Apple responds to iPhone 5 purple haze issue

When the initial reviews of the iPhone 5 started pouring in, the handset did well across the globe and everyone was overall extremely pleased with the performance of the handset across the bar. However, after the handset became available to the masses, many users started posting in various forums complaining about a certain purple haze that appeared in images captured with the iPhone 5. It was recently discovered that the reason behind this issue was either with internal reflections or lens flare that caused these anomalies to appear in the images. Apple has now recently addressed this issue and now offers a sort of fix for it and they state that this can occur when a light source is positioned at an angle.

Here is what Apple had to say about the purple haze issue in images of the iPhone 5 camera.

Symptoms
A purplish or other coloured flare, haze, or spot is imaged from out-of-scene bright light sources during still image or video capture.

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Resolution
Most small cameras, including those in every generation of iPhone, may exhibit some form of flare at the edge of the frame when capturing an image with out-of-scene light sources. This can happen when a light source is positioned at an angle (usually just outside the field of view) so that it causes a reflection off the surfaces inside the camera module and onto the camera sensor. Moving the camera slightly to change the position at which the bright light is entering the lens, or shielding the lens with your hand, should minimize or eliminate the effect.

An 8MP camera called iSight

Though the resolution to the problem can be hardly categorized as a fix, we would definitely like to know how this issue was not so visible with the iPhone 4S?

This is basically antennagate revisited once more where Apple is telling users how to use the phone.

It may be a great fact that Apple has opted for a sapphire crystal lens cover that is thinner and more durable than standard glass. However, according to their release, they state that it offers crystal clear images and this is not the case unfortunately.

A recent article by DP Review states, “The most likely cause of the iPhone 5’s purple haze is probably lens flare and internal reflections in the camera lens assembly. All lenses are succeptable to lens flare to some degree, and as you can see from the images at the top of this page, the iPhone 4S isn’t immune either (ditto the iPhone 4 and competitive smartphones from other manufacturers). But in our shooting we’ve found that it’s a little more noticeable on the iPhone 5. So why is that? It’s unlikely that the flare is solely due to the much-vaunted inclusion of a sapphire glass lens cover (although the refractive index of the sapphire glass is different to conventional optical glass, so it could be a contributing factor). Our money is on it being caused by a combination of different things, none of which, alone, is unique to the iPhone 5.”