How to Fix iPhone 16 Pro Max Camera Focus Issue

Hey Mate more proof below, again i had to resize it, etc. once again looks worse on full quality and zoomed in

Have a look where it says 130g/220ml and have a look at the blur between IP11, 13, 14 and 16 being the worst

Hey mate, more proof, and i mean this is consistent throughout when using the main lens, so basically if you try and take a photo of a menu at a restaurant, you will get good quality in the middle of the page and then the corners, and also top, bottom, left, right of the menu it will be all blurry.

Here are more examples:

Jeff, I have been a professional photographer for the past 20 years. Been toying with so many phone models and paraphernalia of photography accordingly. So, believe me it is NOT normal for the "objects in front of the subject to be In Focus and objects behind the subject to be OoF". I have been using iphones for the past 8 years and never have I ever encountered this problem. You do not have to define the depth of field for me mate. My whole contention is regarding the very fact that when I am NOT using the portrait mode, why should one person in a group shot, who is close to the cam becomes razor sharp, while the rest of the persons go blur even when a shot is taken at 1x? Talking about the computational photography or the AI, both should be sensible enough to understand the fact that its a GROUP shot and not an individual one just like the cams of the previous iphone models understood. However, its not the same with iphone 16. And even changing the apertures or focal length doesn't help much when taking a group shot. Again, the AI should kick in deciding the focal length for each shot depending upon the intention of taking that shot. Coming to your "third party app" point, what good is iphone cam app if i need to use a third party app? Its preposterous. Rather than understanding the irritation that all of us, iphone 16 users are going through, you are simply brushing off the entire thing under the carpet, unfortunately.

I am out taking pix on a boat of surfers in sunlight. No tripod.

This photo says: 24mm f1.78.

iso64 48mm 0ev. 1/6024s

All camera settings - format- high efficiency, photo mode 24mp, pro raw on, pro raw max check, pro raw format first one checked,

video capture- on.. pro res hdr.

fusion camera- 28mm on. 35mm on. Default lens 24mm.

I am mostly a scenic and people pic taker. Occasionally action like surfers.

thanks!

Hey mate sorry I’m on the phone this time and screenshots are too big of a file, if I’m on the PC later I’ll shrink and upload, but basically it’s the 1x Fusion Camera - 24mm, f1.78, 24MP, JPEG. (ALL of them are the same but different ISO maybe because of lighting?!)

I’m not an expert in photography, all I know is that from the comparisons over the last even 6 generations or more (I have been rocking every iPhone since iPhone 3G) I was getting good photos as I have been taking the same photos of these sheets of serial numbers for the last 10 years , and now with the iPhone 16 I just get blurry photos when I zoom in…. And yes I could use the macro lens or the extra wide lens to take non-blurry photos but that’s not the point. We’re in 2024 and these camera (main camera ant 1x) are meant to be getting better and more convenient for the user.

But this is how I have always been taking the photos forever and now they are noticeably blurry hence how I found how bad the blur is when I zoomed into the serial number to add it into a spreadsheet, and then I started testing it and yes the main lens (or fusion camera) takes bad photos where the previous iPhones (except I never had an iPhone 15 so I can’t comment on that) have been taking excellent photos of the same sheets which I have been doing for years on the 1x main camera…I wonder if the Samsung galaxies have the same issues 😅

I think there’s a bit of confusion in this group… and for those who are confused the simple answer is, for generations iPhones have been taking good photos on the main lens at 1x (simple) and when you view the photo taken, you zoom in on the edges and they are very clear(non-blurry), and now the iPhone 16 Pro/ Pro Max photos are not clear and they are blurry. (SIMPLE AGAIN)

No need to complicate it, the culprit is the main camera (or fusion camera) takes bad photos on the 1x main lens whatever you wanna call it, forget lighting, focus of subject etc. it’s SIMPLE, it takes bad and blurry photos from previous generation iPhones. That’s it.

