera decides when to use that and when not, that’s why not all photos will be HDR. But as I did in my apartment you can take a picture with a bright light, the sun or some reflective surface, facing you and it will. It does for me every time and it’s easy to see how much glare there is in the normal photo versus the HDR one.

Now prior to 12.0.1 HDR did not function at all on my Max but works extremely well now.

After 12.0.1 wait about an hour and restart the phone. When you check again turn on Smart HDR in settings and Keep Normal Photo on. Then take a photo of an area with a bright light, like a lamp on a wall. When you tap the shutter you’ll know it worked because the shutter button spins a little bit with a darker color. It’s hard to explain but you’ll see it. Just look at the button when you tap it.

You will not see the HDR icon in the white space above the photo unless you’ve gotten a duplicate too. If you turn off Keep Normal photo you never will see that icon. You have to have two photos, one will be HDR and one won’t.

I’m on the current release on my Max, 12.0.1. HDR was not working on iOS 12. If we turned off Smart HDR in Settings for the camera then the HDR option would appear on the camera when I went to take the picture. However there was no HDR icon on any picture taken. I had enabled Keep Normal Photo to see if a duplicate would appear which might indicate that an HDR image had been taken. However no duplicate ever appeared.

Now after 12.0.1 everything has changed. Turning Smart HDR off in settings gets the expected HDR option on the camera. But what I find is that only if the Keep Normal Photo option is enabled do you then get the duplicate plus the HDR icon above the white space of the other photo. If you turn off Keep Normal Photo only one picture appears with no indication that it’s an HDR image.

This also holds true if you have Smart HDR enabled, no HDR option will appear on the camera but, if you have Keep Normal Photo on you will get a duplicate and the other one will have the HDR icon in the white space again. If you turn off Keep Normal Photo only one picture will be present with no indication as to whether it’s an HDR photo.

So 12.0.1 also fixed something in the camera, unexpectedly I might add, but is this the way it’s supposed to work?

This is the problem that the new iPhone gives me the biggest headaches.

XS’s HDR is very weird. In all previous iPhones, when you enable HDR, every time you take a picture, you are guaranteed to obtain an HDR photo (you can find the “HDR” icon on the top left of the photo) doesn’t matter if you adjust the exposure before taking the photo or wherever you aim at. The XS's, HDR function and Smart HDR (which I assume it's the fancy term for "Auto HDR"), however, are VERY selective. The HDR is like having a brain of its own to think and decide which views need HDR and which don’t. That means even if you have the HDR on, in certain situations you cannot obtain an HDR photo (you don’t find that “HDR” icon in photo mode) because the system thinks “No!” and says “No!” Also, if you adjust the exposure before taking a photo, the photo you obtain will never be HDR, doesn’t matter what kind of scenery lies in front of you.

Why did Apple take away so much control from us? I really hope Apple can address this issue in an IOS update

I think the only way you can actually “force” HDR on is by turning smart HDR off but keep normal photo enabled. That way we can actually control when it will use HDR and see the result compare to a normal photo.

But for some reason when i take pic using the main camera app and going to instagram to post it on my story, the pic came out really bad like a low res pic which is really weird. Is anyone facing this as well ? i'm using the xs max.

Prior to 12.0.1 HDR did not function at all on my Max. Now it works extremely well. With Smart HDR enabled not every picture will be HDR the camera decides when and if it’s necessary. And with these new cameras it may well use it less than in an 8 or 8 plus.

Hi, got the same issue, all pictures is the normal one without the HDR in the white space over the picture. When Smart HDR is turned off and HDR is manually active, I still see no HDR at the picture. It is also easy to see that the picture is with normal exposure so the HDR does no longer work for me (Iphone XS 12.0) downloading 12.0.1 as I write here

***. stupid xs max 512gb ios 12.0.1 my iphone hdr does not work as well. i tried everything. version ios 12.0 if you turned off the iPhone and restart the hdr works. now 12.0.1 the hdr does not work at all. ***

So basically we're looking at this the wrong way? HDR isn't suposed to be something we use when we want rather the Iphone decides when it's necessary.

Feedback - iPhone - Apple

alex_h1 wrote:

Hello swyner,


Thanks for asking the Apple Support Communities for help with taking a picture with HDR. I am happy to help check this out with you.


First, please review this help article for taking pictures with HDR: Use HDR on your iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch - Apple Support

I believe the article referenced is obsolete. Note it is dated December 8, 2017, long before the release of iOS 12. It makes no reference to Smart HDR. It strongly implies that an "HDR" setting is available whenever the Camera is in "Photo" mode, which is clearly no longer true.

I believe my previous response, which was apparently removed by the hosts, serves swyner at least as well as the above referenced article.

I should have mentioned I have the XS max.

If I have the save normal photo option selected it will sometimes capture 2 photos but the hdr photo looks exactly like the non-hdr photo.

Other times it only captures a single photo which is not a hdr.

None of the the HDR photos it has captured are HDR.

Tested on my wife’s phone XS as well and it also doesn’t capture HDR.