Hi, I’m from the UK and after you bringing this issue to my attention I noticed my new 16 pro max had the issue. I bought my phone direct from Apple so went to my local Apple Store. I wanted to be able to replicate the issues in store so took a small cardboard box to eliminate any light, sad but proved worthwhile. The iPhone genius agreed there was an issue, he tried his phone and it was ok, and agreed to replace mine. I said I wanted to test the new phone before I left the store without going through a full set up which he agreed to do. The first replacement phone was worse than my original but the second was good. Luckily the Apple Store had several phones in stock as I would have gone through the lot until happy and at that point in time they were happy to do this. Fortunately I bought direct from Apple and not a third party….
I also went strait into Apple Store and they said they would swap me untill it was all good, luckily it was good 1st try, and my girls 16 came and was fine. Crazy
if you had bought it from a third party you would've gotten the same treatment apple's warranty is the same warranty, independent of where you got the phone from.
My thought, with other recent iPhone models still available New, why bother with iPhone 16 at all? Especially for long-exposure, night photography, iPhone 16 is not the only game in town, why even bother with this headache?
yeah but this shouldn't of happened in the first place. Why are they selling phones with KNOWN defects? Apple is a trillion dollar company I get it they are pulling all there man power towards Ai but don't forget the one thing that makes Apple Apple. Stability and usability with little to none mistakes. I just just like game devs who back in the game would have game testers to test for bugs and when the game is published it is flawless no bugs or mistakes or if there are bugs there incredible small. This was apple making there products easy to use and bug free but now they seem to start becoming what game devs do now. Release a game with Major bugs that inhibit the expeirnce and fix it later. It's not a matter of it's not possible becasue it is they have done it before its matter of will. Only god can know why this greedy corp is letting mistakes slip just so we can get our perious Ai so we can generate pictures of cats eating soup and drogs with cowboy hats 💀
Right, the amount of people that are actually doing serious nighttime/ astrophotography is probably such a niche part of Apple's clientele that it's easier for them to ignore such a small group. But I'd like to see this get more media attention
That doesn’t make any sense, the phone literally has the tag “Pro” in its name meaning that just like apple themselves says it in every keynote IT IS TARGETED for the pro/photography audience, if want average iPhone results the regular series is more than enough for average person, Pro phones are MEANT to used by the nerd audience and an audience like this is gonna get into every single little detail and gonna care about it all, this is just apple being “ok we fix that in 17 so you can spend more money on our phones next year” kinda thing, which they have a good track of doing.
So just put the word out and boycott iPhone 16, plenty of other iPhone models and Androids that can get the job down without the headache of worrying about a defect. Especially when dishing out the $$$$$ that Apple demands.
The people that are actually doing serious nighttime/ astrophotograph are a very small niche. The people doing it with iphones is much much smaller than even that
My only suggestion to pressure Apple is to make it known on Twitter/X. This is where journalists hang out and if they sniff a story they will write about it.
This is almost certainly a hardware issue. Apple is likely to do everything possible to avoid addressing this problem to prevent potential profit loss, especially since most users may never notice.
16 pro max user here, and no issues with blue glaring. Counting myself lucky. Edit from the future: Tried all camera’s with an exposure of 30s. Not seeing blue glaring but I am seeing a lot of blue pixels on all camera’s modules. Not so lucky as I thought I was
@@domdomdomme1203Thank you for commenting this. I was about to waste god knows how long with Apple trying to get my new 16 Pro Max replaced. I only have two small blurry blue orbs on the right hand edge of the image. Really small though. I had to zoom in to see them.
I have too those blue dots/pixels appear in photos in all those cameras on my 16 pro max when I take photo in complete pitch black darkness, but they aren’t actually dead pixels, more like hot pixels which is normal acting for camera sensors overall? And it did took those photos at that max 30 second so it was completely dark. But that blue banding, I’m not noticing those blue banding ”poles” but sometimes shadows when editing brightness up, I notice those horrible blue mess in shadows, so don’t know if that’s normal
Good on ya, Shayne, for pursuing this. I changed to Apple after a decade of Android phones primarily because of my perception of their superior customer service. Looks like I was wrong. My 16 Pro Max is buggy as heck. it keeps dropping Bluetooth connection to my hearing aids, photos and videos frequently present with incorrect orientation, or only display as tiny thumbnails. Very disappointing. Glad to have you on our side.
@@LAMethWitch I have that too but it's gotta be a software error as it only happens when I take a photo and look at the photo from the camera app. If I later go into the photos app all looks well. So a IOS 18 error rather than a iphone 16 error.
@@bunkermagnus yeah, man i have 2 iphone 16 pros!!! I got 16 pro 256GB in desert colour on opening day- and now 2 days ago I got 1TB 16 pro max in white
I've done the opposite. Had Apple phones for ages. Was so disappointed with the 16 Pro Max (which had the blue streaks), I sent it back and switched to Android. No issues with the S24 Ultra. And it's cheaper.
Stick with them Peter. I’m sorry as a user myself that the 16 Pro has been bad for you, mine seems good. I couldn’t possibly find the audacity to defend Apple who would I think I was to do so, but in my experience their customer service has always been very good. I suspect there is many reasons this phone has got little bugs - I think the phones weren’t ready and it’s all because of this A.I thing. I’m willing to bet by six months in the phone will be exactly as it should be although, it shouldn’t have to take that long.
Thanks for explaining the difference between the apps and how they go about taking 30s night time images. Been testing back and forth with different apps the images are horribly blue using the standard camera app.
This sounds like a software issue, not a hardware issue. And “escalation to engineering” is often Apple’s way of sending the issue to oblivion, never to be resolved.
My 30 second exposure is perfect black on my iPhone 16 pro max. I'm running the 18.2 beta just in case that matters. Seems to me it could well be a software issue but only time will tell. Keep up the good fight.
@@russwright I’m hoping this is software not lining up with the new hardware. If it’s totally fine for a 10 second long exposure, something needs to be calibrated for 30 seconds. Otherwise it would start to show up at 10 seconds and get worse for 30 seconds.
@@jamesn7156 I think software should fix it for most people, but I also think that a hardware problem should not be ruled out, since I’ve heard about a lot of hardware issues with the iPhone 16. However, we do hope that a software update will fix it. :)
Hi, I'm from Switzerland and my first iPhone 16 Pro Max (shipped on Sept 20th) had the blue-lines issue. Before I saw Shayne's test with the phone put down on a table in the dark, I took pictures of the milky way that didn't look great at all. I would consider myself being an experienced photographer. Thanks to Shayne I discoverd my iPhone 16 Pro Max was a faulty unit. I called Apple tech support and after some online testing they agreed to replace it. However I had to go to a local Apple store to do so. In the store the Genius again performed several camera tests with their diagnostic software and since a camera sensor issue was reported, they replaced the phone. Luckily, my new 16 pro Max doesn't show the blue lines anymore. Long story short, it seems to be a sensor related issue.
Wow, I am glad you randomly popped up in my recommended, top notch effort on this video mate, you’ve done your due diligence and clearly know your stuff, love from a fellow Aussie ❤🇦🇺
It's 100% a hardware error where certain batches of sensors are faulty. Big corporations chasing profit margins will lead to this and 95% of iphone users will never notice this as it is a fringe use case so Apple will ignore this. the difference between my first 16 pro and my replacement 16 pro is like night and day, no pun intended. First phone had super blue all over the frame while the replacements looks exactly like my wife's 15 pro. Also, Apple staff at the Apple store managed to reproduce the blue noise while I was in the Apple Genius bar.
It's like the green orbs that float around in almost all iPhone videos. Step 1, the hardest step, is always to get Apple to admit there is a problem. I'm a software engineer and our company identified a bug in macOS Sonoma. It took about 3 months to get them to acknowledge a problem and another 4 months for them to fix it. They likely eventually will in your case: you'll just need to buy an iPhone 17. This looks like a hardware issue to me. Could be caused by uneven heat distribution on the camera sensor so using it in a warm environment might make it worse. Wonder what would happen if you cooled the phone a bit and then tested it?
I tested my 16 Pro Max and even though it does t have blue lines, it does have blue dots on certain spots that look like defective pixels or something. Only happens in night mode as well.
