How to Fix iPhone 16 Pro Max Camera Focus Issue

I am new to the iPhone (coming from Samsung). I can see why many people are disappointed and complain about the iPhone 16 camera features BUT taking pictures of a flat piece of paper and looking at the sharpness is NOT a good test to evaluate the iPhone camera. If you want to get sharp pictures of sheets of paper, you better use an app like CamScanner. This app has built-in AI features to straighten out the shot and make it sharp all at once, either in original view or cleaned-up etc. I use this app and the iPhone 16 Pro Max camera has no issues taking sharp shots:

The iPhone 16 camera is designed to make real life professional quality photo's. Unfortunately, you will have to learn more about photography to use the camera correctly. I do think Apple should be more transparent about this, and also should improve the software, so that basic default features for straightforward photography can be enabled. But I don't think there is anything wrong with the camera itself. Phone users basically have been "fooled" in the past 10 years with flat and sharp pictures from the built-in phone cameras.

You can make excellent pictures if you learn how to use the features. For sharp group photography, you will have to learn how to use the f-stop function for depth-of-field. Go to the camera settings and enable "Portraits in Photo Mode" option. This automatically captures depth info if AI recognizes person, dog or cat in the frame in Photo mode, so you can apply Portrait effects later. After taking a picture, the f option in edit mode allows you to change the f-stop all the way up to 16, which removes any limited depth-of-field. Here are duplicate photos, the second one edited to remove any limited depth-of-field.

It's annoying that you would have to edit pictures later, but I hope this helps.

tapt

>>>...taking pictures of a flat piece of paper and looking at the sharpness is NOT a good test to evaluate the iPhone camera.

actually, professional lens test charts -- flat pieces of paper -- are an excellent tool to evaluate the focus complaint

this has been explained throughout this thread ad nauseam

the surface of the "paper" must be FLAT and PARALLEL to the camera SENSOR

recommend locking your camera down on a solid tripod, using a wireless remote shutter release, tapping lock focus -- in good lighting -- if you want best test results

THE iPHONE LENSES ARE NOT OF FLAT-FIELD DESIGN -- SHOOTING FLAT OBJECTS LIKE PAPER IS NOT WHAT THEY WERE DESIGNED FOR so yes they do poorly on these tests

ps: that artistic selective focus lens blur is called BOKEH -- looks like Apple is doing some of it in software...

Post 2 examples with settings used and the issue can be diagnosed.

maxvag, what was you approximate distance to subject?

Same on my 16 pro. My son’s 13 pro is perfect. Looks as if the lens is “decentered”.

Please post several examples of the photos that you suspect show a focus issue.

It is normal for objects in front of the subject (point of focus) to be OoF (Out of Focus) and objects behind the subject to be OoF. That is the very definition of Depth of Field (DOF).

iPhone gives the photographer to adjust DoF just like a camera/lens with an adjustable aperture. This is one of the benefits of computational photography or AI. Apple Camera app gives photographers control of DoF before the image is taken. Some third party apps allow DoF to be adjusted when editing the image.

Last photo comparison from me today taken with 4 separate phones, sorry for the boring photos, but these are the photos I need to take for work hence how I found how terrible the main lens is on the iP16PM. This is not just a "one off", this is consistently bad and blurry every time especially the clarity around text is where it is most viable. starts off amazing quality right in the middle of the page / menu/ pamphlet/ brochure and then gets worse and worse as it moves towards the edges. Even the iP14 wasn't the greatest in these comparisons which i have made but iP16 is just trash.

Please see below:

I’ve noticed several settings that will affect the quality of JPEGs. Do you have ProRaw and Resolution Control enabled? If so, what are the settings?

If you don’t have it enabled, I’m inclined to believe you have issues with the 1X, 24mm lens. If the macro symbol is activating, the camera automatically switches to 13mm. However, this can be adjusted in settings too, under Macro Control.

People want more and more advanced features and capabilities. Is it a majority, nearly all, I have no way of knowing. Apple introduced many new features with iPhone 16 and people need to learn how those new features will affect many aspects of their photography.

I understand what Auto is for and a segment of users wanting everything to be like their last camera. But that has rarely, if ever, happened with successive iPhone models. Just look how the images changed in the 4 images another member posted. Each one was different.

No one will get to the bottom of this if examples aren’t shared with the EXIF data. Why? I need to know what the shutter speed is and ISO is because both have a direct impact on image quality. Everyone wants better looking images, why won’t anyone help by sharing the information needed to obtain better pictures.

The bottom line is, if you expect the latest and greatest iPhone model to deliver better quality images, change will have to happen. Those that truly want better image quality will learn and adapt to changing technology. Those that don’t want to learn and improve will be frustrated, as evidenced here.

If you want your images to look like an iPhone 13 Pro Max, then buy three or four and use them for a decade or more. That’s the real solution for I want this model to look like that old model. The way we did it in the old days was shoot film. It looked the same until Kodak changed the emulsion.

