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Apple Publicly Responds to Complaints of Purple Lens Flare on iPhone 5 Photos
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I have, on occasion, had lens flares on my $500 digital SLR. Just like I had them occasionally with my $600 35mm SLR. Any lens will cause a flare if the light hits it right, or wrong, as the case may be.
Hang on a minute. Gizmodo knows all about flare. Furthermore, they were all for it, before they were against it
Exhibit A:
In 2010, Gizmodo ran a competition to see who could come up with the most creative and interesting use of lens flare:
And here's the gallery of entries. Quite a few 'proper' cameras listed. Canon, Nikon, Olympus. Take yer pick:
http://gizmodo.com/5562538/shooting-challenge-lens-flare-gallery-part-one
http://gizmodo.com/5562574/shooting-challenge-lens-flare-gallery-part-two
Exhibit B:
That same year, Gizmodo posted a gallery of lens flare wallpapers for their readers' enjoyment:
More flares than a 70's glam rock concert.
Very good post, and your links include a couple examples of 'purple lens flair' from DSLRs!
From the first gallery:
Why did you post a reply to an article you obviously haven't read? Or did you just not comprehend it?
"Two unnamed sources very close to the matter have revealed that in fact it is not a defect but a feature. In accordance with their contracts with the record labels, Apple has included a secret source detector in their devices that can tell when a user is trying to illegally record a concert and F's up the sound in the recording. Apple has also revealed that there is no way to turn off this detector as they have already tested it against all known and even several as yet unknown forms of jailbreaking to ensure it remains in tact"
Then why tiny lenses in other smart phones do not produce the same purple effect? Sure, most of them are not as tiny as iPhone 5 lens which seems to be the root cause of the issue here.
The exposure (aperture setting) can be the difference between getting the purple flair or not. But yes, the most important factor is the angle and framing of the light source. He appears to have done a better job than most of keeping the shot framed the same way. It just goes to show how *little* of a difference in angle is required to avoid the purple flair effect.
No Joke. This is the purple lens flare people are complaining about!? It's not only normal - it's desirable! I have spent thousands on programs designed to put those sorts of flares in shots that don't have them.
My analysis: People are stupid ******s who just want to complain about Apple.
Four possibilities immediately come to mind
1. your phone came with a **** battery
2. You are frequently, including at home, in areas with **** reception, which is known to cause stress on any phone's battery as it attempts to maintain a connection to the towers
3. the initial install of iOS 6 on your phone was some how borked causing corruption and stress on the system resulting in battery drain
4. you loaded your phone from a backup of a prior iphone and said backup had within it corrupted data that is screwing with your current phone. not at all uncommon with using itunes backups to restore phones. it's something I've griped about to Apple several times.
It's been posted before (in this very thread), but here you go.
There's another post earlier in this thread with 3 pictures with *very* similar framing, all taken with an iPhone 5 where 2 show some *white* lens flair along the left edge, and one shows some *purple* lens flair.
Looks like both scenarios have been covered for you.
Could you point me in the direction of a program that can re-produce this "highly desirable" (albeit spooky) effect?
Good point. The focus here has been so much on digital cameras (smartphone cameras and DSLRs) that I was overly specific here. Thanks.
There *was* a mention in this thread of someone who sometimes gets purple lines across their pictures due to extreme lens flair. That *is* specific to digital cameras, as it's caused by 'electron leakage' when certain sensor photocells get over saturated. But that's not what most people are talking about here.
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Still wrong.
http://cdn.thenextweb.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2012/09/Screen-Shot-2012-09-26-at-11.57.03-AM.png
Yes. All non-issues. All blown completely out of proportion by media that *loves* to highlight any perceived flaw with Apple and it's products.
Why? Because it generates clicks for their ad revenue.
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Yep. The exact angles/positions involved will differ depending on the details of the lens construction, focus, and aperture settings though. What does it for one camera may or may not do it for another camera. What does it for the second camera may or may not do it for the first.