I just took a 10 sec night mode photo with my iPhone 16 ProMax. I put the lens against my bed sheet in a dark room. The resulting photo was just black with a small amount of noise. No blue lines. Then I realized you said 30Sec. So I waited for 30Sec to show up (instead of 10) and took a 30sec shot with the aforementioned technique. This time the resulting photo had a blue pixel in the centre of frame, three around the top and also 3 around the bottom. I’m starting to think this might be a computational problem. I believe you can “turn off” the individual lenses in the camera settings. And this might help to answer what’s going on.
It's just the phone's inclination, when resting on the back, because of the protrution of the rear lens there is a little gap from where enters a tiny bit of light to the sensor, which produce the akward images we're getting. Try taping all the lenses and then take a shot and you will probably get a pitch dark one.
The desktop test is simply to see where the lines are. Apple are not interested in a black photo with blue lines and nor should they be. Its only to see where they are. Then go and take some photos and see if it turns up in the pics. If its in the pics, they absolutely should be fixing this.
This is crazy, my work 15 Pro Max does similar thing, especially noticable with telephoto. Friend of mine have 16 Pro and there is same issue, we also went together to Apple store and tried in on multiple phones that we could, and every single one had this issue. But at the same time, my significant other has 16 Pro Max, which so far seem fine, no issue at all, and it is early device when preorders opened.
I remember seeing a very similar looking issue in photos on my HTC M7 back in the day. Just like Apple, HTC said that there was no issue until they started repairing phones for free. Turns out the camera module was not thermally insulated that well and the heat from the processor was interfering with the camera causing pink banding. Before I got mine fixed I would always notice the issue disappeared if I took photos while outside in the snow but reappeared when I went inside to a warmer environment.
Really?! Was it red on your 15 pro? I seen where some 14 and 15 had red and some had blue and also some with blue red and green lol So you had it then didn’t have it after an update on the 15 pro for sure?
@@KMakrozahopoulos that’s wild, thanks for the info, I have been trying to figure out what’s causing it and how long it’s actually been an issue, seems going all the way back to at least the 13 pro max this has been a thing in some devices. Crazy, I have found some galaxy users also have issues with long night mode as well, so I don’t think it’s only iPhone either lol but that’s another story I suppose
There was a rumor about the iPhone 16 pro max getting the new Sony sensor this year. I wonder if it’s an issue for this years main sensor versus the old ones
It’s nothing new, there are iPhone 13, 14 and 15 with this same issue, some have red banding, some blue, I seen one with red and blue and some green, and some like mine (replacement) iPhone 16 pro and my girls iPhone 16 pro work great totally. In all honesty during my round with the blues on my first iPhone 16 and first iPhone ever, I ran into some galaxy’s that had issues with night mode not working properly at long exposure as well. So it may really be a hit and miss issue regardless the brand. It has just gone unnoticed for the most part because it’s a small amount of people using it in this way, and out of them and even smaller amount of people that have the issue and beyond that even smaller amount that notices it lol. But for those that do I agree they should be able to get it fixed. Apple Store told me in person that if my replacement does it then I can bring it back as well and they would swap untill I get one that works as it should through and through so idk, I’m glad I didn’t have to go back.. I was able to show them “normal” night mode photos with the blue mess along with the blue screen that I captured in a darkened room. I did a ton of investigating on this, looked at loads of night mode astrophotos from all model iPhones to compare and see what I could find, being new to Apple I was not happy I had the problem, and so It was driving me nuts inspecting endlessly lol
Following on from my previous comment, I replaced my 16 pro yesterday. I was in my 14 day return period and I knew software wasn’t going to fix my issues, despite AppleCare saying there’ll ‘definitely’ be a fix in the next 2 weeks. New one doesn’t have the blue streaks issue. Quite a few hot pixels but nowhere near as bad as my previous 16P. At ISO8000 I’m getting completely black images. At ISO10000, the hot pixels appear but it’s not a massive dealbreaker. Photographic styles also seem to be behaving themselves this time.
Sorry, but how exactly do you get the ISO that high? When I do the test that he explained in the video, I’m only getting ISO 1250 in a completely dark cabinet.
Just tested it with my 16 Pro Max. In my case it only seems to happen when the camera app uses the Fusion lens. When I manually force it to only use the wide angle or tele lens, it doesn't have the blue band(s). Weirdly enough I have not been able to disable the Fusion lens in 1x mode.
It seems sort of rare for a company to put out a product (hardware or software) that is perfect from the start. But when they try to deny there is a problem, without first investigating, is very bad. This is the risk you take when you are an early adopter.
I had some interesting results from testing with camera face down in the dark, with my 16 Pro Max. My first one was crazy blue noise with a circle in the middle. Then the next ones were black with white noise/pixels spread out. Didn’t matter if I was shooting raw or not. It’s almost like it had to do some pixel mapping first to get all black after. There was a weird anomaly on that blue circular one as it wanted to call it a portrait but I wasn’t in portrait mode… EDIT: I was able to reproduce the blue circular noise…if I’m in photo mode, jpeg, have manual aperture on, shoot 30s, it will give me crazy blue noise effect. If I don’t have manual aperture on, it won’t give crazy blue effect. In RAW, you dont get the custom aperture option, and in my case I get all black, with white pixels spread out
Just checked my phone, iPhone 16 pro Max 256GB storage. Firstly it was very hard during the day to get the camera in a dark enough place. But boy! When I did, I was blown away. I was about to call Apple, but I wonder if they even recognise it in the general scheme of things. Is the person at the other end of the phone likely to know about this already? I have just put a screen protector on my phone, and bought the case for it. I would be very loathed to get it replaced.
Thanks for highlighting this. After watching your earlier video I found that my phone had this issue. Called Apple support and the guy did the test and did an appointment for my phone checkup. Sadly here in New Zealand there is no Apple Store so these issues are handled by “Authorised “ Apple repairs and these guys acknowledge the problem but want me to hand over my phone for couple of days for repairs. Am not comfortable with that as I want a straight swap. Thoughts people on what to do now?
When I was in the Apple store in the UK looking at this because I raised it as a support issue, they tried 2 store phones to see if there was an issue. One had the issue (like my phone) and the other didn't. Both Apple techs agreed there was an issue. I kept my phone because I wanted it logged as an issue on my phone early on in the process. Guess this memo means that there was no point and I should have tried to get a replacement. Watching this story unfold with great interest.
I just found on my iPhone 14 Pro Max today, thanks to your video. I bought the my iPhone 14 Pro Max 2 years ago. For those who want to inspect, Open Camera, Set Night Mode Timer to 30 seconds. I got this blue line mentioned in the video. Man this start to bug me, after making aware of this issue after 2 years after buying the iPhone 14 Pro Max.
Back from the Apple Store, they said because I had a beta version on the phone I had to uninstall it. I did tell them I put the beta on because I had an issue with my camera and I thought maybe it had been fixed in beta. Working in IT for 35 yearsgives you that kind of insight, although I can imagine some people might be daunted by the idea of putting beta software on your phone, all of the time I have been put in the developer beta up on my phones. I have never had a really bad issue iOS 18.2 beta two seems to be a little buggy and sometimes hangs. I have subscribed to the channel as I think for my own sanity that it would be a good idea to see how this plays out. It looks like the start of something big probably remember "Bend Gate" I would be surprised if this doesn't get a recall happening. What does anybody else think? I was only checking out my camera after seeing this video in my feed and it's probably the most important TH-cam video I have ever seen as far as me not getting shafted by Apple. 🤬
I have an iPhone 15 Pro Max and I am certain that this model has also the issue. In my case there is a combination of blue and red noice. There is even a photo I posted in the fb page that appears in this particular video. Greetings from Greece, I really love your channel.
Great channel. Just want to make sure I’m not missing something here. With a proper astro camera, calibration frames are required to take care of a host of noise issues with the sensor. Setting aside sensor quality for a moment, could one not fix this with dark frames?
Cheers mate. I appreciate the way you asked that. Some of the other "astrophotographers" come here being wankers and big noting themselves because they can buy loads of expensive gear, just to put down hundreds of thousands of people that are doing this with phones. I honestly appreciate the way you asked that. Yes, you could probably resolve it (i'm sure) with dark frames on the desktop. But thats not what phone astro is. When possible (and it always has been) it should be 100% on the phone. This isn't a situation where we go "this is a problem, go and buy a desktop and software to resolve it". Its a situation where it should be working, just like all other phones. Thanks mate
I got same issue with 30sec iPhone 15 Pro Max phone just laying down on the table dark room with monitor on, however if i cover phone with a cloth from all sides I get dark frame. To me it’s just light leak and the way softwares merges ProRaw multi frame due to high ISO.
