Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

iPhone Air I love the iPhone Air, but the camera is just bad

DMG35 said:
See to me I would say the 17 Pro photo looks significantly better to my naked eye. It looks sharper and more detailed than the Air does. Look at the floor boards and how you can see the individual wood planks much more clearly than you can in the Air shot.
Click to expand...

Yes I agree with the floor panels there, you can look round the imagine and see other areas where the Air did better (the light on the ceiling) and vice versa and nit picking and pixel peeping. Both photos had to be compressed to upload in here and don’t look half as good as they do in photos on the iPhone.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: iPAU
DMG35 said:
I have glowed about the iPhone Air and what a great device I think it is, but there is a major drawback in it, the Camera. One of my favorite things about it is that I can slide it in a suit jacket pocket and its like Its not even there. Great for going to formal events where you don't want a big buiky phone sticking out of your pocket.

Because of that I took it to a wedding last night and what a mistake that was. If this phone doens't have perfect lighting then just forget about it. It really struggles in anything but perfect lighting. Here are a few different types of photos I took.

Selfie of me and my wife. Not too bad, but good lighting.
View attachment 2569766

Here is another of my wife. Not bad again, but really good lighting:

View attachment 2569767


And then there is this, which is pretty awful:

View attachment 2569768


I honestly can't remember when I've owned a smartphone that's taken photos that are this terrible in less than perfect lighting. Someone else had a 16 Pro Max that also took a photo of us that I'm going to have them send me to compare, but this is pretty pathetic. The lightning wasn't nearly as bad as the photo makes it look and it just does a terrible job of trying to discern the colors that are in the wedding reception hall and just gave everything a purplish hue. All of my photos look like this. They are absolutely terrible and it highlights the biggest flaw of this phone.

I still love the Air, but am not taking it to things like this again because the photos are just plain bad.
Click to expand...
From the moment they began talking about the Air’s camera I just knew it wouldn’t blow anyone away, but I definitely would have expected it to do a lot better than these images.
The wife and yourself showed up and showed out, but the Air definitely did not capture it well unfortunately. The last image is similar to what you would get from some 5 year old high end smartphones in poor lighting, not what a premium phone in 2025 should be producing at all.
 
  • Like
  • Haha
Reactions: iPAU and LordArchie
Saying the iPhone Air’s camera is bad is basically the same as saying the iPhone 17/17 Pro/17 Pro Max cameras are bad. Sure, I know the Pro has a slightly larger sensor, but the Air actually has a brighter aperture and these days, everything comes down to computational photography anyway. To notice any real difference between the 17 Pro and the Air, you’d literally have to go pixel-peeping :)

And I’m saying this as someone who used the 16 Pro, then the 17 Pro for two weeks before returning it and getting the Air and as someone who’s been into photography for over 15 years. My main camera right now is the Fuji X-T5.

A lot of people who claim the Air’s camera is "bad" are just experiencing a bit of a placebo effect, honestly. The only area where the Air falls short compared to the 17/17 Pro/17 Pro Max is versatility - that’s it, nothing more, nothing less.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Rick America, iPAU, neuropsychguy and 3 others
So I’m using a 17 pro Max as my main phone and then iPhone Air has my second phone I have compared Camera photos of both of them and you can’t argue about it. I wish they put the pro camera in the air at some point that would be amazing.
 
It’s not a matter of what people think of the camera in the air, but rather the fact that this phone doesn’t seem to be well liked. It may not survive.

More and more is being written pondering the Air’s fate, perhaps caused by the downfall of the superior dual camera, dual speaker equipped Galaxy S25 Edge.

Perhaps the handwriting is on the wall, that other than early adopters that bought into the novelty, the public has little interest in a thin, modest performing phone.
 
I have performed in around 1,000 concerts over the past 20 years. An increasing number of these venues have LED lights with the ability to produce red, green and blue.

If the quality of the blue LEDs is poor, they give off a purple light. And this is with the best Nikon DSLR.

The eye doesn't see this because it compensates. But the silicon chip cannot handle the spectrum of this LED correctly. Maybe the same applies here. The only option I have is to convert everything to black and white.
 
  • Like
Reactions: zenmacx
deivydas said:
Saying the iPhone Air’s camera is bad is basically the same as saying the iPhone 17/17 Pro/17 Pro Max cameras are bad.
Click to expand...
The camera in the Air isn't bad.

But it also can't be compared to the Pro and Pro Max and Air customers lose 100% of their credibility when they start doing that.
 
Innovati0n said:
The camera in the Air isn't bad.

But it also can't be compared to the Pro and Pro Max and Air customers lose 100% of their credibility when they start doing that.
Click to expand...

People need to differentiate versatility with photo quality. The photo quality from the standard lens on the Air is excellent, same as the 17 and very close to the Pro. But obviously without an ultra wide or telephoto, the camera system on the Air is significantly less versatile than the Pro.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Rick America, iPAU, subjonas and 2 others
After owning the Air for about a month now, while I really like the Air, it does not provide as good of close up shots or focus as well or as quickly as the Pro’s do. I rarely got out of focus pics with my old 16 Pro or my wife’s 17 Pro Max. I do sometimes get them with with the Air. The Pro was basically point and shoot and the Air you have to pay more attention too.

