iPhone 12 Pro 12 Pro Max night mode, huge step down?

[midkay]

Guys, I can’t believe I have to write this post. I hope I’m wrong in some way.

We all knew there were some concerns about the much larger sensor in the 12 Pro Max. Samsung has had issues with large sensors in the past: focus issues, sharpness issues. The whole stabilization system has been reworked as well. It’s obviously a huge change for Apple to do this, so while I felt a little apprehensive, I was confident they would have thoroughly figured it out and nailed it.

Well, if the 12 Pro Max camera was even approximately as good as the 11 Pro Max in night mode, I wouldn’t be writing this post.

It seems much worse.

Every single shot I take.

Speaking specifically about night mode here: with every shot, my old 11 Pro Max locks focus perfectly, every time, and the result looks tack sharp, every time, rendering lots of detail in foliage and buildings. Comparatively, I am finding the 12 Pro Max every single time to produce comparatively smudgy, hazy, blurry images that are always slightly out of focus or otherwise lacking detail.

This wasn’t just one shot, either, or just a couple. I walked all around my neighborhood and took shot after shot after shot, and my heart sunk as I inspected the results. It seems like the new sensor is actually making my beloved night shots look much worse than they did on the previous-generation phone.

It’s when you zoom in to look at details – sometimes it just looks a little worse, but sometimes it’s dramatic. See attached example.

I’m not sure what to do yet. Maybe I have a bad unit? Nothing really seems to be wrong with the hardware though, from anything that I can see.

I can probably provide more/better examples later but I’m just attaching the one for now. The 12 Pro Max image (left) is brighter because night shots are taken in HDR now, which is cool, but look at the sharpness level on the sign and the road lines. This is 87% better low-light performance? Why would they have done this? Is mine really maybe just a bad unit? This just doesn’t seem like something Apple would ship.

I just wanted to see if anyone else is experiencing this and maybe it’ll help corroborate whether something seems wrong with my device. Cheers.

 

[akash.nu]

If you have the old 11 Pro Max then it’ll be good if you posted the same shots taken from the 2 phones side by side. We don’t have a comparison point here.

 

[flowuk]

If you have the old 11 Pro Max then it’ll be good if you posted the same shots taken from the 2 phones side by side. We don’t have a comparison point here.

He has. If you view the image you’ll see it’s 2 different shots.

OP are you able to turn off the auto HDR?

 

[akash.nu]

He has. If you view the image you’ll see it’s 2 different shots.

OP are you able to turn off the auto HDR?

Ah sorry completely missed it. I do see the difference and it does look worse.

OP can you provide some more examples but upload the actual images rather than like the way you posted the last one.

 

[Brookzy]

Have you updated to 14.2? This is known to fix focus issues.

 

[midkay]

So it's interesting how this appears to be incredibly situational for me. Indoors, in extremely low (near-zero) light, the 12 Pro Max undoubtedly blows away the 11 Pro Max. Look at this!

So that's clearly where the larger sensor is a huge benefit.
However, note that despite picking up insanely more color and detail, the 12 Pro Max does look out of focus.
This particular case is such a huge improvement that the focus issue doesn't matter too much, however...

Outdoors, in just 'medium' low light, with streetlights and building lights etc., is where I'm seeing a real problem and detail levels seem consistently worse than the 11 Pro Max, with every photo's details having this comparatively muddy, hazy effect and always appearing slightly-to-significantly less sharp.

Here's kind of the 'best', most favorable comparison I can find of last night's shots (100% crops so you can see detail):

Even in this best case I can find, a lot of detail seems lost in the leaves, and again the photo looks overall slightly out of focus (see the car on the left).

Many other shots are even worse. Here's the one from my OP – and I actually had two options to choose from the 12 Pro Max on this one, and the other one was worse!

This step back in quality really blows my mind. Anyone else?
I'm wondering if the new sensor-shift OIS, combined with the new 2-second exposures, is leading to some kind of sensor jitter and thus this blur/haziness, where the previous lens-based OIS approach was just a well-refined, reliable approach that gave tack sharp results every time?

By the way, I did these on the full 10-second night mode exposure setting.
If anyone has an 11 Pro Max and 12 Pro Max I'd really really appreciate a similar comparison.

BTW, in daytime things seem fine. Not seeing much of any focus issues in bright light. Some medium-light shots do look better with less noise.

 

[soniasim]

So it's interesting how this appears to be incredibly situational for me. Indoors, in extremely low (near-zero) light, the 12 Pro Max undoubtedly blows away the 11 Pro Max. Look at this!