I would say if you can go within 14 days as they have a 14 day exchange/return policy, and try to take a few “normal” night photos where the blue beams are clearly intrusive, it may help, I think that’s what helped me get such a smooth and easy exchange. I took a few photos in an almost totally blacked out room, my living room, so some of the photo was lit up a little and the blue beams were very obviously intrusive. Good luck, wishing you all the best!
well I have just tried my iphone 16 pro which was bought on release day and if you try just putting the camera down on a flat surface and take 30second photo it has blue streaks some I have seen some people say how they tested it and the same II even tried it in a box. If however I then take the same photo in the Darkroom there is no blue banding what so ever. So I wonder if its just that the sensor is picking up any sort of tiny exterior light. Either way looks like my phone is good.
I assume if apple went out and said "hey most iPhone 16s have this issue and we're offering a replacement" a whole lot of people who aren't affected by this will just use this as an opportunity to get a brand new replacement for free, so they'd be losing a bunch of money from that, let alone the money spent on fixing the issue - keep in mind, this is apple's first phone with their new AI stuff, which let's be honest, was made solely for the purpose of making investors happy, so they wouldn't want this to happen or be known with this model in particular. it's just a lot of bad press and money spent to help a very small niche group of users unfortunately... I'm sorry, it's such a shame, and thanks for sharing this to the public, maybe if this gets enough press, apple will be pressed to fix this... hopefully
I wonder if it's just some sort of anti-reflective coating on the lens. Maybe some isopropyl on a rag would take the coating off and the purple lines would go away? Does this happen on all of the 3 cameras in night long exposure mode?
I have a 15 pro and did the face down 30 second exposure and I do have blue specks and patterns in the image. I did it on a white paper and it wasn't as noticeable as the darker colors I tried it on. It is not always repeatable even if the the blue is there, it is less noticeable in different shots. So, it may be present on all phones, we just don't notice it. Love your videos by the way!
Funnily enough, the front facing camera of my iPhone 15 Pro turned pink on dark photos and they covered it in the warranty. They replaced the whole FaceID thingy and I got my iPhone 15 Pro back working perfectly fine
Mmm… hard to say what causes this issue exactly, and why it does not occur with other iPhones … but, generally speaking, in digital sensor cameras, the closer the noise-level is to the signal-level (noise to image data ratio), the more prevalent banding will be, if you show underexposed. And under exposure is exactly what occurs when a camera in auto-mode, takes a primarily dark subject, and presents it as “truly dark”… a normal exposure of pure black, would result in the same as for pure white… middle grey, so in fact the image is underexposed, by pulling exposure down from middle grey to the blackness you see, thus bringing image noise (blue bands) and image data closer together… banding could specifically be due to sensor heating, just as with sensor hot pixels on traditional digital cameras
It actually does happen on other iPhones, some 13, 14, and 15 as well with red, blue, and blue green and red…..and I’ve seen some galaxy users have issues with night mode long exposure as well, not all but some…but this makes sense as a possibility, I suspect that when the photo is processed the fault I think is coming as the processing happens and there is a glitch when it is trying to process the darkest parts of the photo in night mode, so your reasoning is making sense to me along with what I was already thinking about. I have been trying to figure it out since it happened to me lol, I got mine fixed (replaced) but I still am trying to figure it out and find solutions outside of Apple. So maybe there will be a fix found for those unfortunately stuck w this issue. Thanks for sharing
@@willbelial3775 right… what you can try is this… using an Astro-photography enabled application (affinity photo etc), try and set the purely black photo (intended to be black, but displaying the banding/defects), as a black-frame reference, and add the other actual Astro photographs you want to use as the final image. The stacked result should subtract the defects in the black frame, rather effectively
@@willbelial3775hmm… my two attempts at replying to you failed… stupid TH-cam! Last try… take a black-frame reference … intended to be a purely black image, but showing the banding… use this in an astro photography app supporting stacking and black and white frame references… select your photo with the same sort of banding defect, but with the intended night sky image, as the actual source… stack them, and see what happens
I’m feeling super fortunate that my 16 pro max doesn’t seem to be suffering from this issue. I love taking pictures of the night sky so I would be very unhappy if I couldn’t do that.
This looks like readout noise. Depending on many factors this may be hard to calibrate out effectively. You don’t see it in bright light because the noise is quite low relative to the light being received and converted to electrons. In low light, this is however there and is intrinsic to the sensor (detector layer plus read out). It could be contamination in the manufacturing process or even intrinsic to the design / fab process. Hard to say. My guess is that SW will be hard to fix it with in all cases. Sensor calibration techniques are common and are certainly already used. But there are limits. Many many iPhones have been built so far and are in the distribution pipeline. I suspect this won’t go away soon.
This is likely a camera module calibration issue with dark current. Due to second sourcing of sensors, some might be more prone to this issue than others.
It looks like amp glow or thermal glow and if it’s down to that it isn’t a hardware fault per se, but a characteristic of the sensor quality that can vary quite a bit from sensor to sensor. Astrophotographers will usually subtract such average sensor issues by taking an iso and temperature matched “dark frame” - a black exposure like your test and subtract that from the raw sensor data. I don’t get as many blue streaks as you do on the dark frame test, but they are there along with some hot pixels and some red amp glow at the fringes. Usually the magnitude is of these errors are “low” wrt to the dynamic range of the sensor so I think that Apple are stretching the histogram too much post stacking which while makes the starfield look better will exacerbate these sensor errors.
Apple really dropped the ball with this one, and the iOS 18. It’s all just a hot mess of bugs 🤦♂️ it’s probably the worst release since the the time they were called Apple Computers
The test sounds like you’re taking dark frames, just like you’d do for normal astrophotography. Why isn’t that sampled at the factory so that it can be automatically compensated for?
Very interesting I watch your previous video about this issue. Been subscribed to your channel for a while. I love night photography and I have shared your video now with several bigger TH-camrs in North America. Hopefully they will start covering it and make this a bigger issue and hopefully Apple will fix this.
I been trying to tell people, it’s not just iPhone, many phones struggle in night mode long exposure even Samsung, hope you can find a workaround for it!
This is super interesting in the fact that Apple will hopefully fix. As tech getting more and more advanced, if any phone manufacturer wants to have the best camera capabilities, they need to listen to the users of all genres of use. Great video Shayne!
Hi, I have a 15 pro max and I’ve noticed the blu glow appears only when there is a leak of light into the camera (cause the device is not completely adherent to the surface it is placed on), if I place the device on a towel the image is completely black without glows. In this case it is an expected behaviour that in very low light conditions at a very high ISO some digital noise is normal. Can you try to take a 30s shot in a completely dark room? Maybe wrapping the phone in a towel or in a well sealed box?
I just did the ”put my phone down on the desk and shoot for 30 seconds” test and I have two very small, but bright, blue dots on the right hand side of the image. This is on a 16 Pro Max. I have to zoom in to see them but they’re there. I’m not sure if this issue is significant enough to warrant a phone replacement by Apple, as I don’t have blue bars across the image, just two glowing blue dots on the right-hand side. Update: I just shot five more 30-second photos and some have blue dots everywhere and some are pure black. So now I don’t know what’s going on. Could this be a software issue? I’m using iOS 18.1 (the version coming out tomorrow) if that makes a difference.
I would really appreciate it if you acknowledge in the video as well that iPhone 15 Pro Max has that same problem I have replaced my phone once and it’s still consist of the same problem. I really don’t know what to do. Apple support team has started ignoring me.
Right on, I have seen people have this issue with the 13, 14 and 15….and honestly , while digging I found some people with issues with galaxy’s long night mode as well (which I’ve used for the past 10 years untill now lol so maybe more phones have these issues undetected by the masses than we realize,,,,,,,guess he doesn’t mention it with 15 because it didn’t happen to him, but I would say this has always been an issue in some devices in all iPhone models for years, possibly in most phone brands in general. May I ask, was it a blue mess on your 15 or red?
@@philippe7166 That’s what I’m hoping this is. I’m running iOS 18.1 and I’m experiencing this only on my main camera for some reason. The dots are there, but with each photo they are in a different location on the image.
I'm glad this video popped up because I have the exact same problem on the US model! On the Chinese model (which I purposely bought, since I was sure their version would be different, as it always has been), this problem does not exist.