Don’t worry around is it in sunlight, is it under artificial light, etc. it takes bad photos on the main lens from previous generation iPhones and when viewing the photo taken and zoomed into the edges of the photo it’s blurry…… SIMPLE

I’m not sure what people don’t understand. It was good, and now it’s not, and people are complaining about it, obviously.

Here is the original photo from the iPhone 13 Pro Max (and by the way you can have a look at my previous posts I put up about 5 posts / replies already with comparisons)

By the way I'm not sure why the photo is not upright and how youre going to zoom in properly but anyways just have a look at the crispness of the text and I will post another comparison between this photo and the iPhone 16PM.

Here is the full photo as requested:

I’m sure they won’t reply to your post as they have no real answer but just going around in circles . I had to dig out and use an old IPhone X which takes much sharper photos -16pro max photos are horrendously blurred and I need it to take up close photos for my work.

Probably about 30 centimeters, just basically after it switches from macro lens to main lens(fusion lens), as that basically takes in the whole photo as I have been doing for years and need to show proof for work, etc. all i know is when i do that on the iPhone 16 its blurry when you zoom into the corners, never had this issue with previous iPhones.

30 centimeters is about 12 inches. The newspaper ad is about 9 inches by 11 inches. So very similar in size. This is newsprint so ink bleeds a little.

crop from center of ad

9 cm X 4 cm

Extreme top left corner

5 cm X 2.5 cm

Mate, here you go, and roughly taken ~23cm off the table on both the ip13 and 16. please see below from ip13:

Might I Add this photo is 12MP and just under 5MB, where as the IP16PM is 24MP and is 5.5MB hence why i cant upload the full image for the iphone 16PM but i will slightly shrink it so i can upload it to give you a comparison, AGAIN were comparing the text and the blurriness. its in centimeters BTW.

Attached from iP13 Pro:

I just bought an iPhone 16 Pro and the camera is terrible. Especially when taking close-ups. I collect old/vintage photos and when I try to take a picture of an old photo, the result is blurrier than the old photo that I’m trying to take a picture of.

Jeff, I did not question your photography skills. However, I did object on the use of photography jargons since the iphones are not specifically build for the professional photographers. All a normal consumer cares about is taking a good photo if he has heavily invested into the phone (that also makes one of many others), merely for taking a good photograph. Coming back to your point, you are talking like a photographer where you could have tweeked the taken shot with editing softwares and third party apps. However, any normal person, with a latest iphone, would like his/her phone to act on AUTO and decide the settings just like the previous iphones did. However, this particular iphone 16pro is an exception since its acting quite weird when it comes to taking 1x shots, i.e. the 24 mm lens. You have been asking every person to post the EXIFs/settings of the photo. Again that is not the point. The phone's cam is supposed to do it on AUTO specially such a basic thing which a cam is supposed to do so using computational photography. Like many others, I am waiting for 18.2 and hope it will fix this issue for good. Cheers!

Bang on! I agree and most of us here seem to be on the same page, we are simply talking about taking a close up photo(NOT MACRO) of a menu/ brochure / etc. with the standard 24mm, 1x zoom and for it to be crisp and sharp all around, as it has been on all older iPhones, not sure why this is so complex to understand, right 😅?

It’s actually pretty embarrassing sending a 💩 and blurry photo to a mate from an iPhone 16 Pro Max, AFTER spending $2000+ because it’s meant to have the “best cameras” 😒 when clearly it doesn’t, even when compared to my iPhone 13 Pro 🤦🏻

Let us know how you go with the apple tech support! Everyone having the same issue, I also have to take close up / non-blurry photos for work and so I’m stuck using the iP13 pro, AND I have iOS18.2 installed now and it hasn’t fixed it on my phone. I also have the iPhone 11 Pro Max, 12 mini, 12 pro max, 13 Pro, 14 pro max, and now 16 pro max, and I had no issue over the years only this year. I skipped the 15 but like I said I went into apple and a worker had the 15 pro and took a photo with his 15 and had the same blurriness issue when zooming in! And I think this is because apple hasn't made major changes to the lenses between 15 and 16! From

what im hearing from reviewers on YouTube, but I might be wrong!

[Edited by Moderator]