it’s mostly due to the tele-lens

I always loved the 52mm equivalent on my 8+, XS Max and 11 Pro Max cause, it gives me a similar f.o.v. than the lensesd i use the most often on my different cameras. But now it’s a 77mm and it’s just too long to take almost every type of photos. Too long to shoot people, too long for animals, too long for landscape and architecture. the only time were i’ve been happy with this longer lens is the few times where i actually wished it was way longer like for filming the weird drone that was going around my building the other day.

But when i subjectively hate this 77mm, it’s also objectively bad, like, it’s very poor in low light and apple are not confident in it, so with most apps, like the default one, if you try zoomig 3x there’s like 75% chances it won’t actually use the tele lens, but instead digitally zoom on the main lens reducing it’s resolution to barely better than 1 megapixel (720p pictures and videos basically)

I’ve spoken with apple about it on the phone, spent hours trying to diagnose my iPhone of not behaving like it should but, the sad truth is that, my iPhone does totally behave as planned by apple. And i’m mad.

My partner still has his 11 Pro Max, and now everytime we go out together and i see a picture than could be taken i borrow his iPhone then airdrop myself the picture.

Also ! The main lens, has a much much bigger sensor, but the lens is actually much worse. In most situations i do take better photos with the main lens with the 13 Pro Max than the 11 Pro Max, but there are some situations, especially closer to the subject and in good light conditions, where the 11 Pro Max takes much sharper pictures.

And globally i also find the 13 Pro Max to use too much noise reduction and especially way too much Sharpening but that can be fixed by shooting RAW.

Anyway, anybody noticed apple not going the right decision with this iPhone ? I get that most of you will disagree with me. It’s okay.

I don’t think the 13 pro max is actually bad, i think for some (maybe even most) people it’s the best iPhone. But it’s not for me, and i really want to get back on the 11 Pro Max and seriously hope apple Brings back the "52mm or so" lens with the next iPhone.

Have a nice day everyone !

First of all, let me clarify this is not a troll or bait post, I am genuinely concerned about the photos I've seen/my own sanity at this point.

I've been thinking of switching to the iPhone 13 ever since it was announced. I am currently using a three year old Samsung Galaxy S9 pretty much on its last leg, and I've always been an Android user, but now I'd like to try out iOS since I can finally afford an iPhone (I'm not in the US, so there were no real trade-in deals here). I also love the size, since the 13 Pro has the same height as my current phone, and that's pretty much the maximum I can comfortably balance/hold with one hand (yep, I have tiny hands).

My phone is my main (well, only) camera device, and I'm mostly taking pictures of:

• My two cats (so indoor photos with preferable short shutter time)

• Nature photos of forests and mountains from my hikes

• Photos from sightseeing walks (so lots of buildings with small details)

However, based on the real life photos from various iPhone 13 Pro users, the camera is... well, not that convincing. A lot of the photos posted on r/iPhoneography and other forums are blurry or out of focus, as if the photographer didn't wait for the camera app to fully finish capturing the image, or were moving while taking the photo, or something like that.

Is the camera app really this bad at identifying the main focus, or are the users lacking the skills? Or does it take that long to capture and process the image that a point-and-shoot approach will lead to blurry/out of focus pictures? Or have I just subconsciously fallen into the mistake of pixel peeping?

Please help me convince myself that the camera is not that bad, and the change would be worth it (the other option would be to wait for the S22 that's rumored to come out around February and will have almost the exact same size as the 13 Pro, but I'm not sure I can deal with my current phone's problems for another 2-3 months).

Edit: Thanks for all the answers, apologies for not answering to all of them. I am going to do some more research, but I might actually give it a try and sell it if I'm not satisfied with the results.

i recently upgraded from my iPhone 11 to the iPhone 13 Pro Max and honestly, I regret it😞 The 13 Pro Max has nice video quality, but the selfie camera looks terrible almost like an Android (and honestly, some Androids are even better). The 0.5x wide angle is also blurry which really disappointed me. I feel like my old iPhone 11 took way better selfies and overall sharper pictures

Hi so i have an iphone 13 pro max and i dont like its camera quality tho i see other people have an iPhone and a good quality camera so if anyone here can show me how i should set my settings and etc i will be thankful for that :D ( sorry about my bad english )

Hi all!