It is possible that the reason for the photos request from Apple is that in some testing they found light leaks that may be causing the problem and wanted to see if something in the assembly process was different with the phones that have the problem. So may not be doing anything nefarious. Certainly there may be those at Apple that may try to just make the problem go away, but I suspect most engineers are trying to find out the cause so they can fix it. Good on you, though, for pointing this out and staying on it.
I can’t even take a night photo, it’s appealing as a picture for a second od left lower corner when I’m still in the camera app and latter turns grey. In library is just gray file and is nothing what I can to with this. I can’t send it to iPad thru airdrop.
Well I finally got my camera to work, another bug bug with the camera app crashing on the iPhone 16 pro max. And then had a chance to finally capture the northern lights in my area to see blue dots mixed with the stars. This like many camera sensors indicates dead spots on the sensor. I never had the blue bands with mine. They tried to tell me it was expected noise and normal, I argued the point and was escalated to the next level. Then they agreed to replace it, so I’m waiting on the replacement now. Let’s see if I end up with a blue band one, another one with dead spots on the sensor, or one that works like I would expect for the cost of this phone.
Thx for surfacing this issue. My 16PM does not have the issue. My wife’s phone has it. We bought it at the same time directly from apple. Going to try to replace hers in an apple store as others suggested.
I don’t think this test works anymore. You can only do max 10s on a table now. The iPhone uses the proximity sensors so you need to be in an open space for 30s to appear. I think the best test is to take a photo in really low light in an open space and see if the issue appears. A pitch black room doesn’t work as it’s an unrealistic environment. You will see all sorts of pixels, blue lines etc. But this is the same with any camera sensor. Best to do a “real world” test IMO.
The "test" on the desk doesn't prove anything (as I mentioned in this video). Its a way to help you see any issue on actual photos. Showing an Apple tech both images (desk shot and actual real world pics) immediately identifies the problem for them
@@ShayneMostyn when I say the test doesn’t work anymore, I mean it doesn’t do a 30s exposure like it did in your example. It only does 10s which doesn’t show anything more than a black screen. To access the 30s exposure you need to be in an open space as the iPhone uses the proximity sensor.
I was so keen to update my phone but this is concerning. Basically, I'm going to have to test the absolute F out of it within the 14 day period so I can swap it if need be, or just get my money back and be done with it. This whole release feels so half-baked from the phone, to the AI lacking staggered rollout and the iOS in general, so many issues all around that it feels like a lot of corners have been cut.
I don’t think this is a hardware fault in the slightest. Night mode pushes the noise floor boundary of these sensors. All sensors do this, the key is having a software/hardware calibration that doesn’t push the noise into your final product. You’ve never seen it before because previous sensors kept that noise floor below the software calibration. So yeah, something is different on some of the production runs that is squeezing above that level. I’m highly confident this can be tuned out. If you take the raw data of any sensor you can push it hard enough to get this effect. I used to battle this all the time in Lightroom with early day Canon SLR’s. That’s why they have techniques like dark frame subtraction.
Because there are manufacturing variations. The current development flow of the raw data is pushing too close to the noise floor and some sensors are above it. Others below it.
Well, I have booked an appointment at 2:20 pm in my local store, about 30 miles away. I'm not going just for that but also because I have the stage light problem on my MacBook Air M2, which Apple don't recognise as a problem since 2016. I'm going to get a quote on Repairs as Apple do not cover it as a recall. It hasn't got AppleCare on it and also it is out of warranty. So it's two birds with one stone watch this space… oh, I am in the UK too
It looks like typical shielding issue of the cable/connector or on the module itself. It causes noise leaks on the data path - that's why they are on stripes. If this is cable then fix should be easy and cheap. If on module - it could be quite expensive to fix. Also this type of hardware issues indicate assembly issues in factory - that's why some iphones have it and other wont. It would be useful to compare S/N numbers of the phones. Jus a private opinion.
Does it only happen in 30 sec mode? someone on your video wrote that he had this problem with 15PM as well, and someone else commented here that he got it with S20U, how is it iPhone 16 specific ?
I’m still leaning towards this being software. Why? Because nothing shows up at 10 seconds, and everyone is getting variable results at 30 seconds, probably based on ambient light noise that we cant visually detect leaking in. I would think it would start to show at 10 seconds for some and get worse. Something between the new software and new hardware doesn’t seem to be calibrated. So much of smartphone photography is computational.
Didn’t Apple add a new anti reflective lens coating this year to reduce lens flare? Maybe instantaneous of an uneven application of that coating is causing the blue lines to appear
I’m all good but I’m having a problem with the camera crashing and sometimes it doesn’t record audio with recording video sometimes the entire phone crashes and reboots on its own when I try to use the camera
So, I tried this dark frame 30s capture on my iPhone 15 Pro Max. At first, I had a strong gradient show up on the top right of the photo. I think that was because the camera lens and the photo bump caused light leakage due to not being quite flush with the table. I then took some Starbucks gift cards and propped up the lower left corner of the phone and tried again. It took a couple of tries, but I got the right thickness to get the lens properly flush and blocking out all exterior light. This time, I got a completely black frame. I’ll have to do some further processing to bring up the gain to see if there’s any hidden streaks, but on initial inspection, it looks like I don’t have this problem. Of course, this is just one data point.
So the Apple engineer, didn’t know what the issue was and took the logs of the phone, told you they would refer the issue on to the phone engineers. The engineers asked for odd photos. That said they are taking this seriously considering they have gone to the trouble of sending a memo acknowledging that it is noise, means they are probably going to do a soft wear update. They used to buy problem phones back.
![ประสบการณ์ จ้าง Developer ที่ผมจะไม่มีวันลืม [ภาค1]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/bzivN4KDg-k/mqdefault.jpg)
Hi, I’m from the UK and after you bringing this issue to my attention I noticed my new 16 pro max had the issue. I bought my phone direct from Apple so went to my local Apple Store. I wanted to be able to replicate the issues in store so took a small cardboard box to eliminate any light, sad but proved worthwhile.
The iPhone genius agreed there was an issue, he tried his phone and it was ok, and agreed to replace mine.
I said I wanted to test the new phone before I left the store without going through a full set up which he agreed to do.
The first replacement phone was worse than my original but the second was good.
Luckily the Apple Store had several phones in stock as I would have gone through the lot until happy and at that point in time they were happy to do this. Fortunately I bought direct from Apple and not a third party….
I also went strait into Apple Store and they said they would swap me untill it was all good, luckily it was good 1st try, and my girls 16 came and was fine. Crazy
if you had bought it from a third party you would've gotten the same treatment
apple's warranty is the same warranty, independent of where you got the phone from.
My thought, with other recent iPhone models still available New, why bother with iPhone 16 at all? Especially for long-exposure, night photography, iPhone 16 is not the only game in town, why even bother with this headache?
Good for you!
yeah but this shouldn't of happened in the first place. Why are they selling phones with KNOWN defects? Apple is a trillion dollar company I get it they are pulling all there man power towards Ai but don't forget the one thing that makes Apple Apple. Stability and usability with little to none mistakes. I just just like game devs who back in the game would have game testers to test for bugs and when the game is published it is flawless no bugs or mistakes or if there are bugs there incredible small. This was apple making there products easy to use and bug free but now they seem to start becoming what game devs do now. Release a game with Major bugs that inhibit the expeirnce and fix it later. It's not a matter of it's not possible becasue it is they have done it before its matter of will. Only god can know why this greedy corp is letting mistakes slip just so we can get our perious Ai so we can generate pictures of cats eating soup and drogs with cowboy hats 💀
Right, the amount of people that are actually doing serious nighttime/ astrophotography is probably such a niche part of Apple's clientele that it's easier for them to ignore such a small group. But I'd like to see this get more media attention
That doesn’t make any sense, the phone literally has the tag “Pro” in its name meaning that just like apple themselves says it in every keynote IT IS TARGETED for the pro/photography audience, if want average iPhone results the regular series is more than enough for average person, Pro phones are MEANT to used by the nerd audience and an audience like this is gonna get into every single little detail and gonna care about it all, this is just apple being “ok we fix that in 17 so you can spend more money on our phones next year” kinda thing, which they have a good track of doing.
BUT Apples entire marketing on EVERY iPhone is that "you don't need a camera because the iPhone is just as good".
So just put the word out and boycott iPhone 16, plenty of other iPhone models and Androids that can get the job down without the headache of worrying about a defect. Especially when dishing out the $$$$$ that Apple demands.