Still deciding if I can live with that or just sell my Air and get the 17 Pro. Just dislike going back to a thicker/heavier phone and would miss the Air’s slightly larger screen too. And I have no desire to lug a DSLR around either. 🙂
 
  • Like
Reactions: mathiasinthe314
GDF said:
Still deciding if I can live with that or just sell my Air and get the 17 Pro. Just dislike going back to a thicker/heavier phone and would miss the Air’s slightly larger screen too. And I have no desire to lug a DSLR around either. 🙂
Click to expand...
Many of the posts here are from users who kept their pro and bought the Air. It’s a combination that works for some, given the compromised camera performance of the Air.

Once a person has become accustomed to the superior camera array of the pro, it’s hard to live with just a single camera.

Had Apple not practiced such extreme cost cutting and equipped the Air with a dual camera array like the well equipped Gallery S25 Edge, they would have delivered a slim excellent performing iPhone.

An iPhone Air with dual cameras, dual speakers and a slightly larger battery in the same slim form factor like the Edge would have eliminated any of the current shortcomings.
 
  • Like
Reactions: GDF
DMG35 said:
I have glowed about the iPhone Air and what a great device I think it is, but there is a major drawback in it, the Camera. One of my favorite things about it is that I can slide it in a suit jacket pocket and its like Its not even there. Great for going to formal events where you don't want a big buiky phone sticking out of your pocket.

Because of that I took it to a wedding last night and what a mistake that was. If this phone doens't have perfect lighting then just forget about it. It really struggles in anything but perfect lighting. Here are a few different types of photos I took.

Selfie of me and my wife. Not too bad, but good lighting.
View attachment 2569766

Here is another of my wife. Not bad again, but really good lighting:

View attachment 2569767


And then there is this, which is pretty awful:

View attachment 2569768


I honestly can't remember when I've owned a smartphone that's taken photos that are this terrible in less than perfect lighting. Someone else had a 16 Pro Max that also took a photo of us that I'm going to have them send me to compare, but this is pretty pathetic. The lightning wasn't nearly as bad as the photo makes it look and it just does a terrible job of trying to discern the colors that are in the wedding reception hall and just gave everything a purplish hue. All of my photos look like this. They are absolutely terrible and it highlights the biggest flaw of this phone.

I still love the Air, but am not taking it to things like this again because the photos are just plain bad.
Click to expand...
Don't expect phones to have great cameras... The sensor of the iPhone is very small and in low light it might sucks... (max iso is 8000 too I think)
 
Innovati0n said:
Air owners accept zero criticism of their phone.
Click to expand...
LOL have you tried to upload a 48mp photo onto MacRumors? Even 24mp says it’s too big to upload.

BTW did you watch the video posted above by @jntdroid comparing the 1x and 2x shots of the Air and 17 Pro? I’m sorry that the inferior Air’s main camera can compete with your 17 Pro’s main camera so closely to the point of barely any differences. That must hurt 😃🤣🤣
 
  • Like
Reactions: iPAU, nepalisherpa and vito
Innovati0n said:
Air owners accept zero criticism of their phone.
Click to expand...
Often it’s not criticism, just a casual discussion about features and differences between iPhone models.

It’s nothing personal. Yet highly sensitive people who have spent their money on an Air defend it like it’s personal. It’s all rather revealing.
 
Dude, you don’t need to make up excuses to switch to the Pro. We get it. Your current toy is already boring and you feel like getting a new one. Not everything has to be justified by “need.”
 
I'm currently on a journey thoughout the current line up. Wasn't overly impressed with the 17 Pro Max. The base 17 was cool but nothing too exciting. Now, I'm waiting for the Air to arrive. It seems 'Form over function' has never been so true. Let's see if its worth the compromises.
 
I was going to upgrade to the Pro, but I decided to dig out my camera and its 200mm lens which proved to be something of a mistake.

This is an image taken at 5x on a 16 Pro:
IMG_0511.JPEG

I took it to experiment with focus layers for the lockscreen. It turned out as I wanted and for a phone looks ok.

Then I took this with my camera:
DSC00305.JPEG

Appreciating the laws of physics, the difference is night and day.

In the end I never bothered with the 17 Pro because taking my camera out is a conscious decision. The weight of it in my pack means I appreciate the images it takes a lot more. There is purpose behind them.

With the 16 Pro the zoom pictures looked great but all I saw were throwaway snaps I'll never look at again so I ultimately went with the Air because of the rule of cool.
 
The Air's camera is passable to me. Low light and zooming are of course worse, but good lighting looks just as good to me compared to my old 14 Pro. I think the thinness and weight make up for the drawbacks I’m having with it. If anything, its going to make me want to take my DSLR with me to more places again.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back