How to Fix iPhone 16 Pro Max Camera Focus Issue

Take your camera to an Apple Retail Store or Apple Authorized Service Provider for diagnostics.

Apple can diagnose the issue and offer a repair or placement (at their option) if it’s determined to be defective.

If you want to run through some basics here. I’m happy to assist. Just post a couple of images illustrating the issue and include the camera settings.

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And what you going to do if Apple keeps the macro feature (near focus distance) the same? The feature still works, it’s just different.

Take macro photos and videos with your iPhone camera - Apple Support

Since you didn’t express a desire to learn photography I thought a very simple analogy would work. I guess not. You now feel necessary to critique my analogy. It’s a concept. Do you understand the concept that products change and evolve over time?

Depending on how you have the macro control set, the transition can be smoother or more abrupt. If you want macro to automatically switch, the camera is using the Fusion Camera. I’ve linked to an Apple Support article on how to shot macro.

Why is macro relevant? Because it describes how the camera system works when the 1X reaches its minimum focus distance.

Take macro photos and videos with your iPhone camera - Apple Support

For those that don’t want to learn too much, here’s my explanation.

The iPhone 16 Pro's Fusion camera uses a 48MP sensor with a 2x optical-quality telephoto option and a 12MP ultra-wide camera with autofocus for macro photography, automatically switching to the ultra-wide lens for macro shots when you get close enough to the subject.

Hey everybody,

One of the support person of Apple told me to get your message across and reach the developers you should report your issue to the Camera team here:

http://apple.com/feedback/camera/

so lets go and flood them with our camera issues.

iPhones focus, like virtually every other AF camera. They use a method called phase detection AF. The camera analyzes light hitting the lens from different points to determine if the image is in focus; essentially, it compares the light rays from two points on opposite sides of the lens, and when they overlap, the image is considered sharp. It works as follows,

(1) An autofocus processor (AFP) makes a small change in the focusing distance.

(2) AFP reads the AF sensor to assess whether, and by how much, focus has improved.

(3) Using the information from (2), the AFP sets the lens to a new focusing distance.

(4) The AFP may repeat steps 2-3 until satisfactory focus has been achieved.

This entire process is usually completed within a fraction of a second. For difficult subjects, the camera may fail to achieve satisfactory focus and will give up on repeating the above sequence, resulting in failed autofocus. This is the dreaded "focus hunting" scenario where the camera focuses back and forth repeatedly without achieving focus lock. This does not, however, mean that focus is not possible for the chosen subject. Whether and why autofocus may fail is primarily determined by 3 factors.

1. Light – brighter the light, faster and more accurate focus
2. Contrast – the higher the contrast at focus point, faster and more accurate focus
3. Motion – the less motion of camera and/or subject, faster and more accurate focus

Extremely accurate focus can be obtained by combining all three factors, shoot in bright conditions, stop all motion (focus point is consistent), and if high contrast exists at consist and bright focus point, focus is near instant.

Tests done on 8 iPhone 16 Pro/Pro Max + my own iPhone 16 Pro, as well as on 3 iPhone 16 (non Pro), on iOS 18.2.1 (latest). And on an iPhone 14 and an iPhone 13 :

• 7 iPhone 16 Pro/Pro max have exactly the same problem
• 1 iPhone 16 Pro has it, but to a lesser extent
• 1 iPhone 16 Pro hardly has it at all, though it's there
• No iPhone 16 (non-pro), 14 or 13 has this problem

The problem disappears as soon as you switch to wide-angle macro mode, typically in the short range of distances where the camera offers the option of switching to macro mode or not. So, for the same photo and distance, the lens used behaves differently : one produces blurred photos as soon as you move away from the center, while the other produces very sharp photos over the whole field.

It's obviously a hardware problem. With a one-in-10 chance of finding an acceptable (albeit imperfect) model. Which is... unacceptable considering the price of the device, and the fact that the non-pro model clearly doesn't have the problem.