If this ever goes to court if apple does not replace a known bug they lose. Also class action.
The people that are actually doing serious nighttime/ astrophotograph are a very small niche. The people doing it with iphones is much much smaller than even that
Tim Apple: "you're shooting it wrong"
My only suggestion to pressure Apple is to make it known on Twitter/X. This is where journalists hang out and if they sniff a story they will write about it.
This is almost certainly a hardware issue. Apple is likely to do everything possible to avoid addressing this problem to prevent potential profit loss, especially since most users may never notice.
16 pro max user here, and no issues with blue glaring. Counting myself lucky.
Edit from the future: Tried all camera’s with an exposure of 30s. Not seeing blue glaring but I am seeing a lot of blue pixels on all camera’s modules. Not so lucky as I thought I was
Blue pixels are on most phones so that wouldn’t bother me. But the blue banding is a big issue.
Same thing for me, apparently this is normal, I’ve found multiple posts about this and this seems to be the case even for older iPhones.
@@domdomdomme1203Thank you for commenting this. I was about to waste god knows how long with Apple trying to get my new 16 Pro Max replaced. I only have two small blurry blue orbs on the right hand edge of the image. Really small though. I had to zoom in to see them.
I have too those blue dots/pixels appear in photos in all those cameras on my 16 pro max when I take photo in complete pitch black darkness, but they aren’t actually dead pixels, more like hot pixels which is normal acting for camera sensors overall? And it did took those photos at that max 30 second so it was completely dark.
But that blue banding, I’m not noticing those blue banding ”poles” but sometimes shadows when editing brightness up, I notice those horrible blue mess in shadows, so don’t know if that’s normal
Good on ya, Shayne, for pursuing this. I changed to Apple after a decade of Android phones primarily because of my perception of their superior customer service. Looks like I was wrong. My 16 Pro Max is buggy as heck. it keeps dropping Bluetooth connection to my hearing aids, photos and videos frequently present with incorrect orientation, or only display as tiny thumbnails. Very disappointing. Glad to have you on our side.
yeah i got those issues too,, the tiny thumbnails and orientation fkn arghh
@@LAMethWitch I have that too but it's gotta be a software error as it only happens when I take a photo and look at the photo from the camera app. If I later go into the photos app all looks well. So a IOS 18 error rather than a iphone 16 error.
@@bunkermagnus yeah, man i have 2 iphone 16 pros!!! I got 16 pro 256GB in desert colour on opening day- and now 2 days ago I got 1TB 16 pro max in white
I've done the opposite. Had Apple phones for ages. Was so disappointed with the 16 Pro Max (which had the blue streaks), I sent it back and switched to Android. No issues with the S24 Ultra. And it's cheaper.
Stick with them Peter. I’m sorry as a user myself that the 16 Pro has been bad for you, mine seems good. I couldn’t possibly find the audacity to defend Apple who would I think I was to do so, but in my experience their customer service has always been very good. I suspect there is many reasons this phone has got little bugs - I think the phones weren’t ready and it’s all because of this A.I thing. I’m willing to bet by six months in the phone will be exactly as it should be although, it shouldn’t have to take that long.
Thanks for explaining the difference between the apps and how they go about taking 30s night time images. Been testing back and forth with different apps the images are horribly blue using the standard camera app.
This sounds like a software issue, not a hardware issue. And “escalation to engineering” is often Apple’s way of sending the issue to oblivion, never to be resolved.
Thank you for this! I was about to order an iPhone 16 to replace a 14, but now I think I'm going to wait.
My 30 second exposure is perfect black on my iPhone 16 pro max. I'm running the 18.2 beta just in case that matters. Seems to me it could well be a software issue but only time will tell. Keep up the good fight.
Did you try it before the update?
@@jamesn7156 Good test idea. I am on 18.1 (the version coming out Monday) and I have two very very small blue orbs on the right edge of the image.
@@jamesn7156 sadly no which is why I say time will tell
@@russwright I’m hoping this is software not lining up with the new hardware. If it’s totally fine for a 10 second long exposure, something needs to be calibrated for 30 seconds. Otherwise it would start to show up at 10 seconds and get worse for 30 seconds.
@@jamesn7156 I think software should fix it for most people, but I also think that a hardware problem should not be ruled out, since I’ve heard about a lot of hardware issues with the iPhone 16. However, we do hope that a software update will fix it. :)
Hi, I'm from Switzerland and my first iPhone 16 Pro Max (shipped on Sept 20th) had the blue-lines issue. Before I saw Shayne's test with the phone put down on a table in the dark, I took pictures of the milky way that didn't look great at all. I would consider myself being an experienced photographer. Thanks to Shayne I discoverd my iPhone 16 Pro Max was a faulty unit. I called Apple tech support and after some online testing they agreed to replace it. However I had to go to a local Apple store to do so. In the store the Genius again performed several camera tests with their diagnostic software and since a camera sensor issue was reported, they replaced the phone. Luckily, my new 16 pro Max doesn't show the blue lines anymore. Long story short, it seems to be a sensor related issue.
Wow, I am glad you randomly popped up in my recommended, top notch effort on this video mate, you’ve done your due diligence and clearly know your stuff, love from a fellow Aussie ❤🇦🇺
Cheers mate
It's 100% a hardware error where certain batches of sensors are faulty. Big corporations chasing profit margins will lead to this and 95% of iphone users will never notice this as it is a fringe use case so Apple will ignore this. the difference between my first 16 pro and my replacement 16 pro is like night and day, no pun intended. First phone had super blue all over the frame while the replacements looks exactly like my wife's 15 pro. Also, Apple staff at the Apple store managed to reproduce the blue noise while I was in the Apple Genius bar.
It's like the green orbs that float around in almost all iPhone videos. Step 1, the hardest step, is always to get Apple to admit there is a problem. I'm a software engineer and our company identified a bug in macOS Sonoma. It took about 3 months to get them to acknowledge a problem and another 4 months for them to fix it. They likely eventually will in your case: you'll just need to buy an iPhone 17. This looks like a hardware issue to me. Could be caused by uneven heat distribution on the camera sensor so using it in a warm environment might make it worse. Wonder what would happen if you cooled the phone a bit and then tested it?
I tested my 16 Pro Max and even though it does t have blue lines, it does have blue dots on certain spots that look like defective pixels or something. Only happens in night mode as well.
That’s what I have as well! Two blue glowing orbs on the right hand side of the screen after a 30-second exposure photo.
thats called hot pixels its common on all cameras, phone cameras on the sensor.
@@k.skyl1n3zz Thanks. I Googled it and yup hot pixels it is! Glad I don’t have to deal with returning my phone.
I just took a 10 sec night mode photo with my iPhone 16 ProMax. I put the lens against my bed sheet in a dark room. The resulting photo was just black with a small amount of noise. No blue lines. Then I realized you said 30Sec. So I waited for 30Sec to show up (instead of 10) and took a 30sec shot with the aforementioned technique. This time the resulting photo had a blue pixel in the centre of frame, three around the top and also 3 around the bottom. I’m starting to think this might be a computational problem. I believe you can “turn off” the individual lenses in the camera settings. And this might help to answer what’s going on.
It's just the phone's inclination, when resting on the back, because of the protrution of the rear lens there is a little gap from where enters a tiny bit of light to the sensor, which produce the akward images we're getting. Try taping all the lenses and then take a shot and you will probably get a pitch dark one.
The desktop test is simply to see where the lines are. Apple are not interested in a black photo with blue lines and nor should they be. Its only to see where they are. Then go and take some photos and see if it turns up in the pics. If its in the pics, they absolutely should be fixing this.
@@ShayneMostynbut the lines are there cause light coming in from the corner? In pitch black room doing the desktop test they don't appear
@@ShayneMostyn blue lines are light, how hard is to comprehend that??? your test is beyond stupid...
This is crazy, my work 15 Pro Max does similar thing, especially noticable with telephoto. Friend of mine have 16 Pro and there is same issue, we also went together to Apple store and tried in on multiple phones that we could, and every single one had this issue. But at the same time, my significant other has 16 Pro Max, which so far seem fine, no issue at all, and it is early device when preorders opened.
I remember seeing a very similar looking issue in photos on my HTC M7 back in the day. Just like Apple, HTC said that there was no issue until they started repairing phones for free. Turns out the camera module was not thermally insulated that well and the heat from the processor was interfering with the camera causing pink banding. Before I got mine fixed I would always notice the issue disappeared if I took photos while outside in the snow but reappeared when I went inside to a warmer environment.
