Why zoomed photos don’t look good on the iPhone (and how to fix them)

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If you want to get closer to the subject without actually moving it, zoom in. This is a camera feature that has been around for decades and is still alive on the iPhone. However, you may have noticed that there are no zoom shots. very It’s as clear as a normal photo. In fact, they sometimes look like garbage. There is a reason for that.

You are not really zooming with your iPhone camera

Let’s get started: Your iPhone can’t zoom. The iPhone camera lens is immovable and fixed at the designed focal length. If you have an iPhone with multiple cameras, you can punch in closer by switching to a lens with a longer focal length. For example, the iPhone 13 Pro has a 13 mm ultra-wide-angle lens, a 26 mm wide-angle lens (the default lens), and a 77 mm telephoto lens.

The camera app treats wide-angle lenses as a “1x” zoom option. If you switch to a super wide-angle lens, you will see “0.5x” while the telephoto is “3x” zoom. These indicators depend on the iPhone in question. For example, the first iPhone with dual cameras had a zoom of 1x to 2x, while the iPhone 12 Pro had a zoom of 2.5x.

Not all iPhones even have a telephoto lens. If your iPhone isn’t on this list, it’s not on the following list.

• iPhone 7/7 Plus (2x zoom)
• iPhone 8/8 Plus (2x zoom)
• iPhone X (2x zoom)
• iPhone XS / XS Max (2x zoom)
• iPhone 11 Pro / 11 Pro Max (2x zoom)
• iPhone 12 Pro / 12 Pro Max (2.5x zoom)
• iPhone 13 Pro / 13 Pro Max (3x zoom)

Optical zoom and digital zoom on iPhone

Of course, you know that you are not limited to 0.5x, 1x, and 3x zoom. You can easily “zoom” between these numbers and choose to shoot at 0.6x, 1.7x, and in some cases up to 12x. At these zoom levels, iOS uses digital zoom. Digital zoom basically crops the image to its magnification. The 0.6x “zoom” is actually a slightly cropped image from a super wide-angle lens. 1.7x is a cropped image of a wide lens.And 12x very A cropped image of either a telephoto camera or a wide camera.

Digital zoom can be useful, but not to produce the best possible image quality. If you manually crop the image to its original size, you can see yourself, and artificially punching the photo will lose detail. The iPhone does some computational work to make the image look better than manually cropping it, but it still doesn’t compare to the quality you get from uncropped shots from the lens.

For iPhone Do not By the way, since I have a telephoto lens, I can only use digital zoom of 1x or more.

Apple is lying to you about your iPhone’s telephoto camera

OK, so you TRUE If you want to zoom in, you can switch to a telephoto camera and zoom in 3x. You’ve solved the problem, right? No, it’s not accurate. You see, Apple is playing a subtle trick with the camera here, but it’s not advertising to users. Your iPhone uses a telephoto lens only if you think the scene justifies its use. For example, if the lighting isn’t bright enough, iOS will rely on wide-angle lenses, even if you request to use a telephoto lens. Instead of actually using a lens that “zooms” into the image, the iPhone uses the dreaded digital zoom.

So you think If you’re using an iPhone telephoto lens (a lens that’s only offered as part of the more expensive “professional” iPhone), you’ll get the same shots as if you digitally zoomed using wide. There is also an easy way to test if this is happening during a shot. Place your finger on the telephoto lens (the top lens of the tri-camera array) and select from the zoom options in the camera app. If your iPhone is using a lens, it’s clear that your fingers are blocking the lens. Otherwise, the camera will “zoom in” and no obstacles will be found.

How to get your iPhone to use a telephoto lens every time

Fortunately, there is a way to get your iPhone to use a telephoto lens. One way is to shoot in portrait mode instead of photo mode.I didn’t know until I knew about this trick This Reddit thread from user MyManD.. For zoomed portrait mode shots (Pro iPhone default), the iPhone uses a telephoto lens instead of relying on digital zoom. If you don’t want to use portrait mode for this particular shot, it’s easy to disable the effect after the fact. Find the photo in the photo,[編集]Tap, then the yellow one at the top[ポートレート]Tap the tag to disable blurring.

If you are willing to spend a little money, you don’t have to deal with portrait mode. Third party camera app, Like a halide, You can choose which lens to shoot without worrying that the app is bypassing the selection. These apps are packed with features such as RAW support on most iPhones and fine-tuned control of shutter speed and ISO, so if your iPhone’s camera app doesn’t work, choose these apps. Please consider doing.

Interestingly, there is a way to get the iPhone to use a telephoto lens when shooting video. Shoot video at 4K, 60fps. For some reason, the iPhone always uses a telephoto lens for zoom shots when recording at 4K / 60, but not when using other frame rates. However, if you want to force your telephoto camera while recording at other frame rates, consider choosing a third party video recording app such as: FiLMiC Pro..

It’s an expensive option, but a valid option could be a lens adapter for the iPhone. Companies like Moment Create a telephoto lens for your mobile device that can be mounted on your iPhone using a compatible case and lens adapter. This is an expensive setup, but you can play with the optical zoom on your iPhone, Pro, or No.