View attachment 1666627

So that's clearly where the larger sensor is a huge benefit.
However, note that despite picking up insanely more color and detail, the 12 Pro Max does look out of focus.
This particular case is such a huge improvement that the focus issue doesn't matter too much, however...

Outdoors, in just 'medium' low light, with streetlights and building lights etc., is where I'm seeing a real problem and detail levels seem consistently worse than the 11 Pro Max, with every photo's details having this comparatively muddy, hazy effect and always appearing slightly-to-significantly less sharp.

Here's kind of the 'best', most favorable comparison I can find of last night's shots (100% crops so you can see detail):

View attachment 1666626

Even in this best case I can find, a lot of detail seems lost in the leaves, and again the photo looks overall slightly out of focus (see the car on the left).

Many other shots are even worse. Here's the one from my OP – and I actually had two options to choose from the 12 Pro Max on this one, and the other one was worse!

View attachment 1666633

This step back in quality really blows my mind. Anyone else?
I'm wondering if the new sensor-shift OIS, combined with the new 2-second exposures, is leading to some kind of sensor jitter and thus this blur/haziness, where the previous lens-based OIS approach was just a well-refined, reliable approach that gave tack sharp results every time?

By the way, I did these on the full 10-second night mode exposure setting.
If anyone has an 11 Pro Max and 12 Pro Max I'd really really appreciate a similar comparison.

BTW, in daytime things seem fine. Not seeing much of any focus issues in bright light. Some medium-light shots do look better with less noise.

Thank you so much for all the time and effort it took to compare the two devices and to inform us. I have 11 Pro Max and I'm seriously struggling between updating or not. I read about some concerning issues like this, or off-blacks on the screen.

Out of curiosity, are you on the latest firmware? Maybe if you updated on 14.3 beta, that supports Pro-Raw the issue would be resolved?

 

[gtg465x]

Could just be you got a phone with a defective lens or OIS. Have you thought about swapping it out?

 

[akash.nu]

Hmm this is pretty conclusive. The pictures from the 12 Pro Max does look worse. You might want to see if you can get an exchange. If the second one behaves the same way then you know.

 

[midkay]

Thanks for the replies guys. As another data point, DXOMark just posted their 12 Pro Max camera review and I’m reading it over and not seeing any issues like this. I feel like they would have called it out. Night mode clarity looks good in their samples, and no focus issues mentioned. Starting to suspect my new device does indeed have an issue. Does anyone know what the process is like if I wanted to try getting an exchange? Something you schedule in-store?

 

[akash.nu]

Thanks for the replies guys. As another data point, DXOMark just posted their 12 Pro Max camera review and I’m reading it over and not seeing any issues like this. I feel like they would have called it out. Night mode clarity looks good in their samples, and no focus issues mentioned. Starting to suspect my new device does indeed have an issue. Does anyone know what the process is like if I wanted to try getting an exchange? Something you schedule in-store?

Contact apple care directly, normally it’s just simple postal service.

 

[HoosBruce]

I think I may be experiencing the same actually. Details seem to be blurrier with the 12PM over my 11 PM

 

[freeagent]

Those low light shots are pretty cool, cant do that with mine heheh. I wonder if the quality is a software thing that can be tweaked, or if the hardware is of lower quality.. I'm interested and would like to see the conclusion.

 

[midkay]

I called Apple and they want me to ship the phone to them, and once I’ve sent it off they’ll send me a new one. I don’t like that I’ll be stuck waiting – why couldn’t they ship the replacement first? – nor am I sure that it’ll even fix the problem, but the issue just seems too pronounced to not be some kind of defect.

If anyone can corroborate, provide any further samples or tests/comparisons please let us know, thanks!

 

[geraldem]

I have the same issue. much more blur with 12max vs 11pro. I am not convinced this is a 'my device' issue. I really don't want to do exchange. Are others getting good results outside?

 

[midkay]

I have the same issue. much more blur with 12max vs 11pro. I am not convinced this is a 'my device' issue. I really don't want to do exchange. Are others getting good results outside?

I'm right there with you. I’m don't feel confident my phone has a hardware problem and I’m very concerned that this is how all 12 Pro Max will behave. However, I have gone ahead and sent my device in to Apple for replacement yesterday. I can’t possibly live with myself at least not attempting a replacement. There is a small part of me that holds out hope for some improvement, because I honestly feel like with so many reviewers and people using the devices, we'd be hearing more about this if it was truly universal, but I see practically nobody mentioning it. As unlikely as it seems, I have to acknowledge that there could have been just a bad batch with a minor sensor issue.

