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Apple Acknowledges iPhone 5 Camera Flaw
An anonymous reader writes "Many iPhone 5 users are complaining that its camera is adding a purple flare to their photos. Speculation is that it's caused by the new sapphire lens cover that Apple touted as 'thinner and more durable than standard glass with the ability to provide crystal clear images.' Apple's response to those who've complained? 'The purple flare in the image provided is considered normal behavior for iPhone 5's camera.'"
Your colour perception is incorrectly calibrated!
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
They are holding it wrong.
Apple's back, baby! I was worried for a moment with that "our map app sucks use someone else's till ours is better." But here is the perfect Apple response. Oh, don't like the purple flare in your pictures? Hey, bitch, that's what real life looks like. You should thank us for providing you with a way to see the world as it actually is. The only reason you don't see the purple flare normally is because you're a terrible person. Here at Apple we are very concerned with our customer. Noblesse oblige and all that.
You're holding it wrong, you want to get lost, these pictures should be that colour, wifi connections should use your wireless bandwidth, battery life is supposed to be that poor if you use it (especially for facebook), those scratches are normal out of the case, this new connector is far better than the old one and adapters are the best you can get. best iPhone ever.
Waiting for an amusing sig.
The camera is capturing octarine glow! If you don't like it buy an inferior camera uncapable of this magnificent feat!
that returning a defective phone is also considered normal behaviour.
I've been an Apple fan of its peripheral devices for a few years now. I got in on the original Iphone and ever since then have bought quite a few of the products that Apple puts out. The problem in almost all of their launches is that they have initial problems, clean them up, and then things work out great for those who like their products. The only real part of the problem is that people want the next thing right now rather than waiting a month or so and figuring out if the device is everything they hoped it would be. Because of that, I don't really have a lot of sympathy for buyers until after the warming period has ended. I'll probably buy an Iphone 5 myself, but I'll buy it AFTER they've worked out the kinks, making it the phone I want rather than the phone that I MUST HAVE.
Sarbonn's blog: http://www.sarbonn.com/blog
Wow,
We never did see this coming, They build a cheap phone(y) (what was it again, 180 dollar to build?), sell it for triple the price and as usual everyone camps out at the iChurch to buy it. Sorry but you deserve to be cheated! Only drawback is that apple gets so much money.
Now buy a paper map to point you at the iSun, the big purple customer experience in the sky, so high you think it is Steve looking out over you, his sheep. /rant mode off, sorry, bad hair day ^^
Message from god, Please logoff, rebooting the Universe
The iPhone4 didn't do this. It took great photos, as good as most consumer-level cameras.
Apple told everybody the camera in the iPhone5 was better. Turns out they messed up and it isn't. They're being held responsible for their claims, why does that surprise you?
No sig today...
The purple flare in the image provided is considered normal behavior for our flawed iPhone 5 camera design.
Say what you want about poor quality of hardware, software, and customer service, there can be no doubt that Apple's marketing department is the best on the planet. Apple marketing people have truly identified their market and successfully targeted them like no one else in history.
The GOP should have hired a bunch of Apple marketing people to run the Romney campaign- they've proven they can sell flawed products over and over.
Camera review site (known for not being slanted in their reviews) to the iPhone 5 for an initial review (longer one comparing to other phones will come later) and dedicated a whole page analyzing the flare issue. http://www.dpreview.com/articles/6867454450/quick-review-apple-iphone-5-camera Here's their analysis of the flare issue: "Really, our advice is not to worry. Just do what you should do anyway, and avoid putting bright lights near the edge of the frame when shooting." Their final conclusion on the 5's camera: "The iPhone 5 is a fine mobile device, with an excellent camera. In qualititative terms it's not the best camera out there, and nor is it the best camera on a smartphone (the Nokia 808 has that honor, for now) but it offers satisfying image quality, some neat functions like auto panorama and HDR mode, and - crucially - it is supremely easy to use. It isn't much better than the iPhone 4S, as far as its photographic performance is concerned, but it isn't any worse (notwithstanding a somewhat more noticeable propensity towards lens flare). When manufacturers employ pixel-binning to achieve higher ISO settings we don't normally celebrate the fact, but in the case of the iPhone 5, it gives you greater flexibility in poor light (i.e., you might actually get a picture now, where you just wouldn't with the iPhone 4S) and the drop in quality is unnoticeable when the images are used for sharing/web display."