Hi,

I’m sorry to hear you’re having focus issues with your iPhone 16 Pro Max camera. Other users have reported this problem too. Here are some steps to help fix it:

1. Clean the Camera Lens: Make sure the lens is clean. Use a soft, lint-free cloth to gently wipe it.

1. Disable Macro Mode: The iPhone 16 Pro Max has an automatic Macro Mode that can cause focus problems. To turn it off:

• Go to Settings > Camera.
• Turn off Macro Control.

1. Lock Auto Focus and Auto Exposure (AE/AF Lock):

• Open the Camera app.
• Tap and hold on the screen to focus until you see “AE/AF Lock.”

1. Restart the Camera App: Close and reopen the Camera app to fix temporary glitches.

1. Update iOS: Check for the latest iOS update. Updates often fix known issues:

• Go to Settings > General > Software Update.

1. Reset All Settings: If the problem continues, try resetting all settings:

• Go to Settings > General > Transfer or Reset iPhone > Reset > Reset All Settings.

1. Contact Apple Support: If the issue isn’t resolved, reach out to Apple Support or visit an Apple Store.

[Edited by Moderator]

Do you have an example to share? It would be especially useful if you included the information data as well.

I see why no one has applied any photos for proof they only allow 5MB photo and even my screenshot of the proof is 14MB 🤦 sorry mate i tried!

Yep seems like it consistently blurry, I have an iPhone 11 Pro Max, 13 Pro, 14 Pro Max and now a 16 Pro Max. I understand that in certain situations you may take a bad photo here and there, but the IP16 Pro Max has been consistent horrid photos since unboxed on the main lens ONLY. (No issues with macro or wide lens)

The issue becomes more prominent when trying to take a photo of a pamphlet / menu / brochure. You get really clear text in the middle of the page but all around on the outside of that it gets worse and worse as it gets closer to the edges, and blurrier and blurrier.

Unfortunately I had to shrink the screenshot as it only allows to upload 5MB so it actually looks a lot worse in full quality as you zoom in on the phone, but this is consistent on the iP16 and I only noticed because i had to fill in a few values on a spreadsheet and when i zoomed in to the photo with the values i noticed how bad they look and kept re-taking the photo and kept having the same issue...... although when previewing and as you are about to take the photo, it seems to be ok, it is only after you take the photo and go back to have a look at it, you realise how blurry and bad the photo actually is.

Here are some examples when zoomed in between the iP11, 13, 14 and 16:

Last photo comparison from me today taken with 4 separate phones, sorry for the boring photos, but these are the photos I need to take for work hence how I found how terrible the main lens is on the iP16PM. This is not just a "one off", this is consistently bad and blurry every time especially the clarity around text is where it is most viable. starts off amazing quality right in the middle of the page / menu/ pamphlet/ brochure and then gets worse and worse as it moves towards the edges. Even the iP14 wasn't the greatest in these comparisons which i have made but iP16 is just trash.

Please see below:

I appreciate the images, but without the settings used, it reveals nothing.

Here’s my iPhone 16 macro shot taken just a couple minutes ago.

The above image shows lack of DoF at top of bottle, but overall looks sharp.

Crop of above image, center of frame

Here is the original photo from the iPhone 13 Pro Max (and by the way you can have a look at my previous posts I put up about 5 posts / replies already with comparisons)

By the way I'm not sure why the photo is not upright and how youre going to zoom in properly but anyways just have a look at the crispness of the text and I will post another comparison between this photo and the iPhone 16PM.

Here is the full photo as requested:

30 centimeters is about 12 inches. The newspaper ad is about 9 inches by 11 inches. So very similar in size. This is newsprint so ink bleeds a little.

crop from center of ad

9 cm X 4 cm

Extreme top left corner

5 cm X 2.5 cm

Mate, here you go, and roughly taken ~23cm off the table on both the ip13 and 16. please see below from ip13:

Might I Add this photo is 12MP and just under 5MB, where as the IP16PM is 24MP and is 5.5MB hence why i cant upload the full image for the iphone 16PM but i will slightly shrink it so i can upload it to give you a comparison, AGAIN were comparing the text and the blurriness. its in centimeters BTW.

Attached from iP13 Pro: