Iphone 5s video mode too dark,faulty or 7.1.1 bug?

[Orka]

My wife shot some videos of our daughter today and i noticed that videos look rather dark.
I just tested my wife's iphone 5s (phone is one month old) and noticed that video mode is indeed dark, I did some comparison just to confirm my suspicion and in fact it turns out that videos are worse quality than videos that i shot with my iphone 5, on my iphone 5 videos are clearly brighter. I'm not sure if it's faulty iphone or is it 7.1.1 bug, can anyone confirm it?
It appears auto exposure setting in video mode doesn't work properly.
Strange thing is, in photo mode, iphone 5s appears fine.
I don't remember having this issue until now.
Btw, i'm talking about indoors videos, under nor very bright lighting or relatively low light.

 

[Jalopybox]

It's the same on the 5 as well. Way too dark. Seems to only happen in lower light scenarios. Brighter light looks equal for video/picture.

 

[Orka]

Well, what I meant was that at least on one iPhone 5 s low light video quality strangely (bigger pixels, better processor etc.) is worse than you can get from iPhone 5, not that just video is darker than picture itself, it's normal for a single phone to have a darker videos than photos.

I googled and found people with similar complains.
http://www.imore.com/how-quality-your-iphone-5s-low-light-video
They compared iPhone 5s low light video quality to iPhone 5c low light video quality (camera is same as iPhone 5).

Have a look at these (look at video capture):

 

[cynics]

I'd be curious to see a comparison of video screen captures between both in a very bright setting. Would the 5C be over exposed?

 

[Dominicanyor]

Yes I have the same issues here with my 5s as well. I thought the video quality was suppose to be better.

 

[Karcha]

I have the same problem in 7.0.6. It's been there since I got my 5s...any news on the matter? Is it a faulty phone or are all of them like this?

 

[ArtFC]

I have the same problem with my iPhone 5s with iOS 7.1.2. Is it normal? Does iOS8 fix this bug?

 

[kiba283]

Bumping this old topic because i'm facing the SAME situation with an iPhone 6!!

iPhone 6, 64GB Black, on the latest iOS version.

Very happy/satisfied by the amount of light being captured in a room with less light, in photo mode.
Same for the front facing camera.

What's very disappointing is how DARK the video seems to be when trying to capture it on Video mode.
This is non slow-motion mode, and non-60 fps. If I switch the camera from rear to front facing mode, in video, it brightens up considerably. Also as others have suggested, the rear facing camera seems to brighten up a lot when entering camera mode from a Message. But if I switch to the Video Recording mode from the Camera app (rear facing), it's very very dark (even darker than my old iPhone 4s).

I hope Apple recognizes this; seems like a software flaw rather than a hardware one since light is being properly captured in photo mode.

 

[bkends35]

Bumping this old topic because i'm facing the SAME situation with an iPhone 6!!

iPhone 6, 64GB Black, on the latest iOS version.

Very happy/satisfied by the amount of light being captured in a room with less light, in photo mode.
Same for the front facing camera.

What's very disappointing is how DARK the video seems to be when trying to capture it on Video mode.
This is non slow-motion mode, and non-60 fps. If I switch the camera from rear to front facing mode, in video, it brightens up considerably. Also as others have suggested, the rear facing camera seems to brighten up a lot when entering camera mode from a Message. But if I switch to the Video Recording mode from the Camera app (rear facing), it's very very dark (even darker than my old iPhone 4s).

I hope Apple recognizes this; seems like a software flaw rather than a hardware one since light is being properly captured in photo mode.

Not a software flaw at all. The iPhone keeps the shutter open longer in low light in photo mode to capture more light. In video mode it cannot do this because it's a video at a fixed fps. In slow-mo it's even worse because the shutter can barely capture any light at 240fps.

 

[Buzzellsc]

I was at a wedding the other night and was shooting a video and noticed it was pretty dark and not a lot was able to be seen. My friend walks up next to me to video with an iPhone 4 and it was bright as day. How it that my iPhone 5s has such poor quality videos and her ancient iPhone 4 has great quality videos?

 

[yjchua95]

I was at a wedding the other night and was shooting a video and noticed it was pretty dark and not a lot was able to be seen. My friend walks up next to me to video with an iPhone 4 and it was bright as day. How it that my iPhone 5s has such poor quality videos and her ancient iPhone 4 has great quality videos?

If you use slo-mo, 120fps would mean about an equivalent shutter of 1/120, so everything will appear dark.

If you use regular 1080p at 30 fps, everything shouldn't appear dark.

 

[Orka]

I was at a wedding the other night and was shooting a video and noticed it was pretty dark and not a lot was able to be seen. My friend walks up next to me to video with an iPhone 4 and it was bright as day. How it that my iPhone 5s has such poor quality videos and her ancient iPhone 4 has great quality videos?

Your friend needs to be carefull.

My iphone 5 that i was comparing iphone 5S to in OP was crippled by Apple with some of ios 7 upades (7.1.2?) and now its's just as dark in video mode as iphone 5s.

Also, i now have iphone 6, and i can confirm what kiba 283 wrote, it has same issue. Will post some comparative screenshots later.

 

[Orka]

Here are screenshots that i just took in video mode.

1 iPhone 5 (still on IOS 7.1.2),
2- iPhone 6,
3- iPhone 6 Plus.

Both 6 and 6 plus have IOS 8.1.3.
We don't have iPhone 5S anymore, but it's same as iPhone 6.

Also imo on IOS prior to 7.1.2 Iphone 5 looked even brighter.

 

[mds]

Was there ever any resolution for this? My iPhone 5s low light video suddenly became much darker since updating to iOS9 and it looks like its been an issue for years.

 

[Kyotoma]

Not sure if this is a problem really unless you're seeing a difference in the photo file. That would point more to a problem with the camera, or the way iOS handles the exposure.

If it's just dark on the iPhone screen then it could be with the way iOS handles screen brightness during the use of the Camera.app, OR it could be Automatic-Brightness adjustment.

Either way, there could be slight differences between the multiple iOS builds across the multiple devices that could produce this phenomenon.

Has anyone tried adjusting the brightness outside of the app and turning auto-brightness off to see if there's a difference?

 

[wilsonbd79]

I updated to IOS 9 and now my video camera is much darker than last week before doing the upgrade (photo camera is fine).... I see the guy above made the same comment..... how can you resolve this?

Actually,on further testing, it is only the main camera that has this issue...the selfie video camera is fine....again... can you resolve this?

Thanks

Ben

 

[Code7]

My wife and I both have he 5S and she has always had the same problem regardless of updates. I just noticed some grit and dust particles were embedded in the sensor between the lense and the flash. I carefully removed it with a toothpick and blowing air and it seems to have fixed the problem.