4x 48MP ProRAW
![]()
Apple iPhone 17 Pro Max (Ultra HDR, RAW, Stock camera, 4x, 100mm, 0.01s, f/2.97, ISO 50, 48.77MP)
Apple iPhone 17 Pro Max (Ultra HDR, RAW, Stock camera, 4x, 100mm, 0.01s, f/2.97, ISO 50, 48.77MP)
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
iPhone 16 Pro Max Issues with ProRAW 48 and stock camera app
- Thread starter jajo.j
- Start date
-
- Tags
- camera iphone 16 pro proraw raw
- Sort by reaction score
Well, it's probably gonna be a while before they fix it. Because the pro phone is not as pro as we thought it was going to be. The 17 pro max is roughly 80% Iphone 16 pro max. I keep waiting on apple to refine the camera app to give us more pro control like you would on a third party app and similar to what the galaxy S25 ultra has using expert raw. I still have my 16 pro max and due to the issues on the 17 Pro Max, I don't think I'm going to upgrade anytime soon. Currently using the Samsung S25 ultra which has far superior cameras and software over the iPhone & that is why i switched to Samsung. Expert raw is the best. I don't understand why apple doesn't create something similar for their iphone pro models. Don't get me wrong, I really do love the iPhone. I've been using the iPhone since 2009. If apple created an app like expert raw, i'd switch back immediately. But the 200mp Samsung camera with expert raw really impressed me. Being able to control this phone just like I would My Sony DSLR is amazing. Apple still limits the long exposure time of one second on the iphone & that's not enough to do anything.
Last edited:
jumping in late here with my own observations on my 17PM:
after playing around with the various resolutions and formats I've settled on heir and 48MP, reason that I did not like the "auto-cropping" to 12MP when not using 1x/4x. I want as much detail as possible. The photos seem sharp to me but I will need to take more photos.
What really really bugs me is the fact that the stock camera app decided at times which camera to use, eg, I select 4x and then shoot an object maybe 2 feet away and the photo is taken by the main camera at 12MP. And after reading Halide's review of the 17PM they confirm this behavior has been there apparently on the 16PM between the ultra-wide and main camera. WTF. That Halide review also pointed out that their app will n to let that happen.
So once the Halide Mark III app is out I will test it for a week and unless I find issues, I will purchase it (the lifetime license).
I came from 13PM and have never seen this camera app behavior. I'm an amateur DSLR user so I'm used to be in control of the settings on my camera, don't want an app to make decisions for me. And I am not a fn of Apple's image over processing either.
after playing around with the various resolutions and formats I've settled on heir and 48MP, reason that I did not like the "auto-cropping" to 12MP when not using 1x/4x. I want as much detail as possible. The photos seem sharp to me but I will need to take more photos.
What really really bugs me is the fact that the stock camera app decided at times which camera to use, eg, I select 4x and then shoot an object maybe 2 feet away and the photo is taken by the main camera at 12MP. And after reading Halide's review of the 17PM they confirm this behavior has been there apparently on the 16PM between the ultra-wide and main camera. WTF. That Halide review also pointed out that their app will n to let that happen.
So once the Halide Mark III app is out I will test it for a week and unless I find issues, I will purchase it (the lifetime license).
I came from 13PM and have never seen this camera app behavior. I'm an amateur DSLR user so I'm used to be in control of the settings on my camera, don't want an app to make decisions for me. And I am not a fn of Apple's image over processing either.
Yeah, that was exactly my issue as well, but I also experienced this in standard HEIC mode, at 1x and 4x. At first glance, pictures look identical (except for the disgusting yellow tint on the 17). So when I zoomed in 100x and 200x in order to see the improvements, the 17Pro looked blurry. As I said earlier, this was not something that could've been fixed via post processing sharpening. And the blurriness really reminded me of pre-OIS images. I also think that this is a software bug, but seeing the perfectly fine results of some members here and the fact that some pro Youtubers didn't have these issues, I wouldn't rule out hardware as well.
I will be ordering a new one and see how that fares. If it shows the same issues, I'll send it back and skip the 17 series.
This thing really is an enigma. In some lighting circumstances it’s fuzzy. In others, it’s sharp as a tack.
1x 48MP
4x 48MP crop to 8x equivalent.
1x 48MP
4x 48MP crop to 8x equivalent.
That’s my experience as well. That would seem to indicate that it’s not a hardware issue in the lenses as they are able to produce sharp images (getting sharp non-Pro RAWs in situations where ProRAWs are blurry also seems to back this up).
So if it’s hardware related, it’s about the IS or focusing as those are very situation-specific. Or it’s all in software.
Probably. I had camera issues with my 16 pro max as it produced soft images compared to my second 16 pro max. For some reason after every iOS update the camera quality on my 16 pro max went bad and I had to do a full restore to fix it. I made a appointment at the apple store and they replaced the camera module and ever since then, it's been perfect. Since these 1x & .5x cameras in the 17 pro series are the same as those in the 16 pro, it very well could be a combination of a software / hardware problem.
Another thing to add some complication to the discussion - I just noticed that for some of the ProRAW’s taken with the default Camera app, they are very sharp in Photos app but when imported to Lightroom they can sometimes go a bit fuzzy. Not all the time, but in a couple instances there’s a noticeable difference. (and it doesn’t help that Photos displays in HDR but Lightroom imports in SDR so that’s another possible vector - the HDR to SDR process)
So for me, I think I’m just going to be patient and wait for a couple patches (to both iOS and to Lightroom).
Photos app
Lightroom
So for me, I think I’m just going to be patient and wait for a couple patches (to both iOS and to Lightroom).
Photos app
Lightroom
It has nothing to do with this topic. It's a standard preview of the photo which is basically a processed overlay. It's actually how the shot would've looked liked if it was shot in HEIC.
Press Edit in the Photos app and the photo will become softer too. Or change some value like brilliance -1 point and Save As Duplicate then switch between the original photo and edited.
Finally compiled my report to Apple on this… From the report, attaching here a series of 14 Pro vs 17 Pro ProRAW comparison photos, first four from the 1x camera (at 48MP) and the next two from the 0.5x (at 12MP to make the comparison more 1-to-1). All zoomed to 200% in Lightroom.
The issues are more pronounced with the main camera, and quite surprisingly haven't really found much any issues on the 4x camera.
Also looks like there's quite a bit of shot-per-shot variance on the 17 Pro, in some photos the loss of quality is not nearly as drastic as in the comparison shots here – but even the best cases do not look as good as the 14 Pro ones (where the quality is also very much stable between the shots).
Let's see how Apple responds to this…
The issues are more pronounced with the main camera, and quite surprisingly haven't really found much any issues on the 4x camera.
Also looks like there's quite a bit of shot-per-shot variance on the 17 Pro, in some photos the loss of quality is not nearly as drastic as in the comparison shots here – but even the best cases do not look as good as the 14 Pro ones (where the quality is also very much stable between the shots).
Let's see how Apple responds to this…
Attachments
Here are my sample 15PM vs 17 Pro. A little less than 1m away. First the comparison of 24 MP in HEIC (main sensor). Then in 48 MP Apple ProRAW. The difference I see in HEIC, I attribute to their aggressive noise reduction and less sharpening. They definitely need to go easier on the noise reduction. However, in Apple ProRAW, I agree with you that there is a noticeable drop in sharpness on the 17Pro.