Happy to continue to help, the next step is a standardized test so we’re comparing apples to apples.

IOS 18.2 did not fix the issue 😒😒

I just found that the same issue applies on the 1.2x(28mm) and 1.5x(35mm) zoom also! But the 1x being the worst!

So basically what you’re saying is, that users need to adapt and inconvenience themselves just to take a photo that’s non blurry. I mean, in my case, sure I’ll just take it with a 2x zoom on the 12MP (instead of the 1x at 24MP which is silly because 24MP should have better quality than 12MP?!) and that’s cool, that will sort out MY issue. But that’s inconvenient because that renders the 1x zoom useless by the sounds of it, because some people in here are also complaining about photos where you have 2 subjects in a photo, where one is blurry and one is not, etc. so my issue is solved with the 2x zoom, but then that means the 1x is unusable unless you’re happy to have a photo which is overall blurry. 🤔 and that’s compared to all previous iPhones. Which by the sounds of it a lot of people are NOT happy hence why we are on this forum in the first place!

We are not happy because apple advertised and lent hard this year on what the cameras can do, and yet we can’t take a simple photo without having an overall blurry photo on the 1x 24mm, 24MP main camera 🤷🏻🤷🏻🤦🏻🤦🏻🤦🏻 and paid premium 💰 for premium photos and it just sounds like it’s a massive flop!

I guess I’ll wait for IOS 18.3 🤦🏻🤦🏻🤦🏻🤦🏻🤦🏻 and see what happens

I’ll post it tonight. I setup a more standardized test and we can use it to compare sharpness and other lens related issues. But my honest opinion from what I’ve seen so far is a defective lens/camera.

these photos that someone posted already.

honestly even with iphone12mini the photos are a lot sharper than the IP 16 pro max . I chatted yesterday with Apple support and took photos / videos for them as advised to see and compared a IP12mini photo with them and it is clearly different - they arranged for me to see an Apple technician this week . Now, I’m not an expert photographer but I take a lot of product photos for ecommerce platform and used my iPhone 12 mini until recently - then I upgraded to IP 16pro max hoping for better quality but clients tell me off for the photos are not up to standard - even after tweaking in photoshop with sharpness, exposure etc the older photos are still better. I have no complaints about the IP 16 pro max itself it works amazingly smooth and fast with everything else, however there is something definitely not right with the camera . I hope the iOS 18.2 will solve this problem but I have to wait as it won’t be available here until next year.

Mate, respectfully i know your trying to help and diagnose, but i still don't think were on the same page. I'm sure everyone in here knows what macro is, what 0.5x zoom is, what 2x zoom is and what 5x zoom is.

We are talking about people unboxing their new iP16 pro / pro max and taking a simple 1x zoom(24mm, 24MP) because this is how most people take photos AND it is meant be better quality/sharper/crisper than their previous iPhones shooting at 1x zoom at 12MP.

Again i'm going to add yet another example which I shot on the iP16 Pro Max and i will circle / draw IN RED where i think the text is blurry. this is what i have asked you to do for us and still have not done which is get a pamphlet / brochure / menu etc. which is an A4 format (A4 because its globally recognized) with clear text on it as it is the easiest to see where the blur happens because the text is razor sharp on a pamphlet, and take the photo so all 4 corners are in the shot at 1x zoom (NOT MACRO) and try not to get much else around the A4 such as wall / table/ ground around the pamphlet / brochure / menu etc. Just a simple at 1x zoom 24MP, 24mm lens (NOT marco, NOT 0.5x, NOT 2x, NOT 5x, NOT 1.3x, NOT 1.5x).

Below is the iP16 shot without cropping, it's an A4 pamphlet with sharp text on it taken at 1x zoom, 24mm, 24MP, and i have circled / drew where the smudgy / blurry text is on the pamphlet.

This was shot in natural daylight

So inside the circles/ markup / drawing the text is blurry and anything outside of the circles/ markup / drawing the text is ok. And once again i had to shrink the image to be able to upload it.

Please see below:

Ok, I see what you’re saying, but if that’s the case sometimes you want to take a photo of the whole A4 or A3 which doesn’t work at the macro as it won’t take the whole page / pamphlet/ menu in the shot because you would have to be very too close to the sheet / pamphlet/ page etc. Yes the text will be sharp, but you won’t get the whole A4 or A3 in the photo, for example a menu which is A3 at a restaurant!

NOW the problem is with the 0.5x lens / shot, is that it make everything look weird and un proportional, for example it stretches out all the corners and it just doesn’t look proportional or natural, if you know what I mean.

And as for the rest of the zooms which are 1.2x (28mm) and 1.5x(35mm) is the same, blurry, so the only work around is to use the 2x zoom (12MP 🤦🏻) which will make it look the sharpest and the most natural, and not stretched out like the 0.5x zoom.