Ever since I bought my iPhone I felt like the camera wasn't a significant upgrade when compared to my old Note8, and especially my partners 11 Pro Max. I didn't notice how little of a difference there is until today when I snapped some pictures with the iPhone and Galaxy and compared them.

https://imgur.com/a/449uEBi

You can definitely tell that the iPhone is over processing the photos and making them extremely bright to the point where it's overblown. If you look around the manhole there is barely any difference between the two phones, I would even say that the sammy is able to capture more of the sticks and debris. The iPhone has this disgusting kind of smearing all over the brighter areas which to me looks like as if someone maxed out the brightness of the photo, or even held an enormous flashlight in front of the phone.

The only place I can see where the iPhone outperforms the Note is in the bottom where the shadows are heavier. It manages to capture a lot more detail whilst the Note loses a lot of detail.

Has anyone else noticed this kind of thing? I'm extremely saddened that the processing seems to completely ruin some photos I take with it.

..sucksss but mostly with selfies and mirror pics. I’ve had this phone for the past year and every time I take a picture or selfie, it makes me look washed out or like a watercolor painting with the auto editing. Has anyone been able to fix this?? I’m really debating on getting a newer phone (even thought about downgrading) but I feel like the issue will still be present. Helppp

Edit: I must say, nature pics and other types of photography/ videography on this phone are great, just struggling with the auto-enhance that takes place on human subjects….

Edit: If you can’t relate or help then why are you here? Everyone saying “it’s just you” is hilarious..but not helpful at all…

Hello everybody hope you all having a great day,

I have iPhone 13 Pro Max that I bought on lunch day, my first iPhone. Lately I noticed that the camera quality became significantly worse comparing to previous years and kind of under saturated, is this a known issue or am I doing something wrong ?

Thanks!

I’ve been using the iPhone 11 pro for 2 and a half years and now i decided to move to the 13 series. I went to my mobile operator to get a deal and i couldn’t afford the Pro model and it wasn’t even in stock anyway, so i made a trade-off and got the iPhone 13. First, i admit that i have the reflex of tapping the 2x icon in photo (3x in 13 Pro models) and i am kind of “sad” when i remember i only have 1x and 0.5x available. Second, the main camera on the iphone 13 doesn’t seem to have any focusing capabilities. I understand that macro is only available on the pro models, but i expect it to work decently even on the normal 13 model for the price asked .. For example i shoot a tree branch with some landscape in the background, but the tree branch is completely out of focus, pretty much no matter how far away i go from it … I know, i miss my Pro abilities from the 11 series, but i thought the 13 would be good enough even without pro .. And one more thing : i find it really unacceptable that we don’t get any zoom for 1000 dollars … they could’ve added at least 1.5 or 2x for the non-pro models … Anyway, still iPhone fanboy here. Not going anywhere anytime soon :)

I have had the iphone 13 pro for a couple of months now, coming from galaxy s20 and it amazes me how bad the camera quality is on the iphone compared with the s20.

Showing an image taking with the iphone on a normal monitor just hurt my eyes and god forbid zooming in on the image.

Before switching I read/saw a lot of reviews where images from the iphone and s20 was compared and the results from all of these reviews was that the different was not noticeable.

So question, is it just me doing something wrong or is the quality just so bad on the iphone i'm beyond disappointed?

I posted a thread a while ago asking user about their Pro Max decision. Most people said they don’t regret it.

Now that the iPhone 13 Pro and 13 Pro Max have the same camera system and their battery lives are closer, what’s your opinion?

I was 100% sure to get the Pro Max, partly due to the battery life, but also because of the slightly superior camera system.

Now? Well, I tend to the iPhone 13 Pro because of the handling. The slightly worse battery might be worth it. Coming from an iPhone X, this is still a HUGE upgrade.

What do you think? What are you going to buy?

EDIT: Just ordered the Pro Max 256GB. What a difficult decision that was. Quite risky since I‘m not sure that I‘m gonna be happy. But here we are. Since I‘m using my phone heavily and far more than my iPad and MBP for Media consuming, I went with the bigger screen and battery size. I just really hope I‘ll be fine with the handling, especially the fit in my pocket.

EDIT^2: My experience:

It’s a great phone. In comparison, my iPhone X feels absolutely tiny. And here’s the deal: I slowly start to regret my decision.

The bigger screen is not that much of a benefit. It’s big, it’s beautiful, but it hasn’t any practical advantages (software-side) to the Pro with its 6.1“. I expected more of a benefit while streaming, gaming or reading. But much mislead.

