iPhone 4 Camera Light Leak

[solidus430]

Hey everyone—

I've got an iPhone 4 from when the hardware first launched last June. For the past 2-3 months, I've been noticing that in most decently lit environments (particularly in daylight), my photos tend to experience a degree of light leak in what appears to be the same corner each time, resulting in them being somewhat overexposed in many cases, and difficult to obtain a proper exposure and White Balance in most others.

The only way I can guarantee that this doesn't happen is by making sure that any light sources for a photo are not in the shot or even in the shot's periphery. Granted, this tends to be the case for taking photos in general, but there are too many instances where ambient light bleeds in and washes out a picture I'm taking for it to be simple composition issues. Plus, this is a noticeable difference from when I first got the phone.

My question is, do any other iPhone 4 owners out there have similar problems with their camera, and if so, have any of you had success with getting them replaced at an Apple Store? I really enjoy taking photos with my iPhone (since it's the most conveniently accessible camera I usually carry, and it fares far better in low light situations than my point and shoot), and I'd really like to swap mine out for a new bit of hardware without these issues if I can.

 

[reclusive46]

Take it to a genius bar. If there is an issue most Genius's will try and do their best to help you.

 

[Dandrews524]

can you post an example of the kind of photo youre talking about? i think my first iphone 4 may have done the same thing

 

[solidus430]

Take it to a genius bar. If there is an issue most Genius's will try and do their best to help you.

The entire reason I raised the question is to find out if it's something other people have noticed with their own hardware, and whether anybody has had success getting their hardware replaced when taking it to the Genius Bar with this same issue. My Genius Bar experiences have been hit or miss and I'm trying to get a fix on whether this is something they'll actually honor before I bother taking it in. Thanks for the obvious suggestion though

 

[solidus430]

can you post an example of the kind of photo youre talking about? i think my first iphone 4 may have done the same thing

Yeah I'll pull some examples off of it this afternoon and post them here.

 

[solidus430]

Here are a few photos in various lighting conditions that demonstrate what I'm talking about. Generally it seems to effect a specific corner/side of the image every time (though my rotation of the phone for any given shot is random, but you should notice the pattern)

 

[EddyP]

That looks like overexposure to me. Not much you can do about it given the different levels of light in the pictures.

Any camera will have trouble capturing an image where part of it is more brightly lit than others.

 

[solidus430]

That looks like overexposure to me. Not much you can do about it given the different levels of light in the pictures.

Any camera will have trouble capturing an image where part of it is more brightly lit than others.

That's what I thought at first too, but it's not something I ever used to have a problem with when I first got the phone, and in the case of some of those photos, the brightest light source was directly behind the camera, in which case it should have been over-exposed on all sides of the frame, no?

That's what got my attention, is that it generally seems isolated to one corner of any photo it affects. Maybe it really is just an issue of the situations in which I'm taking photos, and perhaps I need to work on better composing my shots and finding better places to base the camera's white balance on, but I still just do not remember this being an issue under any lighting condition as little as 3-4 months ago.