I had it on the 15 pro and a software update fixed it at some point.
Time to test the pixel 9 pro astrophotography 😁
Really?! Was it red on your 15 pro? I seen where some 14 and 15 had red and some had blue and also some with blue red and green lol
So you had it then didn’t have it after an update on the 15 pro for sure?
I have a blue - red stripe problem on my iPhone 15 pro max
@@KMakrozahopoulos that’s wild, thanks for the info, I have been trying to figure out what’s causing it and how long it’s actually been an issue, seems going all the way back to at least the 13 pro max this has been a thing in some devices. Crazy, I have found some galaxy users also have issues with long night mode as well, so I don’t think it’s only iPhone either lol but that’s another story I suppose
There was a rumor about the iPhone 16 pro max getting the new Sony sensor this year. I wonder if it’s an issue for this years main sensor versus the old ones
It’s nothing new, there are iPhone 13, 14 and 15 with this same issue, some have red banding, some blue, I seen one with red and blue and some green, and some like mine (replacement) iPhone 16 pro and my girls iPhone 16 pro work great totally.
In all honesty during my round with the blues on my first iPhone 16 and first iPhone ever, I ran into some galaxy’s that had issues with night mode not working properly at long exposure as well. So it may really be a hit and miss issue regardless the brand.
It has just gone unnoticed for the most part because it’s a small amount of people using it in this way, and out of them and even smaller amount of people that have the issue and beyond that even smaller amount that notices it lol.
But for those that do I agree they should be able to get it fixed.
Apple Store told me in person that if my replacement does it then I can bring it back as well and they would swap untill I get one that works as it should through and through so idk, I’m glad I didn’t have to go back.. I was able to show them “normal” night mode photos with the blue mess along with the blue screen that I captured in a darkened room.
I did a ton of investigating on this, looked at loads of night mode astrophotos from all model iPhones to compare and see what I could find, being new to Apple I was not happy I had the problem, and so It was driving me nuts inspecting endlessly lol
Following on from my previous comment, I replaced my 16 pro yesterday.
I was in my 14 day return period and I knew software wasn’t going to fix my issues, despite AppleCare saying there’ll ‘definitely’ be a fix in the next 2 weeks.
New one doesn’t have the blue streaks issue. Quite a few hot pixels but nowhere near as bad as my previous 16P. At ISO8000 I’m getting completely black images. At ISO10000, the hot pixels appear but it’s not a massive dealbreaker.
Photographic styles also seem to be behaving themselves this time.
What exactly are hot pixels? I’ve tested my camera but apparently I’m seeing some blue pixels, is that what you are referring to? Is it normal?
Sorry, but how exactly do you get the ISO that high? When I do the test that he explained in the video, I’m only getting ISO 1250 in a completely dark cabinet.
Perhaps a characteristic of the new faster read-out sensor? Faster sensors often compromise on DR and this is most apparent in dark shadows.
Yeah that is a valid problem. My iPhone 13 Pro shows nothing of sort, and according to Apple my phone shouldn’t be the greatest iPhone yet.
Just tested it with my 16 Pro Max. In my case it only seems to happen when the camera app uses the Fusion lens. When I manually force it to only use the wide angle or tele lens, it doesn't have the blue band(s). Weirdly enough I have not been able to disable the Fusion lens in 1x mode.
Well, keep us updated so we know what happens!
It seems sort of rare for a company to put out a product (hardware or software) that is perfect from the start. But when they try to deny there is a problem, without first investigating, is very bad. This is the risk you take when you are an early adopter.
I had some interesting results from testing with camera face down in the dark, with my 16 Pro Max. My first one was crazy blue noise with a circle in the middle. Then the next ones were black with white noise/pixels spread out. Didn’t matter if I was shooting raw or not. It’s almost like it had to do some pixel mapping first to get all black after. There was a weird anomaly on that blue circular one as it wanted to call it a portrait but I wasn’t in portrait mode…
EDIT: I was able to reproduce the blue circular noise…if I’m in photo mode, jpeg, have manual aperture on, shoot 30s, it will give me crazy blue noise effect. If I don’t have manual aperture on, it won’t give crazy blue effect. In RAW, you dont get the custom aperture option, and in my case I get all black, with white pixels spread out
Just checked my phone, iPhone 16 pro Max 256GB storage. Firstly it was very hard during the day to get the camera in a dark enough place. But boy! When I did, I was blown away. I was about to call Apple, but I wonder if they even recognise it in the general scheme of things. Is the person at the other end of the phone likely to know about this already?
I have just put a screen protector on my phone, and bought the case for it. I would be very loathed to get it replaced.
I just tried the night mode on iPhone 16 pro max and I’m not getting the blue stripes, it sucks what happened to you
I have the issue - bought at launch day - and it is massive when using 30 second night mode. The entire picture is blue.
Thanks for highlighting this. After watching your earlier video I found that my phone had this issue. Called Apple support and the guy did the test and did an appointment for my phone checkup. Sadly here in New Zealand there is no Apple Store so these issues are handled by “Authorised “ Apple repairs and these guys acknowledge the problem but want me to hand over my phone for couple of days for repairs. Am not comfortable with that as I want a straight swap. Thoughts people on what to do now?
When I was in the Apple store in the UK looking at this because I raised it as a support issue, they tried 2 store phones to see if there was an issue. One had the issue (like my phone) and the other didn't. Both Apple techs agreed there was an issue. I kept my phone because I wanted it logged as an issue on my phone early on in the process. Guess this memo means that there was no point and I should have tried to get a replacement. Watching this story unfold with great interest.
I just found on my iPhone 14 Pro Max today, thanks to your video. I bought the my iPhone 14 Pro Max 2 years ago.
For those who want to inspect, Open Camera, Set Night Mode Timer to 30 seconds.
I got this blue line mentioned in the video.
Man this start to bug me, after making aware of this issue after 2 years after buying the iPhone 14 Pro Max.
Back from the Apple Store, they said because I had a beta version on the phone I had to uninstall it. I did tell them I put the beta on because I had an issue with my camera and I thought maybe it had been fixed in beta. Working in IT for 35 yearsgives you that kind of insight, although I can imagine some people might be daunted by the idea of putting beta software on your phone, all of the time I have been put in the developer beta up on my phones. I have never had a really bad issue iOS 18.2 beta two seems to be a little buggy and sometimes hangs.
I have subscribed to the channel as I think for my own sanity that it would be a good idea to see how this plays out. It looks like the start of something big probably remember "Bend Gate" I would be surprised if this doesn't get a recall happening. What does anybody else think? I was only checking out my camera after seeing this video in my feed and it's probably the most important TH-cam video I have ever seen as far as me not getting shafted by Apple. 🤬
I have an iPhone 15 Pro Max and I am certain that this model has also the issue. In my case there is a combination of blue and red noice.
There is even a photo I posted in the fb page that appears in this particular video.
Greetings from Greece, I really love your channel.
One biggest secret about Apple is that no matter how new iPhone is your replacement phone is always Refurbished phone.
Does this problem affect the 16 Pro Max as well?
Probably yes. As far as I know, both iPhones have the same camera
@@alexander9895 damn
Yep, I did the 30 second test on my desk and got the blue lines. Thanks for posting this.
Great channel. Just want to make sure I’m not missing something here. With a proper astro camera, calibration frames are required to take care of a host of noise issues with the sensor. Setting aside sensor quality for a moment, could one not fix this with dark frames?
Cheers mate. I appreciate the way you asked that. Some of the other "astrophotographers" come here being wankers and big noting themselves because they can buy loads of expensive gear, just to put down hundreds of thousands of people that are doing this with phones. I honestly appreciate the way you asked that. Yes, you could probably resolve it (i'm sure) with dark frames on the desktop. But thats not what phone astro is. When possible (and it always has been) it should be 100% on the phone. This isn't a situation where we go "this is a problem, go and buy a desktop and software to resolve it". Its a situation where it should be working, just like all other phones. Thanks mate
My 16 Pro Max has that problem too…
I got same issue with 30sec iPhone 15 Pro Max phone just laying down on the table dark room with monitor on, however if i cover phone with a cloth from all sides I get dark frame. To me it’s just light leak and the way softwares merges ProRaw multi frame due to high ISO.
My wife's iphone 16 pro has the same issue (the blue stripes).