The battery life is fantastic, although I don’t quite get 2 full days with my usage (Browsing, streaming, Reddit, some productivity and reading). I feel like it’s draining more battery in standby than it should be (1% per hour). Nonetheless, it’s by far the best battery life I‘ve ever experienced on a mobile device.

Overall, I wish I had the 13 Pro. It has roughly about 20-25% less battery life but more than enough to get me through a day. The Pro Max doesn’t quite last 2 days at all, so basically it doesn’t make a huge difference if it’s 1.5 days or 1 day - I‘d charge it overnight anyway. The handling is what I miss the most. I permanently feel like the Pro Max could slip out of my hand. My iPhone X though has the perfect size for me - and the 13 Pro would‘ve been similar in size, but it has a 0.3“ bigger display. Which is great and enough for my usage.

The Pro would‘ve been perfect.

Unless I am missing something huge In my picture settings.... it really feels like the video quality is way way better.

Please let me know if I'm doing something wrong or maybe it just is true video quality is better

So I just got the iPhone 13 Pro Max last week. I got it second hand, but it’s still under Apple Care until April and it looks like it’s in good condition. I upgraded from the iPhone 12 Pro.

I noticed that in many cases, the camera quality isn’t as good… I mostly take photos of my dog. She’s 16 lbs black/white Shih Tzu. Of course, she never sits still, but with my iPhone 12 Pro, I always managed to get clear photos. Even when she’s moving and I have Live Photos turned on, the key photo usually came out crisp and clear. The details were strong enough to see dirt on her face an individual strands of her hair/fur.

But on the iPhone 13 Pro Max, her face is almost always blurry… kind of like an oil painting. It mostly happens to her face, which I suspect is because she has a lot of dark areas around her eyes. I haven’t changed anything in the way I take photos.

So far I’ve tried turning off Lens Correction and turned on Macro Control.

Does anyone else have this issue? Any tips? Should I be worried there is some kind of internal damage to the camera? Are my expectations too high?

Here is a small comparison: https://imgur.com/a/ncRglwH If you are able to zoom in, you can tell the 1st pic is slightly blurry.

Recently purchased an iPhone 13 Pro coming from an iPhone 11 Pro. Not a pro photographer but quite familiar with shooting and processing variables. Initially the new cameras seemed better, especially the ultrawide in lower light. The optical 3x zoom lens can be useful if you want to reach further but for using it to minimise angle distortion, like when in a restaurant table shooting a dish, 3x ends up getting too close.

But the real concerning issue to me is basically how the phone aggressively autotunes any photo you take and if you zoom in to 100% it looks like some crappy oil painting. Horrible noise reduction that makes images sacrifice definition for having "no noise" sake, combined with very strong auto sharpening, and images tend to always bump up the luminosity - if I want to take a photo in the dark with a softer light, it will basically give me a contrasty and oversharpened lit up image - just what I DON'T want.

Shared images here are with the wide lens, full view and a 100% crop for the awful definition. Well lit sunny day.

Anyone else frustrated/annoyed with their 13 Pro's camera? Any tips on how to address this?

Returning it is not an option at this point, looked up online for tips on how to work around this but it seems Apple just doesn't want to leave it as an actual option to have less AI on their cameras. Shooting raw and processing every file in Lightroom is not really what I want for phone camera snaps.

tl;dr This is a comparison post between the iPhone 15 Pro and an iPhone 13 Pro.

The story:

I'm a semi-professional photographer and videographer, I have a Nikon DSLR and a bunch of professional (fast) lenses, a professional cinematography drone, and I experiment with professional photography, videography, and audio.

My wife had her iPhone 13 Pro and I had a Google Pixel 8 Pro. Every week or two, wireless Android Auto on my Pixel 8 Pro would stop pairing and projecting to my car's screen (a '23 Acura Integra) and fall back to Bluetooth-audio only.

Needless to say, this was pretty infuriating. As okay as I am with audio-only, having GPS maps projected to the car's screen vastly improves quality of life and safety when driving (especially to new clients) as I primarily rely on visual observation for directions.

Eventually, I got completely fed up, and after a particularly horrible Thanksgiving dinner with my in-laws where my brother in-law decided to not only come out of the closet but also announce his transition using a ventriloquism dummy (it was very... interesting), I chucked my phone out the window on the highway while we were driving home. (The scotch I drank may have contributed to this)

Anyway, family drama aside, I bought my wife an iPhone 15 Pro for Christmas and she gave me her iPhone 13 Pro. I got a battery replacement recently and I'm happy to say that Apple CarPlay has worked near-seamlessly for as long as I've had it.