Everyone knows that phones really suck at being cameras.
The iPhone5 is obviously best, because it sucks the most at taking photos.
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
It's a feature. You don't need to use Instagram to add a purple tinge to your pictures anymore.
English is not this
http://www.itproportal.com/2012/10/01/purple-flare-test-iphone-5-vs-samsung-galaxy-s-iii-vs-htc-one-s/
Bottom line: The latest and greatest iPhone 5 was clearly the worst offender of the bunch.
Yes, we expected excuses from the fanbois. Thing is, how a camera handles bright light sources in or just outside the picture is an item on the checklist for a good camera. Purple flares from the lens coating, lines from saturated CMOS sensors, etc, are things that one might expect from a cheap "has a camera because every phone must have one" cellphone, but not from the flagship product of an expensive brand. These artifacts are pathetic and the excuses even more so.
In 1986, James Doohan demonstrated a slight purple flare when transporting live sea creatures into/out of transparent aluminum (sapphire) aquariums.
The only conclusion logically possible is that he's only had one smartphone in the past 8 years, and it was one of those flawed iPhones.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
Every optical element shows some sort of dispersion. "Simply" to control when you have the space (like in objectives of real cameras, microscopes or binoculars) but not so easy when your optical element is a simple plate with parallel faces (like a protective glass cover) or a tiny lens. Combine a tiny lens with a tiny CCD and you're out of luck when you hit a difficult to control lighting situation. 8 MP on smartphone "cameras" with tiny optics and tiny CCD-chips is a waste of storage space anyway. You can't get the required optical resolution. Simple physics.
Camera review site (known for not being slanted in their reviews) to the iPhone 5 for an initial review (longer one comparing to other phones will come later) and dedicated a whole page analyzing the flare issue.
http://www.dpreview.com/articles/6867454450/quick-review-apple-iphone-5-camera
Here's their analysis of the flare issue:
"Really, our advice is not to worry. Just do what you should do anyway, and avoid putting bright lights near the edge of the frame when shooting."
Their final conclusion on the 5's camera:
"The iPhone 5 is a fine mobile device, with an excellent camera. In qualititative terms it's not the best camera out there, and nor is it the best camera on a smartphone (the Nokia 808 has that honor, for now) but it offers satisfying image quality, some neat functions like auto panorama and HDR mode, and - crucially - it is supremely easy to use. It isn't much better than the iPhone 4S, as far as its photographic performance is concerned, but it isn't any worse (notwithstanding a somewhat more noticeable propensity towards lens flare). When manufacturers employ pixel-binning to achieve higher ISO settings we don't normally celebrate the fact, but in the case of the iPhone 5, it gives you greater flexibility in poor light (i.e., you might actually get a picture now, where you just wouldn't with the iPhone 4S) and the drop in quality is unnoticeable when the images are used for sharing/web display."
Thanks for posting this link. The DPreview camera review is what should have been posted than the usual Gizmodo anti-apple trolling to generate page views...
I am a rich iPhone 5 geared up VIP, my photos have a noble purple sapphire haze you pitiful /. geek.
Well, yeah, but being a camera with no baffling or shrouds, and a first surface designed as much for scratch resistance as for optical quality, it's going to have big ugly lens flares if the light source isn't diffuse. The only news here is that the big ugly lens flare also has some chromatic aberration.
If you want to take good pictures, get a camera. A cameraphone is for candids and recording the scene at car accidents.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
I remember that, as a VAX/VMS Systems Manager in the 1980s, this was a fairly pervasive meme.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
Every smartphone allowed you to short circuit two antenna tuned to work at different frequencies? Oh, you bought Steve Jobs' bad excuse, and is confounding antennagate, the problem caused Apple insistence on letting designers engineer the antenna, with the problem of the human body being a good absorber for cell phone radiation, which is experienced by every phone. Man, that really was a low point for Jobs, talking about a completely unrelated issue, and hoping that people didn't caught on. It seems to have worked in some cases.
The only reason I would buy an iPhone is if I could run a nuclear power plant with it. My compost heap already makes the biological weapons, they're called "flies".
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
No, this isn't chromatic aberration... this is flaring. Chromatic aberration results in color halos around objects, especially towards the edge of the frame.
They still screwed up the outdoor one. One photo is taken at least several minutes after the other.
It looks like Apple traded a bit of flare resistance in challenging photographic conditions for other benefits - a scratch proof lens being not the least of them. Personally, I'd much rather have a sapphire lens cover for my cell phone camera than the ability to take slightly less shitty pictures in shitty conditions.