We will go to the Apple Store soon and report back.
I would say if you can go within 14 days as they have a 14 day exchange/return policy, and try to take a few “normal” night photos where the blue beams are clearly intrusive, it may help, I think that’s what helped me get such a smooth and easy exchange. I took a few photos in an almost totally blacked out room, my living room, so some of the photo was lit up a little and the blue beams were very obviously intrusive.
Good luck, wishing you all the best!
I went to the store today and they are going to replace my device once the unit arrives in store.
well I have just tried my iphone 16 pro which was bought on release day and if you try just putting the camera down on a flat surface and take 30second photo it has blue streaks some I have seen some people say how they tested it and the same II even tried it in a box. If however I then take the same photo in the Darkroom there is no blue banding what so ever. So I wonder if its just that the sensor is picking up any sort of tiny exterior light. Either way looks like my phone is good.
Having those blue areas is not a failure is a feature :))))
I assume if apple went out and said "hey most iPhone 16s have this issue and we're offering a replacement" a whole lot of people who aren't affected by this will just use this as an opportunity to get a brand new replacement for free, so they'd be losing a bunch of money from that, let alone the money spent on fixing the issue - keep in mind, this is apple's first phone with their new AI stuff, which let's be honest, was made solely for the purpose of making investors happy, so they wouldn't want this to happen or be known with this model in particular.
it's just a lot of bad press and money spent to help a very small niche group of users unfortunately... I'm sorry, it's such a shame, and thanks for sharing this to the public, maybe if this gets enough press, apple will be pressed to fix this... hopefully
I wonder if it's just some sort of anti-reflective coating on the lens. Maybe some isopropyl on a rag would take the coating off and the purple lines would go away? Does this happen on all of the 3 cameras in night long exposure mode?
Mine has only one short faint blue line in the bottom right. It’s usable. Sorry to see that others are having it much worse.
I have a 15 pro and did the face down 30 second exposure and I do have blue specks and patterns in the image. I did it on a white paper and it wasn't as noticeable as the darker colors I tried it on. It is not always repeatable even if the the blue is there, it is less noticeable in different shots. So, it may be present on all phones, we just don't notice it. Love your videos by the way!
Funnily enough, the front facing camera of my iPhone 15 Pro turned pink on dark photos and they covered it in the warranty. They replaced the whole FaceID thingy and I got my iPhone 15 Pro back working perfectly fine
Mmm… hard to say what causes this issue exactly, and why it does not occur with other iPhones … but, generally speaking, in digital sensor cameras, the closer the noise-level is to the signal-level (noise to image data ratio), the more prevalent banding will be, if you show underexposed. And under exposure is exactly what occurs when a camera in auto-mode, takes a primarily dark subject, and presents it as “truly dark”… a normal exposure of pure black, would result in the same as for pure white… middle grey, so in fact the image is underexposed, by pulling exposure down from middle grey to the blackness you see, thus bringing image noise (blue bands) and image data closer together… banding could specifically be due to sensor heating, just as with sensor hot pixels on traditional digital cameras
It actually does happen on other iPhones, some 13, 14, and 15 as well with red, blue, and blue green and red…..and I’ve seen some galaxy users have issues with night mode long exposure as well, not all but some…but this makes sense as a possibility, I suspect that when the photo is processed the fault I think is coming as the processing happens and there is a glitch when it is trying to process the darkest parts of the photo in night mode, so your reasoning is making sense to me along with what I was already thinking about. I have been trying to figure it out since it happened to me lol, I got mine fixed (replaced) but I still am trying to figure it out and find solutions outside of Apple. So maybe there will be a fix found for those unfortunately stuck w this issue. Thanks for sharing
@@willbelial3775 right… what you can try is this… using an Astro-photography enabled application (affinity photo etc), try and set the purely black photo (intended to be black, but displaying the banding/defects), as a black-frame reference, and add the other actual Astro photographs you want to use as the final image. The stacked result should subtract the defects in the black frame, rather effectively
@@willbelial3775hmm… my two attempts at replying to you failed… stupid TH-cam! Last try… take a black-frame reference … intended to be a purely black image, but showing the banding… use this in an astro photography app supporting stacking and black and white frame references… select your photo with the same sort of banding defect, but with the intended night sky image, as the actual source… stack them, and see what happens
I’m feeling super fortunate that my 16 pro max doesn’t seem to be suffering from this issue. I love taking pictures of the night sky so I would be very unhappy if I couldn’t do that.
This looks like readout noise. Depending on many factors this may be hard to calibrate out effectively. You don’t see it in bright light because the noise is quite low relative to the light being received and converted to electrons. In low light, this is however there and is intrinsic to the sensor (detector layer plus read out). It could be contamination in the manufacturing process or even intrinsic to the design / fab process. Hard to say. My guess is that SW will be hard to fix it with in all cases. Sensor calibration techniques are common and are certainly already used. But there are limits. Many many iPhones have been built so far and are in the distribution pipeline. I suspect this won’t go away soon.
This is likely a camera module calibration issue with dark current. Due to second sourcing of sensors, some might be more prone to this issue than others.
It looks like amp glow or thermal glow and if it’s down to that it isn’t a hardware fault per se, but a characteristic of the sensor quality that can vary quite a bit from sensor to sensor.
Astrophotographers will usually subtract such average sensor issues by taking an iso and temperature matched “dark frame” - a black exposure like your test and subtract that from the raw sensor data.
I don’t get as many blue streaks as you do on the dark frame test, but they are there along with some hot pixels and some red amp glow at the fringes. Usually the magnitude is of these errors are “low” wrt to the dynamic range of the sensor so I think that Apple are stretching the histogram too much post stacking which while makes the starfield look better will exacerbate these sensor errors.
Apple really dropped the ball with this one, and the iOS 18. It’s all just a hot mess of bugs 🤦♂️ it’s probably the worst release since the the time they were called Apple Computers
I am having a very bad lightings issue at the back with my iPhone 16 plus.
Any advice?
The test sounds like you’re taking dark frames, just like you’d do for normal astrophotography. Why isn’t that sampled at the factory so that it can be automatically compensated for?
That’s why I’m hanging on to my 13 pro max. You know it’s bad when you have to install the beta to fix the blatant problems in your latest release.
Very interesting I watch your previous video about this issue. Been subscribed to your channel for a while. I love night photography and I have shared your video now with several bigger TH-camrs in North America. Hopefully they will start covering it and make this a bigger issue and hopefully Apple will fix this.
Got the same problem with my Samsung S20U.
I been trying to tell people, it’s not just iPhone, many phones struggle in night mode long exposure even Samsung, hope you can find a workaround for it!
Just tested all three cameras on my 16PM and so far so good. Hoping this gets resolved for others.
"Shot on iPhone 16 Pro". 😂
This is super interesting in the fact that Apple will hopefully fix. As tech getting more and more advanced, if any phone manufacturer wants to have the best camera capabilities, they need to listen to the users of all genres of use. Great video Shayne!
Hi, I have a 15 pro max and I’ve noticed the blu glow appears only when there is a leak of light into the camera (cause the device is not completely adherent to the surface it is placed on), if I place the device on a towel the image is completely black without glows. In this case it is an expected behaviour that in very low light conditions at a very high ISO some digital noise is normal.
Can you try to take a 30s shot in a completely dark room? Maybe wrapping the phone in a towel or in a well sealed box?
What happens if you use starry landscape stacker on darks and light images to see if the blue line will be removed. Just curious
I just did the ”put my phone down on the desk and shoot for 30 seconds” test and I have two very small, but bright, blue dots on the right hand side of the image. This is on a 16 Pro Max. I have to zoom in to see them but they’re there.
I’m not sure if this issue is significant enough to warrant a phone replacement by Apple, as I don’t have blue bars across the image, just two glowing blue dots on the right-hand side.
Update: I just shot five more 30-second photos and some have blue dots everywhere and some are pure black. So now I don’t know what’s going on. Could this be a software issue? I’m using iOS 18.1 (the version coming out tomorrow) if that makes a difference.
After watching your video, I tried it and yes, I send the lines there immediately and wait for the blue one to arrive.
I would really appreciate it if you acknowledge in the video as well that iPhone 15 Pro Max has that same problem I have replaced my phone once and it’s still consist of the same problem. I really don’t know what to do. Apple support team has started ignoring me.
