iPhone 17 Pro Unimpressed with 17 series camera quality

[Love-hate 🍏 relationship]

View attachment 2559589

Hardware wise, not much of an upgrade over the last 4 years.
However, instead of updating the firmware for the camera department, Apple cleverly excuses itself for NOT BEING ABLE TO DO SO "because it is baked into the pipeline" which is BS to me to be honest.

Damn where'd you get this data from

 

[Halbrand]

Hmm no both are 17 pros , one is mine the other is store's

Oh I totally misread. And that's odd

 

[turbineseaplane]

Source

Would post it if I could find it again

 

[Love-hate 🍏 relationship]

To me the clarity and the definition, not the sharpness; are much better on my 16PM with Raw and ProRaw files.

17PM suffers from softness and blurriness, witch is not good. Im having at least 30% less quality and information. (Images above {16PM vs 17PM})

And i tested at least 200 photos in ProRaw format.
(Tested 2 personal units as well some from stores).

Got contacted today and the assistant told me that this a now a well known problem. He wasn’t sure if the next 26.0.1 will resolve this.
However i will be contacted again soon.

Same issue . Does 26.0.1 fix it for you?

 

[Love-hate 🍏 relationship]

iOS 18 introduced some blurriness of 48 MP outputs on the 15 Pro Max (and by extension this led to less sharp 24 MP outputs) compared to iOS 17, and it wasn’t until iOS 18.3 that this was fixed. So maybe a repeat issue


However this looks to me more like a sensor/lens issue, I assume half the image looks hazy like this when zoomed in to maximum? I had the same issue with a couple 16 Pro Max units. My 17 PM doesn’t exhibit this - it does look softer in some areas and less crisp vs 15 PM, but not out of focus like your samples show

couple units? how many exactly? what are the odds of getting a benter lens ?

 

[Love-hate 🍏 relationship]

After ios 26.0.1 i cant tell, that my photos from telephoto camera are much better in iphone 17PM vs my 16PM in ProRaw48 mode (First 2 photos).

Ultrawide camera shows exactly the same results on both 16PM and 17PM when zooming (3 and 4th photo).

The main wide camera, continue to be much worse when zooming to the maximum. (Last 5 and 6 photos).

I have now 2 17PM units and they show exactly the same results in the main camera. (Last 2 photos).

The unit that i returned, showed the same behavior as well.

Ps: Proraw48 format in every picture.

so you got 3 units total ? idk what to do man

im also afraid if i order a second phone they might flag me.

 

[Love-hate 🍏 relationship]

I think it's important for people jumping into this thread fresh to understand that the issues in this thread are primarily in ProRAW, not in the normal photos, which are mostly excellent, albeit they are also less sharpened than the 16 Pro was (which seems to be a benefit more often than not).

I'm correct in that assumption here, right? I've been a little slow to keep up with this thread since the earlier comments.

I thought so too but my unit got even worse results than a 17 pro in store, both using heic (non raw) so idk anymore

 

[Love-hate 🍏 relationship]

Exactly like that! :/

More photos (16 vs 17).

im thinking some units may have defective OIS .

 

[decypher44]

I don’t know much about photography, and I rarely take a good photo. I was hoping that when I next DO want to take some photos, the 17P would be a big improvement vs my 14P. The photos I’m seeing posted in here are shocking! I hope it’s a software thing that can be fixed, but then Love-hate posted the two photos from two separate 17P (own and in-store), then it makes me think HW. Idk, but I hope it all gets worked out.

I know on the main page, MR does their photo comparisons between the latest iPhone and whatever are the leading Android phones. I’d like to see that soon!

 

[BlackrazorNZ]

It's not OIS. I get the same blurry results on 48MP ProRAW even when the phone is taking timed shots on a tripod, with me manually focussing via focus peaking.

It's in focus and stable - it's just blurry - and it appears to 100% be the image pipeline rather than the lens.

 

[nunolikeapple]

I tried at least 4/5 units in a nearby store and i got the same results as mine.

 

[bsmr]

and it appears to 100% be the image pipeline rather than the lens.

So hope there, that they can solve it with an iOS update.

 

[Ultraslan]

So from the reports here, this issue is present in both ProRAW and HEIC files. I filed a bug report at apple and encourage everyone else who is experiencing this issue to do so as well. Otherwise they wont fix this issue, if it is software related.

 

[miemo]

Repeating the main points of my latest findings from the other thread: at least my 17 Pro cameras work really well in very bright sunlight per my testing today. So the issues seem to only rise on lower light levels, which seems to indicate software issues in image stacking and/or noise reduction, or possibly image stabilization.

Will be opening a support ticket to Apple with these findings. As @Ultraslan mentioned above, the only way to get any software issues fixed is to keep on reporting them to Apple. Whining here in the forums only provides a temporary relief 😅