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iPhone 16 Pro Max Issues with ProRAW 48 and stock camera app

cocky jeremy said:
I shoot ProRAW and in the stock camera app, it's out of focus. Using third party, it's sharp as expected. Hm. I wonder why Apple still hasn't fixed this?
Click to expand...
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.
 
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BlackrazorNZ said:
The other thing that leads me to strongly suspect a software issue rather than hardware, is that hardware quality loss should be entirely independent of the format. But it's not - HEIC photos at 48MP remain reasonably clear in almost all circumstances, whereas ProRAW in 48MP can be sharp, can be slushy, it's a gamble.

But if it was hardware, it would affect all formats equally. A dodgy lens or sensor wouldn't be sharp on some formats and dodgy on others, and HEIC can't invent details that the sensor didn't capture in the first place.

So it just makes logical sense to me that the issue remains a dodgy ProRAW pipeline.

For just another example - here's two identical 1:1 pixel crops from 48MP 4x Telephoto shots taken moments apart with exactly the same lighting conditions. Literally the only change is switching from HEIC to ProRAW. Yes, HEIC is oversharpened and too punchy - but 'oversharpened' isn't the same as 'magically able to conjure up detail that the sensor never captured' - stuff like the branches you can see on the pine trees on the island.

HEIC
View attachment 2562877

ProRAW
View attachment 2562878
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But in the 35 pictures I shared, most are heic , not proRAW
 
Im gonna wait for a big software update and use my 16PM again.

2 photos of 2 different 17PM units compared to my 16PM.

Both photos are focused, but one them decided to paint the information with softness.

With ProCam App in ProRaw48.
 

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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.
 
nunolikeapple said:
Im gonna wait for a big software update and use my 16PM again.

2 photos of 2 different 17PM units compared to my 16PM.

Both photos are focused, but one them decided to paint the information with softness.

With ProCam App in ProRaw48.
Click to expand...
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.
 
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BlackrazorNZ said:
This thing really is an enigma. In some lighting circumstances it’s fuzzy. In others, it’s sharp as a tack.
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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.
 
miemo said:
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.
Click to expand...
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
IMG_0226.png


Lightroom
IMG_0228.png
 
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