This isn't a chromatic aberration. Chromatic aberration is when an image isn't focused correctly because different wavelengths (colors) of light refract differentially when entering a new medium (like how a prism separates white light into the full spectrum). When you have chromatic aberrations, objects in the image have a slightly out-of-focus color streaked look to them, like when an old projector TVs didn't have the RGB elements aligned.
This is a flare, which is caused by the scattering of bright light just outside of the frame as it hits the side of the lens.
To our customers,
At Apple, we strive to make world-class products that deliver the best experience possible to our customers. With the launch of our new sapphire lens camera last week, we fell short on this commitment. We are extremely sorry for the frustration this has caused our customers and we are doing everything we can to make the camera better.
We launched an integrated camera initially with the first version of the iPhone. As time progressed, we wanted to provide our customers with an even better camera including features such as a built-in flash and a sapphire lens. In order to do this, we had to create a new camera from the ground up.
There are already more than 5 million iPhones with the new camera, and more joining us every day. In just over a week, iPhone users with the new camera have already taken half a billion photos. The more our customers use the camera the more they will become accustomed to the new color balance. We greatly appreciate all of the feedback we have received from you.
While we can't really fix this, you can try alternatives by purchasing an additional camera from your local electronics store, Best Buy, Sony, Canon, Fuji, or use the front camera which doesn't have these issues.
Everything we do at Apple is aimed at making our products the best in the world. We know that you expect that from us, and we will keep working non-stop until Maps lives up to the same incredibly high standard.
Tim Cook
Apple’s CEO
The iPhone4 didn't do this.
The iPhone 4S did. Not sure about the iPhone 4.
http://5.mshcdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/iphone-5-haze-on-the-4s.jpg
http://thenextweb.com/apple/2012/09/26/the-iphone-5s-camera-suffering-purple-haze-flaw-not-fast/
And yet it went without comment before. Why? It's a damn good camera for a phone, but it's not a DSLR. It's impossible to have DSLR level photography from phone that's 7.6 mm thick.
Here are photo comparisons with the 4s that do show the 4s with purple fringing.
http://5.mshcdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/iphone-5-haze-on-the-4s.jpg [mshcdn.com]
http://thenextweb.com/apple/2012/09/26/the-iphone-5s-camera-suffering-purple-haze-flaw-not-fast/ [thenextweb.com]
Note that camera angle to light source is critical, to get the effect to show up on either phone. In your example comparison, if the photographer tried a bit more he could probably have found the angle to make the purple flare show on the 4S too.
This is a lot of fuss about nothing. But we're used to that with iPhone stories. No other phone gets this level of close examination for flaws. Not enough people care about other phones.
The DPreview camera review is what should have been posted than the usual Gizmodo anti-apple trolling to generate page views...
And yet the unbiased and very informative post by sasparillascott still got some down mods. The anti-Apple hysteria has closed the minds of many to rational discussion of facts.
No, other cameras do not "manage it fine". I've got $3,000 lenses, and if you catch a bright source at the wrong angle, you get flare.
You can't make the argument that it's as good as it gets when the previous version didn't have the problem.
I am cool with the iPhone 5 not having a top tier camera.
But maybe they should not have touted the new lens cover as having the ability to deliver crystal clear images.
Do not advertise that which you can not deliver. If you think that telling people how awesome your camera is and then pointing to a lens cover that will throw a purple flare on images that have some light source in them and telling people it will deliver crystal clear images I have only two questions for you.
One. Do you think it is ok for HTC to lie to you about their products?
Two. Taking into account the answer from one. Do you realize that your ability to critically think has been compromised by your love of Apple?
Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
The iPhone 4S did not have this problem. The iPhone 5 does. This is a downgrade. It isn't a DSLR vs Cellphone. It is 4s vs 5. It is Lumia 920 vs 5. Apple in the past has produced some of the better cellphone cameras. I don't think anyone here is saying iPhone==DSLR, however they are saying -- 5 should be >= 4S.
Okay, there's no purple in the 4S picture, so you've definitely lost me. The iPhone 4S and iPhone 5 have the same camera spec-wise, the only difference is the glass vs sapphire cover. I don't think it's a fair statement to say that aside from the obvious flaws in the photo, the sapphire cover is better. That's like saying the car runs great except it stalls every so often.