I will certainly report back when I get my new one, I'm hoping it'll arrive later this week.

I've been debating if I would keep the 12 Pro Max if this really is its camera performance. I would almost rather go back to my 11 Pro Max for the much better low-light shots, but I do really need the additional storage on the new phone, and some of the other camera features (ultra-wide night mode; selfie night mode; time-lapse night mode; ProRAW!) do add a lot of additional flexibility that is hard for me to ignore. I just struggle to comprehend that Apple would downgrade the night mode quality so massively – somehow making it significantly worse with a sensor that captures dramatically more light! – it just doesn't make any sense, so I'm seriously praying over here that the new device shows improvement.

I also started considering the 12 Pro as an alternative, given that it has the 'old' smaller sensor but with all the new camera features; but I really like the larger screen and better battery life of the Max.

 

[MrAperture]

Is it because the 12PM is much harder to keep still than the 11PM when taking night photos? Maybe it’s the extra heft/size that’s making the image more blurry when the shutter is open longer?

I’d assume DXO is using some type of tripod mounting device for comparison photos but most folks are going to handhold camera shots.

 

[Madtiger27]

For me, i have both 11 PM and 12 PM. For NIGHT mode, 12 PM is far better. No issue with focus.

BUT, for low light (but NOT dark enough for night mode), 11 PM has slightly better details but a lot more noise and harsher contrast. 12 PM is a better pic overall but does not retain as much fine details when you pixel peep all the way in.

 

[midkay]

Is it because the 12PM is much harder to keep still than the 11PM when taking night photos? Maybe it’s the extra heft/size that’s making the image more blurry when the shutter is open longer?

I’d assume DXO is using some type of tripod mounting device for comparison photos but most folks are going to handhold camera shots.

This can’t be, although I appreciate the thought. The 12PM is not any harder to hold or less stable to me; and I took many shots to ensure I wasn’t accidentally messing something up, yet across basically every example, I saw the same result. Tack sharp on the 11PM every time – practically impossible to mess up – yet comparatively blurry on 12PM every time, no matter how perfectly still I was when capturing.

I’m wondering if the sensor-shift OIS is simply far less effective at canceling out handheld movements during long exposures – this would explain the results, though be extremely disappointing. But I also think it’s possible that the sensor-shift stabilization was just messed up on my unit. The photos almost look like the stabilizer is shifting around excessively when it shouldn’t be; that could be causing all this subtle streaking and blurring.

I had also noticed that for a low-light macro shot, the focus was struggling to lock, and I think it should be using LIDAR for that, so I also wonder if my LIDAR sensor was messed up or miscalibrated and throwing off the focus.

For me, i have both 11 PM and 12 PM. For NIGHT mode, 12 PM is far better. No issue with focus.

BUT, for low light (but NOT dark enough for night mode), 11 PM has slightly better details but a lot more noise and harsher contrast. 12 PM is a better pic overall but does not retain as much fine details when you pixel peep all the way in.

Thanks for sharing your experience! This is a bit reassuring.

 

[contacos]

I just took those on my iPhone 12 Pro Max and I think they look fine?

One taken in darkness and the other two in low light

 

[Lion007s]

Why are night mode selfies so bad? Compared to the regular selfie camera, the night mode selfie with deep fusion just makes shadows/imperfections stand out more. Who wants a selfie that looks like that? Night mode should keep the skin smooth and bright - not create shadows and such detail.

When professionals shoot portraits (DSLR) or photos of people, the best photos are those that don’t show every detail or shadows. This needs to be updated otherwise it’s pointless

 

[motorazr]

Excited to hear what happens with replacement device.

I too have seen this. I’m coming from an X, but my wife has a 11 pro. Her night mode photos looked much better; and my x is actually sharper in low light.

It seems almost life a software (firmware?) issue, in that the lens seems capable of focusing and sometimes does outside especially, but in low light it isn’t quite right (micro adjustment?), and applies far too agressive a sharpening algorithm / noise reduction.

 

[Madtiger27]

I have compared many times 12 PM vs 11 PM night mode. 12 is better all the time. Not sure what is wrong with you guys phone.

 

[Madtiger27]

Night mode. 3 sec on both since it was pretty dark.

first is 11 PM.

 

[Madtiger27]

12 PM