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iPhone 13 Ultra-Wide-angle lens - really poor.

MajorFubar

MajorFubar

macrumors 68020
Original poster
Oct 27, 2021
2,225
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Lancashire UK
I recently traded my iPhone SE2 for a used iPhone 13 and have to say I've been completely underwhelmed by the quality of the ultra-wide-angle lens. Aside from the fact I'd much rather the basic iPhone 13 came with a tele lens instead of the ultra-wide-angle, I've been disappointed by just how crap it is. The edges of the image suffer from not only truly awful trapezoid distortion, but they are noticeably 'unsharp' when you zoom in to detail.

I get that physics imposes its own constraints when the sensor is the size of a gnat's toenail and the focal length of the lens is 13mm, but i'm questioning what the actual point of it is when the quality is fundamentally unusable.

(EDIT: However the thing is opinions vary and what I find fundamentally unusable may be 100% fine for the next person. So there's that.)
 
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MajorFubar said:
I recently traded my iPhone SE2 for a used iPhone 13 and have to say I've been completely underwhelmed by the quality of the ultra-wide-angle lens. Aside from the fact I'd much rather the basic iPhone 13 came with a tele lens instead of the ultra-wide-angle, I've been disappointed by just how crap it is. The edges of the image suffer from not only truly awful trapezoid distortion, but they are noticeably 'unsharp' when you zoom in to detail.

I get that physics imposes its own constraints when the sensor is the size of a gnat's toenail and the focal length of the lens is 13mm, but i'm questioning what the actual point of it is when the quality is fundamentally unusable.

(EDIT: However the thing is opinions vary and what I find fundamentally unusable may be 100% fine for the next person. So there's that.)
Click to expand...


Agreed- the ultrawide ever since it first appeared on (I believe) the iPhone 11 has been absolute crap and doesn't appear to have gotten any better over the years.
 
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Glad it's not just me then. Surprised how few people seem to comment on its woeful inadequacy, or perhaps this is an old conversation that was flogged to death when the model was launched. I won't have paid much attention back then because my iPhone timeline went iPhone 4S>5S>6S>SE>SE2 and so this is my first foray into multi-lens Apple phones.
 
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MajorFubar said:
Glad it's not just me then. Surprised how few people seem to comment on its woeful inadequacy, or perhaps this is an old conversation that was flogged to death when the model was launched. I won't have paid much attention back then because my iPhone timeline went iPhone 4S>5S>6S>SE>SE2 and so this is my first foray into multi-lens Apple phones.
Click to expand...

Me too - almost had the same iPhone progression. The wide-angle is subpar; using it indoors is almost a no-go for me. I occasionally use it outdoors, but the quality isn't the best.
 
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My 12-mini is my only (working) camera, and I use it a lot.

I find the responses in this discussion interesting, as I've not (subjectively) felt that I've gotten results that are sub-par <shrugs>

For the past handful of weeks, I've been refinishing my '54 oak flooring. I've photographically documented the process to the n-th degree.

Two photos, for comparison (both at night, with P/W LED lighting from above).

The following was taken with the "wide-angle" setting:

HW-refinish_wide-angle.jpeg

The following was taken with the "ultra-wide-angle" setting:

HW-refinish_ultra-wide-angle.jpeg

Both are rather gritty (in more ways than one!), but they both capture the moment in a way that matches my personal (eyes-on) memory ;)

What--in y'all's opinion--should I be looking-at to best determine quality-of-shot?
 
The regular iPhones (iPhone 11, 12, 13, 14) all have the exact ultrawide camera. So no wonder its not the best; its basically the same since 2019

The real updates to the ultra wide are with the Pro models. the iPhone 13 Pros featured a much better ultrawide camera.

heres a snippit from this one camera guy review: https://www.austinmann.com/trek/iphone-13-pro-camera-review-tanzania

"The most substantial hardware improvement in the iPhone 13 Pro camera system is the all-new 13 mm Ultra Wide lens with a much faster f/1.8 aperture (about a stop faster than the f/2.4 Ultra Wide lens in iPhone 12 Pro). The larger aperture means better light collecting ability, which should result in sharper low-light images with faster shutter speeds. I was especially anxious to experiment with this new lens because I love this perspective, but I’ve found the Ultra Wide in previous generations to be a bit softer than I’d like in most lighting conditions."

I also believe that the 14 Pro also featured a better ultra wide than the 13 Pro as well.
 
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Ya the wide angle lens on my wife's 12 pro is junk. Whenever I use it to take pictures with a lot of detail on the edges it looks blurry.
 
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