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 Replies: 12 / Views: 693 |
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Pillar of the Community
 United States
6451 Posts |
I feel like the photos that I take with my iPad camera have steadily degraded over time. In the beginning of using my mini-axial box and macro lens, it was taking pretty nice pictures. Now it is a real pain to drag an acceptable image out of that same camera, particularly for auto-focus. I had to switch to the Yamera app just so I could manually control the focus, but that app introduces new complexities that I never had to deal with in simple camera mode.
Am I imagining it, or did the iOS software make major changes to the camera software or firmware?
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Moderator
 United States
187544 Posts |
It would not be the first time Apple was guilty of planned obsolescence.  |
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Pillar of the Community
 United States
6451 Posts |
Everything on public discussion forums claims that camera tampering is a conspiracy theory. I'm not in the camp of moustache twirling villainy. I just think that their photo processing software might be yielding slowly declining quality on the oldest model cameras.
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Moderator
United States
187544 Posts |
Yes, the tinfoil crowd takes it too far, but the planning of said obsolesce is more the result of resource allocation (e.g. less time spent QC testing on older hardware) than it is a deliberate attempt to drive sales.
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Moderator
United States
34393 Posts |
Quote:
the oldest model cameras. Any chance your lens just has some dust or other shmutz on it? I ask because my phone charger was working less and less well recently, but then I took a wooden toothpick and removed about a pound of lint from that recess and it is working fine again. Maybe you are having a similar problem? "If you climb a good tree, you get a push."
-----Ghanaian proverb
"The danger we all now face is distinguishing between what is authentic and what is performed."
-----King Adz
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Moderator
United States
187544 Posts |
I suspect that is not the problem if a different app resolved the issue.  |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
6451 Posts |
The camera is clean. I actually wipe the lens prior to pictures.
I noticed a big step down with this most recent update. The tap-and-hold to autofocus now yields a consistently blurry and out of focus lock. A year ago, this same iPad, same light, same photo setup got a crisp picture of the coin face every single time. In addition to the autofocus not getting the coin in focus, the resulting images often seem way oversaturated with blinding glare.
Yamera allows me to override the focus setting. I move the light back and forth to solve the glare issue, which I never had to do before recently.
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Moderator
United States
34393 Posts |
Ah ok well so much for the easy solution!
"If you climb a good tree, you get a push."
-----Ghanaian proverb
"The danger we all now face is distinguishing between what is authentic and what is performed."
-----King Adz
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Pillar of the Community
United States
6451 Posts |
6 months ago:   Different but similar coin, this week:   Just doesn't seem right to me. And the latter was with manual focus, because autofocus was too blurry. |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
3169 Posts |
I would guess the 3rd party camera app has messed up the built in camera app settings.
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Moderator
United States
187544 Posts |
Quote:
I would guess the 3rd party camera app has messed up the built in camera app settings. If I read the OP correctly, the third party app was not tried until after an update affected the built in app. |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
6451 Posts |
That is correct, although nothing would really prevent the app from subsequently fouling up the underlying settings in a way that cannot be corrected without a reset.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1048 Posts |
I'm having trouble getting anything usable out of my iPhone16 pro max. The macro focuses well, but everything is kinda dark and subdued in full lighting, and there's some fake color.
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Replies: 12 / Views: 693 |
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Posted 12/29/2025 12:18 pm
