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iPhone 11 Pro Wide angel lacks focus?

xDKP

xDKP

macrumors 68030
Original poster
Feb 27, 2011
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I’ve been so happy with my 11 Pro for the last couple of weeks but a trip with the family today highlighted something about my pictures.

If I take two images of a statue, the normal lense looks great but a picture I took straight after with the wide angel lense looks terrible. The details is way off and it’s not sharp at all.

Just my phone?
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Just tried to play around with the camera app and it seems like the wide angel isn’t able to shift focus at all - only the telephoto and the normal lens.
 

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xDKP said:
I’ve been so happy with my 11 Pro for the last couple of weeks but a trip with the family today highlighted something about my pictures.

If I take two images of a statue, the normal lense looks great but a picture I took straight after with the wide angel lense looks terrible. The details is way off and it’s not sharp at all.

Just my phone?
[automerge]1571341631[/automerge]
Just tried to play around with the camera app and it seems like the wide angel isn’t able to shift focus at all - only the telephoto and the normal lens.
Click to expand...
You mean ultrawide? That camera is fixed focus.
 
doboy said:
You mean ultrawide? That camera is fixed focus.
Click to expand...

Yeah ultra wide. I read up on it and yes looks like it’s fixed focus but I still have a tough time getting decent pictures with it. Details is just not there. The details should be there in sunny daylight no?
 
Ultra-wides - that’s 13mm equivalent in 35mm terms - should be sharp from about 6 feet/2 meters to infinity. What’s your shot like in those terms?
 
If I recall correctly, the ultra-wide lense has a smaller sensor.
Read it somewhere on MR forums.
 
Not only is the ultra wide a fix focus lens (which should be fine with this wide of lens) but the image gets completely scrambled & put back together to straighten curved lines in the image. It's not a rectilinear lens (making curved lines straight) but uses software interpolation to "photoshop" or fake warp the image so that it bends the curved lines straight again. That's why it's not sharp
 
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Ultrawide camera isn't as sharp and clear as the regular lens or telephoto.

You just can't make such an ultrawide camera system that tiny without compromise. However, I personally think it's good enough and would rather have that lens available at its current level of quality than not have it at all. :)
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now i see it said:
Not only is the ultra wide a fix focus lens (which should be fine with this wide of lens) but the image gets completely scrambled & put back together to straighten curved lines in the image. It's not a rectilinear lens (making curved lines straight) but uses software interpolation to "photoshop" or fake warp the image so that it bends the curved lines straight again. That's why it's not sharp
Click to expand...

This is pretty common on many modern cameras, even higher end dedicated cameras. It has become less expensive to use a less perfect lens and make up for it with software than to get the glass absolutely perfect.

I remember when I first saw uncorrected RAWs from my Canon S90 back in the day and they were highly distorted. The camera would correct for it transparently in its software when taking JPGs.

In fact, I'd be willing to bet that the normal and telephoto lenses in the 11 Pro also have some software image correction applied.
 
fred98tj said:
The photo also shows one of the reason why “real” , pro grade, wide angle lenses are so expensive. That photo has a ton of CA in it (purple fringing)! etc..
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Exactly this. It's a huge focus in professional photography, and good money is spent trying to avoid it!
 
You'll need aid from a higher being if angels lack focus. I'd recommend God or some sort of deity if you're pagan.

All jokes aside, this has been discussed before, and sadly the results produced are not excellent. It's doable, and a good first try from Apple, but I imagine the iPhone 12 will be better. How much smaller the sensor is I do not know, but it obviously is not as rich in detail and sharpness.
 
Don’t get me wrong. The angels are doing great here ;)

I have a ton of fun with the lens but still a bit disappointed with the picture of the t-Rex. Massive difference in sharpness and focus.

Well might be the stuff we have for now
 
zorinlynx said:
This is pretty common on many modern cameras, even higher end dedicated cameras. It has become less expensive to use a less perfect lens and make up for it with software than to get the glass absolutely perfect.

I remember when I first saw uncorrected RAWs from my Canon S90 back in the day and they were highly distorted. The camera would correct for it transparently in its software when taking JPGs.

In fact, I'd be willing to bet that the normal and telephoto lenses in the 11 Pro also have some software image correction applied.
Click to expand...

Agreeing, this has been going on for at least 10-15 years. Panasonic originally wouldn't allow access to the raw files made by the LX2 or LX3 (I don't remember which) because there was so much software correction going on that they didn't want users to see.

I'm sure there's a lot of correction going on via software on the other two cameras in the iPhone 11 Pro, just as there is in nearly every camera today.

We're at the point (have been at the point for quite a few years now) where software corrections of images produced by lenses with significant uncorrected faults is cheaper and probably more effective than designing lenses that correct for various faults. There's nothing inherently wrong with that and it doesn't have to result in lower quality images. It just requires good software engineers, the same as designing good lenses 25 or 50 years ago needed good optical designers.
 
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Well yeah it makes sense, but the lack of focus just should not be a problem on the distance I have been shooting at.

I’m on a road trip to Germany this weekend shooting some pictures of Magdeburg - beautiful city - will test some more
 

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