Right on, I have seen people have this issue with the 13, 14 and 15….and honestly , while digging I found some people with issues with galaxy’s long night mode as well (which I’ve used for the past 10 years untill now lol so maybe more phones have these issues undetected by the masses than we realize,,,,,,,guess he doesn’t mention it with 15 because it didn’t happen to him, but I would say this has always been an issue in some devices in all iPhone models for years, possibly in most phone brands in general.
May I ask, was it a blue mess on your 15 or red?
The iPhone 15 pro /max dont have this problem?
Is this with the camera app Built inside the phone ?
Some of them do, some 13 and some 14 as well as 15 and 16, some blue beams, some red beams, some blue and red and even some green
I think it’s a software problem
@@willbelial3775 I Will try with my 15 pro at night
Your photos are great
@@philippe7166 That’s what I’m hoping this is. I’m running iOS 18.1 and I’m experiencing this only on my main camera for some reason. The dots are there, but with each photo they are in a different location on the image.
Thanks for this. Happy I watched this today as it’s helped me decide to stick to my 15pro
I'm glad this video popped up because I have the exact same problem on the US model! On the Chinese model (which I purposely bought, since I was sure their version would be different, as it always has been), this problem does not exist.
Just start publishing a heap of photos with the fault and watermark on it "Taken on iPhone 16"
It is possible that the reason for the photos request from Apple is that in some testing they found light leaks that may be causing the problem and wanted to see if something in the assembly process was different with the phones that have the problem. So may not be doing anything nefarious. Certainly there may be those at Apple that may try to just make the problem go away, but I suspect most engineers are trying to find out the cause so they can fix it. Good on you, though, for pointing this out and staying on it.
Wait, what’s the problem? I couldn’t see anything in those photos.
I can’t even take a night photo, it’s appealing as a picture for a second od left lower corner when I’m still in the camera app and latter turns grey. In library is just gray file and is nothing what I can to with this. I can’t send it to iPad thru airdrop.
Well I finally got my camera to work, another bug bug with the camera app crashing on the iPhone 16 pro max. And then had a chance to finally capture the northern lights in my area to see blue dots mixed with the stars. This like many camera sensors indicates dead spots on the sensor. I never had the blue bands with mine. They tried to tell me it was expected noise and normal, I argued the point and was escalated to the next level. Then they agreed to replace it, so I’m waiting on the replacement now. Let’s see if I end up with a blue band one, another one with dead spots on the sensor, or one that works like I would expect for the cost of this phone.
Thx for surfacing this issue. My 16PM does not have the issue. My wife’s phone has it. We bought it at the same time directly from apple. Going to try to replace hers in an apple store as others suggested.
I don’t think this test works anymore. You can only do max 10s on a table now. The iPhone uses the proximity sensors so you need to be in an open space for 30s to appear. I think the best test is to take a photo in really low light in an open space and see if the issue appears. A pitch black room doesn’t work as it’s an unrealistic environment. You will see all sorts of pixels, blue lines etc. But this is the same with any camera sensor. Best to do a “real world” test IMO.
The "test" on the desk doesn't prove anything (as I mentioned in this video). Its a way to help you see any issue on actual photos. Showing an Apple tech both images (desk shot and actual real world pics) immediately identifies the problem for them
@@ShayneMostyn when I say the test doesn’t work anymore, I mean it doesn’t do a 30s exposure like it did in your example. It only does 10s which doesn’t show anything more than a black screen. To access the 30s exposure you need to be in an open space as the iPhone uses the proximity sensor.
@@OutdoorsIQ I literally just did it before typing this response.
@@ShayneMostyn 8 I suspect you might be using the Beta? I’m using the current stable release 18.0.1.
@@OutdoorsIQ no, I’m on 18.0.1
I was so keen to update my phone but this is concerning. Basically, I'm going to have to test the absolute F out of it within the 14 day period so I can swap it if need be, or just get my money back and be done with it. This whole release feels so half-baked from the phone, to the AI lacking staggered rollout and the iOS in general, so many issues all around that it feels like a lot of corners have been cut.
Is this a regional problem? Are only the phones being shipped to certain regions affected or is it a problem all over the world?
Still on 15pm & since iOS 18 came out I’m having bugs, the fact that I can’t search my photos is my biggest bugbear
I'm on a 12 and so many bugs showing up, the most half-assed software update they've ever released
@@jamographer if I’m totally honest I haven’t been as happy with my 15pm as I was with my 13pm but as you say this is possibly the worse iOS in years
I don’t think this is a hardware fault in the slightest. Night mode pushes the noise floor boundary of these sensors. All sensors do this, the key is having a software/hardware calibration that doesn’t push the noise into your final product. You’ve never seen it before because previous sensors kept that noise floor below the software calibration. So yeah, something is different on some of the production runs that is squeezing above that level. I’m highly confident this can be tuned out. If you take the raw data of any sensor you can push it hard enough to get this effect. I used to battle this all the time in Lightroom with early day Canon SLR’s. That’s why they have techniques like dark frame subtraction.
But why are not all 16 Pro (Max) devices affected then?
Because there are manufacturing variations. The current development flow of the raw data is pushing too close to the noise floor and some sensors are above it. Others below it.
Well, I have booked an appointment at 2:20 pm in my local store, about 30 miles away. I'm not going just for that but also because I have the stage light problem on my MacBook Air M2, which Apple don't recognise as a problem since 2016. I'm going to get a quote on Repairs as Apple do not cover it as a recall. It hasn't got AppleCare on it and also it is out of warranty.
So it's two birds with one stone watch this space… oh, I am in the UK too
It looks like typical shielding issue of the cable/connector or on the module itself. It causes noise leaks on the data path - that's why they are on stripes. If this is cable then fix should be easy and cheap. If on module - it could be quite expensive to fix. Also this type of hardware issues indicate assembly issues in factory - that's why some iphones have it and other wont. It would be useful to compare S/N numbers of the phones. Jus a private opinion.
Does it only happen in 30 sec mode? someone on your video wrote that he had this problem with 15PM as well, and someone else commented here that he got it with S20U, how is it iPhone 16 specific ?
16 pro max with an all blue screen fading to black on right side of screen doing 30 second test in total darkness, under a thick black towel even.
I’m still leaning towards this being software. Why? Because nothing shows up at 10 seconds, and everyone is getting variable results at 30 seconds, probably based on ambient light noise that we cant visually detect leaking in. I would think it would start to show at 10 seconds for some and get worse. Something between the new software and new hardware doesn’t seem to be calibrated. So much of smartphone photography is computational.
This video confirms one thing; that Australia is full of bugs 😊
AHAHAHA
I just tried the desk test and mine has the problem. Not as dramatic as yours but it’s there.
Didn’t Apple add a new anti reflective lens coating this year to reduce lens flare? Maybe instantaneous of an uneven application of that coating is causing the blue lines to appear
Hi, iPhone 16 pro max here preordered on September 20th, tested all three cameras and i don’t see any blue lines or blue dots, I’m on iOS 18.0.1
Hi Shayne just tested my iphone seems to be good just had to clean the lenses as it was picking up fine dust as soon as i cleaned them had no problems
It is hardware. It's a imperfection in the lens itself
I’m all good but I’m having a problem with the camera crashing and sometimes it doesn’t record audio with recording video sometimes the entire phone crashes and reboots on its own when I try to use the camera
Thats a shame. The audio mixer is by far the best thing about this phone.
Until the 18.1 update tomorrow Apple is just happy enough that your camera app isn’t crashing every 24 hours
So, I tried this dark frame 30s capture on my iPhone 15 Pro Max.
At first, I had a strong gradient show up on the top right of the photo. I think that was because the camera lens and the photo bump caused light leakage due to not being quite flush with the table.
I then took some Starbucks gift cards and propped up the lower left corner of the phone and tried again. It took a couple of tries, but I got the right thickness to get the lens properly flush and blocking out all exterior light.
This time, I got a completely black frame. I’ll have to do some further processing to bring up the gain to see if there’s any hidden streaks, but on initial inspection, it looks like I don’t have this problem.
Of course, this is just one data point.
take regular dark photos of the night sky and see if you have the issue on photos
So the Apple engineer, didn’t know what the issue was and took the logs of the phone, told you they would refer the issue on to the phone engineers.
The engineers asked for odd photos.
That said they are taking this seriously considering they have gone to the trouble of sending a memo acknowledging that it is noise, means they are probably going to do a soft wear update.
They used to buy problem phones back.