If you’ve been reading the news lately, especially when it concerns tech related items, you may have come across a story about how people are noticing a “purple” light on photos taken with the new iPhone 5. Some sites have cried fowl to Apple, claiming this is yet another defect in an iPhone product. When Phil Schiller, Apple’s SVP of Worldwide Marketing, was posed with the question, he simply said:
“Our engineering team just gave me this information and we recommend that you angle the camera away from the bright light source when taking pictures. The purple flare in the image provided is considered normal behavior for the iPhone 5′s camera.”
Some Apple haters and critics have started the “You’re holding it wrong” parody comments, mocking a comment made by Steve Jobs when he told a customer he was holding the iPhone 4 wrong during the whole “antennagate” situation.
This time however, it appears that Apple is indeed correct, that this behavior is in fact normal. The purple light is actually a lens flare, which can be caused when a extremely bright light source is just outside the lens of the camera. Photography and digital imaging expert Raymond Soneira, who is also the president of DisplayMate Technologies, says:
“This effect is found in all cameras, even the most advanced and expensive units,” Soneira told FoxNews.com. “Tiny amounts of light always creep in from anything slightly outside of the field of view.”
Soneira goes on to say:
“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,” the document explains. “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.”
So how does Soneira say you can eliminate this problem, simply take Apple’s [Phil Schiller and his engineers] advice, move the camera slightly away from, or directly into, the light source. The expert then goes on to say that while the iPhone isn’t a digital SLR or an extremely high-end camera, “… [the] iPhone camera is amazing!”
So if all this isn’t a problem, you may be wondering why has it gotten so much attention and the answer to that question is simple, because of Apple’s position in the marketplace. When you’re on top, there is no place to go but down and those below you are doing everything they can to take you down. Devices that don’t receive as much hype or have as much popularity are less likely to receive the same type of critical attention than a device that nearly everyone in America (and the world) talks about and lines up outside, days in advance, to buy.
Fact is, it’s not an issue, except for those folks who want to make it one.
Source: FoxNews