iPhone 15 Pro Max Camera Blurry and Out of Focus

Hi All,


It seems im not having a very good experience with the new iPhone 15 Pro Max. Coming from a 14 Pro Max the pictures were great. nice and sharp, never had issues with "blur" or "grainy" photo's.


This new iPhone seems to be a downgrade in the photo's it can produce. I'm constantly getting very grainy photo's even with the slightest bit of zoom after the photo has been taken.


I have tried all resolution's etc (12mp, 24mp, 48mp HEIF & Pro Raw.) this has affected th 1x and 5x camera.


My 14 won me a few awards for photo's and consider myself fairly knowledgeable on iPhone Photography. The 15 just isn't putting out good quality images.


All photo's are stored "on device" so there is no iCloud trickery happening.


The below is an example of what I am talking about.



[Re-Titled by Moderator]

iPhone 15 Pro Max

Posted on Oct 2, 2023 8:01 PM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Oct 17, 2023 7:25 AM

I left the comment before and now I solved the problem.

I called to Apple Support, was talking with them, but they could do nothing. Then my good friend, who is working in Apple Support 😉 advised me to recover my iPhone with complete erasure of data. Yes, it’s a big deal, but I did it. Then started iPhone 15PM without using Apple ID and without my data and BINGO! The camera just amazing! Then I erased again and set up it like my iPhone with my iCloud transfer data.

You can reset it through Mac directly. I did it with 3utools.

As my friend said it could be a software error when you transfered your data first time. Sometimes it happens with new iOS and new phones.

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526 replies

Nov 23, 2023 9:25 AM in response to ziem_as

I live in California and bought the iPhone 15 PM on the release date. First 1-2 weeks I wasn’t really paying much attention to testing cameras but the more I take photos the more I realize about “partial focusing” you mention. It’s impossible to take a group photo with everyone’s face in focus. I tried different settings also :(.

Nov 24, 2023 3:52 AM in response to ziem_as

Note that photos uploaded to this site are converted to a downsampled JPG format a maximum of 5 MB in size, so they are not an accurate representation of the clarity and resolution of the actual photo.


I don't use A4 pages, nor do I have a copy stand, so I can't do what you request, but this is a recent random photo I took with the normal (1x) lens on a 15 Pro Max:


Nov 24, 2023 4:33 AM in response to ziem_as

The 13 Pro Max had a completely different camera system:


12 MP sensor, 1.9µm pixels, 26 mm equivalent f/1.5-aperture lens


The 15 Pro Max:


48 MP sensor, 2.44µm quad pixels, 24mm equivalent f/1.78-aperture lens


Note also similar complaints have been raised against competing phones; here's a photo from a post complaining of a similar effect on a Samsung Galaxy S23:


Nov 24, 2023 5:10 AM in response to Dogcow-Moof

"I'm not saying the effect isn't there, I'm saying it's an inevitable consequence of taking a close-up image using a high MP sensor coupled with a relatively small lens with a large aperture."


I disagree. You based that on what? Are you an optics engineer to back it up? Bare in mind that if you take a super close shot that could be right. But not from a 1m distance, sorry.


"Does that have anything to do with actual photos taken of subjects at a normal distance? Not at all." - I guess you didn't put time nor effort to dig deeper here. Ask other users on Reddit and here if they are happy with the results. Iphone's 13 pro lens if far suprerior in almost every manner and it is quite easy to prove.

Nov 24, 2023 12:13 PM in response to Dogcow-Moof

Any reason why the selfie camera is such a disappointment compared to my previous 13 Pro max? I’m on a 15 pro, and as I’ve already mentioned in the previous posts that I send a lot of videos/ pictures every night to my fiance and the lighting in my room is always the same (so no chance of something being different). Both of the pictures and the videos that I sent are grainy and blurry, without much clarity.


I’ve tested my device and it’s perfect. Any way you can explain why the selfie camera is acting this way? because Apple dropped the ball in that department



Nov 25, 2023 8:00 PM in response to JasonEff

Would you believe my iPhone 7 Plus that I bought in 2017 took better pictures than my iPhone 15 pro Max?! Had the staff from Apple Store not told me that my iPhone 7 Plus is gonna be obsolete soon (I was there to supposedly change battery), I wouldn’t have upgraded to IPhone 15 Pro Max. I’m not so happy and I’m not so proud of my iPhone 15 Pro Max because my selfie photos look like my skin got paint smudges no matter how I adjust the camera settings. Even my iPod I bought in 2014 takes better pictures. Both my iPhone 7 Plus and iPod adjust automatically (showing the screen becomes bright) that’s why my photos particularly my face looks clear and sharp.

Nov 26, 2023 8:13 AM in response to Dogcow-Moof

Guys here I comes with latest update! & I told you all that nothing got changed! Camera is same as it is … dark grainy and low quality images ! Same selfies are horrible 😕 I think we all need to do something on it… anybody here who has contact with tech yt channel??? Who is talking about this issue???? Because I found that apple just ignoring this … as I think this is not just software issue….. please let me know anybody here solved this issue????? If no then we just have to do something because we paid very much for this! Mine model iPhone 15 pro max ! India…

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iPhone 15 Pro Max Camera Blurry and Out of Focus

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