iPhone Pro Max? Pro Anything?

I have had my iPhone 15 Pro Max for some time now and have to admit, of all the phones I have ever owned, this is the one with the most frustrating camera system.

I love the idea of the three lenses and the option to set a preferred focal length, however the way the camera switches between lenses when it is hunting for focus is annoying.

I simply do not find the macro mode easy to use.

I constantly have more misses than hits, as is demonstrated in this photo I took on my walk earlier today.

You can clearly see the flowers at the front of the shot are out of focus. There was no breeze and I tapped the screen to set point of focus.

The camera failed to focus on what I wanted.

This happens time and again.

I have also had issues with the image popping between macro modes and normal mode, automatically trying to hunt for the right lens to use. Sadly this makes framing a shot tiresome. I found myself scouring the internet to find out how to switch that off.

Now I have switched this feature off, the focus seems to have suffered.

Why have Apple made the software and the interface in this iteration of the iPhone so complicated.

Phone camera should be simple point and shoot with intuitive controls. Of all the smartphones I have owned, this is the one I trust the least.

I simply cannot guarantee that the shot I wanted, will be the one recorded by the camera.

I am starting to get so annoyed by it, it’s making me want to carry a camera with me now to compensate. At least I can trust the settings of a camera more than I can this iPhone.

Is it just me? Is this user error?

When the camera works, it works well and the shots you get are good. The RAW files are not as good an everyday cameras but you can recover a fair amount when you import the photo into Lightroom etc.

The thing is, for a snap, I don’t want to do that. Why should I have to put up with the hassle?

Maybe I should default all the settings and simply shoot jpegs?

But then, what would be the point of all the options and the multiple array of lenses?

As you can see, in this image, when the camera works correctly, it can create good photographs.

Sadly, not consistently.