The iPhone 13 is truly the best (most bang per buck) phone for average daily use.

However, seeing as I have access to my wife's iPhone 15 Pro, I've also had the opportunity to use that, and this is what I have to say:

If you do any kind of professional photography or videography with your phone, or if you are simply looking for professional-level quality in your photos and videos, then get an iPhone 15 Pro. The extra $300 for the upgraded 48 MP primary camera and 60 FPS 4k HDR video capabilities is worth it, especially considering what you'd be shelling out for a separate device with those capabilities.

The iPhone 13 Pro has slightly faster lenses with the main camera and ultra-wide camera (f/1.5 and f/1.8 on the 13 Pro vs f/1.78 and f/2.2 on the 15 Pro for the main and ultra-wide respectively) but the sensors have less megapixels. Overall, this doesn't matter as much even for professional photography except in niche cases.

Let's be honest: if you truly needed an ultra-fast lens at a professional level, you would probably get an f/1.4 on a mirrorless. f/1.78 for the main camera lens with 48 Megapixels (iPhone 15 Pro) is easily on par with a Nikon 850 DSLR paired with an f/2.2 70-200mm telephoto, a setup that would cost you about $2k.

Point being, the iPhone 15 Pro cameras are much better than the iPhone 13 Pro just on account of detail and megapixels, despite the (slightly) slower lenses. You'd be paying considerably more for a dedicated professional camera to have that level of performance.

(And yes, I understand full-frame and cropped sensors and I understand that a professional full-frame camera produces more detail than a phone ever will, but the phone is far more convenient, and it's quite something to be able to say you can take nearly the equivalent photo of $2k worth of professional equipment with your cellphone)

USB-C on the iPhone 15 Pro is super nice for transferring large files (e.g. 4k media), but it doesn't matter for charging because we only use wireless charging, either Qi or Magsafe, to prolong the lifespan of our ports. (I've often found charge ports to be the least physically resilient aspect of the phone and retired more than one phone due to a faulty port)

USB-C on the iPhone 15 Pro only makes a difference for high-speed data transfer of (many) large files (e.g. 4k HDR video and many hi-res photos). Wireless data transfer from iPhone to Macbook is far more convenient and my preferred choice.

I only revert to USB-C when I have a lot of data to transfer from the iPhone 15 Pro.

Having that handy action button on the 15 Pro tied to the camera is incredibly useful, but you can absolutely live without it and not even miss it. I see the action button as minor because I can definitely live without it without caring.

For reference, https://www.macrumors.com/guide/iphone-13-pro-vs-iphone-15-pro/.

Past that? Dynamic Island on the 15 Pro doesn't matter. Titanium material and reduced weight on the 15 Pro doesn't matter (stainless steel is great!) Chassis color choices on the 15 Pro aren't nearly as good as on the 13 Pro. Always-on screen has always been useless for me, that's the first thing I turn off – but I practice remaining disconnected from my phone because I consider it a "necessary evil."

Action button is nice, but I don't find that much added utility, even for quick-draw camera. Having a camera shortcut icon on the bottom strip is nearly as fast and not particularly inconvenient thanks to Face ID and fast unlock. Action button itself hardly makes enough of a difference to matter (I wouldn't pay extra for it) but now that it's here, I appreciate it and hope it stays.

Everything else on the iPhone 15 Pro is incremental and largely unnoticeable at best compared to the 13 Pro.

For professional photos and videos? Get an iPhone 15 Pro. For everything else – there's iPhone 13 Pro.

The front camera (even the back one) of my iphone takes very poor quality photos, especially at night. I already made sure to deactivate the night mode but the photos are edited automatically and it adds brightness, contrast and grain, and it looks super blured. I have seen a lot of comments from people who think the same as me, but I have not seen any solution. It also happens in apps like WhatsApp or Instagram.

How do I stop the photos from editing automatically?

Even the photos looked better on my old XR, i’m considering returning it back :S

What is the best camera settings and feature to use when taking photos and videos with an iPhone 13? I'm going to New York this December and want to make sure i get the best photos and quality. I'm not bothered about saving space as I'm going to pay for extra storage on iCloud when i go. So storage probably wont be an issue.

Portrait mode photos are blurry and out of focus. And even in regular mode, nothing is sharp. I feel like my iPhone 13 Pro camera was much better. Am I the only one who feels that way? Is that a fix?