Theres a variety of issues here. With yours specifically, its part processing but also Apple’s insistence on using a digital crop of the 1x lens vs the telephoto on any shot with less than perfect lighting when you zoom in (this cannot be fixed on the 12/13 normal/mini as they lack a Tele lens)
I don’t believe its a hardware issue (its Apple‘s processing algorithm), so swapping out your phone isn’t going to do much.I was just on the phone with Apple senior advisor and we did screen sharing on my iPhone 13 Pro Max. He was able to see that the pictures on the 13 Pro Max are over processed and look like water paintings and many times miss-focus. 3x telephoto portrait pictures are unusable and blurry. Constant switching between the sensors even though I want the 3x for example. This is my 3rd iphone 13 Pro Max and the exact same issues are present. Also, Apple RAW photos still have that water painting effect. Perhaps they're using plastic lens elements?
I will return this phone as well and wait few months and see if they've fixed the issues. This is absurd and Apple needs to address this ASAP. My XS Max produces amazing and natural looking pictures.
Totally understandable. It’s not a hardware issue, but your reluctance is 100% valid with any faith that Apple will fix it anytime soon. They’re aware of the issue, but in true Apple fashion I’m almost certain if a correction is to be made (emphasize “if”), it won’t be until IOS 16 and iPhone 14. Then they can just roll it out as a new, revolutionary version of Smart HDR. This is where Apple’s stubbornness is really beginning to be an issue…Outside of something critical like security, even if they know they screwed up somewhere, they package all those fixes into new phone and IOS generation releases. That way they market it as an “upgrade.” Sadly, many of their Android competitors don’t have that mindset and release pretty timely patches to fix issues like this, which is why a phone like the Pixel is a couple patches away of likely being pretty amazing and what Samsung did this year with the S21U with incremental updates.
So, there's clearly a problem with the photos on my iPhone 13 pro. It's not only me because yesterday I saw a topic here with people reporting the same thing.
Basically every single photo I take is automatically modified with evident layers of sharpness, excessive contrast and other things.
It's not one of the profile, it's not the normal post-processing of the phone. You know when in photoshop you put "sharpness" at 100 and everything look weird? Same thing.
And when I open a photo on the photo app at the beginning, for. fraction of second, I can see the normal photo with the normal colors. But after that second all the "modifications" pop up.
It happens on video too, it's even more evident because on the gallery you can see the icon of the video with the normal colors, only when you open it the different colors appear like a quick bad photoshop fix.
I tried everything and there no way to avoid this.
Another details, if I shoot a raw photo the preview is the same but when I open it to change it I finally see the "normal" version. But obviolsy I can't shoot only raw and I don't have this option with video.
This is the topic where people is reporting the same thing
Smart HDR Missing on iPhone 13 Pro?
Hi all, Just upgraded to a 13 Pro from XS and when I go to camera settings, the Smart HDR toggle is not there? Any ideas, or can it no longer be switched off? Thanks!forums.macrumors.com
They think it's a side effect of a bad HDR implementation but for me is not that, the modification that the software apply are several and not only limited to exposure.
Edit: I just want to add. I had iPhones for years. I'm not confusing this with some "normal" post processing. The photos are really bad, it's basically impossibile to obtain a normal face without the "bad photoshop" effect.this
Turn off rich contrast. there is enough post processing as it is. It is pretty in some way but definitely not natural. I almost always get best results shooting regular mode with no filters and then if necessary apply auto enhance.
Small telephoto lenses are notoriously bad at letting in light. There is a lot of "magic" going on to make them look good to account for shady scenes and handheld shots. Some of what is going on is the phone accelerating shutter speeds to account for subject movement and camera shake, so the camera takes an underexposed shot and then the "magic" tries to make it look bright and lively. Try a similar shot with a mono pod and see if it improves, especially with still subjects. some shots can only be take well via traditional exposure methods using very large lenses and sensors such as what is available with SLR cameras to gather and capture much more light.
Yep, Halide guy is 100% spot on. There are two issues separate from one another at play here, both representative in this thread:
So to get around this I have tried using portrait and then raise the fstop to f-16 if I want to keep it all in focus. The lower fstops are way too soft for me. Not sure if this works but seems to keep the right lens or maybe I am fooling myself.
Keep in mind, with portrait mode, that is an artificial f-stop. You are basically adjusting the fake bokeh the portrait mode is applying...You are still going to be at the limitations of the f-stop of the fixed lens you're using and depending on your focusing distance, you will get some natural blurring of parts of the subject.
Yes and I get that. I was mainly saying “potentially” if I use portrait in 3x to utilize the lens it could force this lens. At least my understanding. Outside of the “fake” bokeh effect which I find pretty hilarious vs shooting with a 85mm 1.4 as an example of my old d700.
Yeah, not certain about that one and will have to experiment some more. But, it looks like the only certainty at the moment is with 3rd party apps like Halide, Procam, Moment, etc. I was playing around with Procam some more today because Halide doesn't allow for any kind of non-optical zooming. Needless to say, afterwards my optimism towards the quality of the sensors has gone up but the disappointment for Apple's processing is even higher. With Procam, you can digitally zoom off the 3x sensor, where any digital zoom off the native app is off the main wide sensor. I was able to push 7-8x digitally off the 3x camera and in daylight they're actually useable and look pretty decent. Pretty sad considering an almost 200mm equivalent digital zoom is more usable than ANY digital zoom at any length off the native app. You can also turn off all native HDR/Deep Fusion processing within Procam, but all the scenarios I tried were better with that left on.
Agreed, though on your second point its not just the Tele issue. The issue is prevalent on the 1x (26mm) lens too. Apple is definitely doing aggressive noise Reduction regardless of the lens being used and its causing a loss of detail and sharpness with images.