Can Apple admit a fault at least for once. The antennagate is the worst when they try to blame us that we're holding it wrong. Then they fixed it on 4S obviously there is a design flaw and Apple should honestly admit their fault. I'm sure they'll eventually fix this on 5S. I'm almost done with Apple, if they keep on doing this I'm switching to Windows for my next phone. I'm not going to Android either it's not really good imho. But since no more iMac updates anytime soon, this is the only reason that I can stay on Apple ecosystem when they release a new iMac. That's what I'm hoping this month to happen.
Sure, just step into my finished room in my basement and the lights I have will do this every time they are turned on. Now do you see it every time, no only when I lower the light below the rim will you see it but it is still there.
Also tryout any lens effect software and see where it takes you Topaz, NIK and so on, they have 30 day trials
I have used cameras in the thousands of dollars range that will give off flare and even though nature tells us different we still find stuff like this not ordinary because our eyes don't flare like glass (most of us anyway).
Well, I certainly can't post pictures taken with *your* camera, now, can I?
Your 4s pictures don't show the purple, because you've managed to not take pictures with a bright light source in the *very* narrow band of angle & framing where *either* the 4s or 5 produces the purple flair. It's not hard to avoid. If you see it in the viewfinder, a *very* slight change of angle (or even changing the exposure settings) should be enough to make it disappear.
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As others have mentioned, they *do*. Check out one of my earlier posts in this thread where I point out some DSLR pictures which produced purple lens flair.
Have you read my other posts? I'm simply trying to show that this purple flare is not a thing occuring in every camera and with every lens. I guess that's arrogant or ignorant.
And yes i do understand the basic scenario. I'm just having a hard time reproducing it.
Oh by the way, I do enjoy it! Otherwise I wouldn't post here.
To be fair, it's not *always* desirable. When you *want* that effect, it's great. When you don't, it's not.
Either way, its pretty easy to avoid. If you see it in the viewfinder, just change your angle by a degree or so.
Sure, just step into my finished room in my basement and the lights I have will do this every time they are turned on. Now do you see it every time, no only when I lower the light below the rim will you see it but it is still there.
Also tryout any lens effect software and see where it takes you Topaz, NIK and so on, they have 30 day trials
I have used cameras in the thousands of dollars range that will give off flare and even though nature tells us different we still find stuff like this not ordinary because our eyes don't flare like glass (most of us anyway).
There is flair and then there is iPhone 5 purple flair. Here are PCMag pictures taken with iPhone 5 and Galaxy SIII that demonstrate the difference:
iPhone 5
SGSIII
These tests were not really that useful because they had very strong light source directed at the lens. But here are the same two cameras in a situation where the light source is out of frame. Notice the huge difference here:
iPhone 5
SGSIII
Yes. I've read your other posts. You're trying to show ath the purple flair thing, which can (and does, in the right circumstances) occur in any camera with any lens (to greater or lesser extent based on the lens in question) does not. And you're trying to do so by using photos which aren't framed the same way.
In other words, you're trying to prove false something that is true, and you're doing so by selectively picking pictures to prove your point.
As a professional photographer I have battled lens flare for nearly 40 years, obviously it's something that happens on any camera and any lens if the sun or light is at an extremely obtuse angle to the lens. But, if Apple is addressing it publicly then perhaps they are acknowledging a potential defect in their camera. The biggest problem with Apple is that their phones only get limited testing in California due to "Security Issues" its very possible that the camera was not fully tested for stuff like this and Lab testing might not reproduce this problem.
Can you link to the i5 shots showing white flare with no purple?
I'm sitting here in a fairly dark room with a bright light and am completely unable to replicate any sort of purple in the lens flare of my 4s. This makes me wonder if it only effects some cameras but not others.
If Apple would like to examine my phone to see what they did right with that one they are more than welcome ;-)
As Apple points out, the colored flare tends to be when the sun is just slightly out of frame, on many cameras in many price ranges. It is not a failure of the iPhone, or even that it is a tiny cellphone camera. This is an issue of the physics of light and lenses.
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Have you tried with the sun? Magnitude of the light source matters.