Today’s smartphones take better photos and videos than the dedicated digital cameras of yore, but they aren’t without their issues. Over on Reddit, some smartphone shutterbugs report their photos are plagued by a recurring problem—weird blobs (or dots) scattered across every image. No matter what they do, they can’t seem to get the blobs to go away. But there’s a reason they show up, and a way to fix it (though it might not be cheap).
Beware of the blobs
This happened to me and my iPhone 11 Pro. I opened the box, set the phone up, and took my first photo with the then brand new triple-camera system, expecting to be impressed by the results. And I was, save for an odd, faint blob hanging around the middle of the photo. I tried another shot—same deal. Then I looked closely at the viewfinder, and, sure enough, with the right background, you could see an obvious dot there too.
This Redditor on r/iPhone was in a worst spot than I was, too. Their photo looks more like it has chicken pox:
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It’s a camera. For your car.
The Ring Car Cam’s dual-facing HD cameras capture activity in and around your car in HD detail.
But whether it’s a single dot or many, what makes the issue even more peculiar is it usually only affects one of the cameras. The Redditor had an issue with their ultra-wide camera, while my problem was with the wide angle lens. If you switch to any of the other cameras, the dots go away (provided iOS actually switches the camera and doesn’t just crop the affected lens).
Your first instinct might be to clean the affected lens. Since it’s hard to determine which lens is which sometimes, you might clean them all for good measure. Alas, the dots remain, no matter how hard you scrub. That’s because it isn’t a problem with the outside of your lens, but the inside.
What’s going on here is, somehow, dust has found its way into the camera. In my case, it clearly happened during production, but for others, that debris might have invaded over time. That can be a rather serious thing, since it means the seals around the camera that normally keep out dust and debris are damaged or broken. It isn’t a matter of opening the phone, cleaning the sensor, and going about your business, either: If the seals aren’t working, you’re only dooming yourself to more dust in the future.
In that case, the best thing to do is to take your phone in for repair, whether you have an iPhone or an Android. For my issue, because the iPhone was brand new, Apple did a full unit swap, no questions asked. That shouldn’t always be necessary, though—they might be able to replace the camera module itself, which would be a much cheaper fix than replacing the phone for a device that’s out of warranty.
Of course, it’s worth trying to clean your cameras first. Maybe you’ll be lucky and the issues will disappear once you wipe the lenses—a fix that will cost you exactly $0.
