iphone 12 pro max 2.5 zoom cannot focus

12 pro max on ios 18.2, basically camera will work fine when the zoom is under 2.5x, but everytime it switches to the 2.5x zoom for longer zooms, the camera just cannot focus, everything is blurry. The interesting part is that this problem only happens in the apple native camera app, they all zoom perfectly fine in 3rd party apps like instagram, whatsapp, etc. So, the camera hardware itself must be good, this is clearly an IOS issue.

By the way, this has been going on for a while, I noticed that some other users posted the same issue on Reddit. The 12 pro max is still a great phone otherwise, but without the zoom camera, which was a big selling point, is quite annoying. Especially this is due to a software issue, it feels like apple is pulling the trick again that makes your phone worse after a IOS update and force you to upgrade...

Can we fix this ASAP please!