7 ways to fix your iPhone camera if it’s blurry
- If your iPhone camera is blurry, be sure to clean the lenses with a clean and dry microfiber cloth.
- You should also try restarting the Camera app and the phone itself.
- Don’t pinch to zoom when composing your photos, as this can lead to blurry photos as well.
Today, photo-taking is far-reaching and ubiquitous because nearly everyone has a camera in their pocket at all times thanks to smartphones like the iPhone.
But while modern iPhones are capable of taking superb photos, you might sometimes run into situations when your iPhone camera takes blurry images.
Here’s how to troubleshoot your iPhone camera and restore the sharp, high-quality images it’s designed to capture.
Mục lục
Clean the lens
This might seem obvious, but most of the time blurry photos are caused by a dirty lens. For the best results, wipe the lens with a clean and dry microfiber cloth. In fact, it’s not a bad idea to carry a microfiber cloth with you for this very purpose. Don’t use your fingers or hand, though, nor should you use tissues that have been treated with lotion or softener — residue will wipe off on the lens and make the problem worse.
If you take a lot of pictures with your iPhone, carry a microfiber cloth to keep the lens clean.
Dave Johnson/Insider
Don’t pinch to zoom
If you zoom in too far when you’re composing a picture, you can make the photo blurry by relying too much on the phone’s digital zoom. Many iPhone models have a 2X or even a 3X optical zoom. You can safely zoom in that far and get a perfectly sharp picture. To do that, tap the zoom buttons at the bottom of the camera screen. But if you pinch to zoom, you can end up going well beyond what the optical zoom can manage, which leads to blurry photos.
For best results, stick with the preset zoom levels and don’t pinch to zoom.
Dave Johnson/Insider
Remove the phone case
Believe it or not, your phone case can interfere with the iPhone’s camera — especially if the case is made with metal components or magnets. Remove the case and try taking a picture. If the camera works better without the case, consider replacing the case with one with a different design.
Restart the camera app
If the camera is misbehaving because of a software glitch, one easy way to solve the problem is to force-close the Camera app and then restart it. Closing the app can flush out any intermittent bugs or glitches and restore it to normal working condition.
Test both the front and rear cameras
If you’re still experiencing problems with blurry pictures, it can be helpful to see if the problem happens to both the front and rear cameras. Take a couple of test photos with the rear camera, then flip to the front camera and try that as well. If your iPhone has a wide-angle mode, that uses a different lens on the rear of the phone, so you could test that as well as a normal 1x picture as well. If only some of those pictures are blurry, you have narrowed the problem down to a particular camera or lens, and might need to enlist Apple support.
Take test pictures using both the front and rear cameras to narrow down the problem.
Dave Johnson/Insider
Restart your iPhone
When it comes to troubleshooting a blurry camera on your own, you have one last trick left: Restart your iPhone. You’ve probably already tried restarting the Camera app, but it’s possible (not likely, but possible) that restarting the entire phone can resolve a more pervasive software glitch.
Contact Apple support
Finally, if none of those troubleshooting steps resolved the problem with your blurry iPhone camera, you should reach out to Apple’s customer service. Contact an Apple Store to have the phone professionally evaluated; you might need to have it repaired or replaced.
Dave Johnson is a technology journalist who writes about consumer tech and how the industry is transforming the speculative world of science fiction into modern-day real life. Dave grew up in New Jersey before entering the Air Force to operate satellites, teach space operations, and do space launch planning. He then spent eight years as a content lead on the Windows team at Microsoft. As a photographer, Dave has photographed wolves in their natural environment; he’s also a scuba instructor and co-host of several podcasts. Dave is the author of more than two dozen books and has contributed to many sites and publications including CNET, Forbes, PC World, How To Geek, and Insider.
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