London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Thursday, Oct 09, 2025

Are Your Smartphone Photos Blurry? Here’s Why

Sometimes, you might take what you think is a great photo with your smartphone, only to see afterward it’s all blurry. If that’s happening to you a lot, let’s take a look at what might be causing it.

You’re Taking Photos in Low Light

Smartphone cameras have very small image sensors, which means they need quite a lot of light to take good photos. At night, in the evening, or even just indoors on a cloudy day, the amount of light available isn’t enough for your smartphone to easily take a decent photo. So, your phone starts to make compromises.

The first thing it does is increase the ISO (basically, how sensitive the sensor is) so it needs less light to get a photo. The trade-off, though, is that this also increases the amount of digital noise. If your photos look grainy (like the image above) instead of blurry, this is likely what’s going on.

Another compromise your smartphone will make is using a slower shutter speed. This means, it takes longer to take the photo to allow more light to reach the sensor.

Unfortunately, a slower shutter speed means other things can happen, as well.


Your Hand Moved

A slow shutter speed, like 1/4 of a second, means the camera is taking the photo long enough to also record any movement your hand makes-even if it’s just a little shake.

You can see a fairly dramatic example of this in the image above. Most of the time, however, this kind of blur is a lot subtler. However, it’s one of the most common causes of blurry photos if you shoot indoors or in poor lighting. Even just tapping the shutter button can shake your smartphone enough to blur an image.

This kind of blur doesn’t happen much when it’s nice and bright outside because your smartphone uses a shutter speed that’s fast enough to prevent it.


Something Moves as You Shoot

Even if you keep your hands completely still, if something (or someone) moves when you shoot your photo, it’ll turn out blurry. For example, the guy in the image above moved just a little as this image was shot, but it was still enough to ruin the photo.

While this is also common when you shoot in low light, it can happen at any time if the subject moves fast enough. For example, if you try to shoot a race car passing by, no matter how good the light is, it’s probably going to turn out blurry.


You Zoomed in Too Far

There are two kinds of zoom:

Optical: The lens physically magnifies objects that are far away. This is what a telephoto lens on smartphones does.
Digital: Rather than zooming in on distant objects, your smartphone crops (or performs other tricks) the photo tighter. This makes it look like you zoomed in, but it’s really just throwing away image data.
An iPhone Xs, for example, has a 2x optical zoom with the telephoto lens. However, it also has a 10x digital zoom, for which it takes a photo from the telephoto lens and crops it really close.

The problem is, since there’s no additional image data to draw on, it reduces the quality of the image. It also creates other problems, like making the blur from your shaking hand even more apparent.


There’s a Smudge on the Lens

Sometimes, the problem isn’t how the photo was taken, but rather, that it was taken with a dirty lens. If there’s water, oil from your skin, dirt, sweat, or anything else on your smartphone’s camera lens, it will affect your photos.

In the image above, some water from the mist got on the lens, which is why it’s blurry.


Your Camera Missed Focus

While it’s not an especially common problem due to how smartphone cameras are designed, your photos might be blurry because they’re out of focus.

Smartphone cameras are set up so that most of any given photo will be in focus. This is why everyone looks good in a group photo, but it’s impossible to take a portrait with a blurry background without resorting to software trickery.

However, smartphone cameras still have to focus the lens, even if they normally don’t have to adjust it too much. For example, if you previously focused on something close and try to shoot something farther away before the camera has a chance to refocus, it will be slightly out of focus.

Your smartphone camera can also misfocus if it accidentally focuses on the wrong thing. For example, say you’re trying to take a close-up of a unicorn, but the camera keeps focusing on the background, as shown above.


You Saved a Photo from Social Media

Social media platforms, like Facebook and Instagram, crush the quality of the images you upload to save bandwidth and uploading time. Unfortunately, this means if you download a photo you’ve previously posted on social media, it can look awful.

This will happen even if the original looked great on your phone.


How to Avoid Blurry Smartphone Photos

Whatever the reason your photos are blurry, there are some practical steps you can take to avoid it in the future.

Here’s what to do:

Shoot in the best lighting possible: Taking photos in low light introduces heaps of problems. The best way to avoid them is to avoid bad lighting whenever you can. Shoot outdoors or only in the best light you can find indoors.

Keep your hands steady: If your hands move, you’ll get a blurry photo. Brace your arms tightly against your body and keep your smartphone as still as possible. If you have a smartphone tripod, use it whenever you can, or just prop your phone against something.

Cue your subjects: If you’re taking a photo of a group of people, ask them all to remain as still as possible.

Avoid fast-moving subjects: Even under the best of circumstances, these will almost always turn out blurry.

Use burst mode: If you take more than one photo in quick succession, you increase the chances that everything will line up for at least one of them. It also prevents you from shaking your phone by tapping the shutter button.

Don’t zoom in too much: A little bit of digital zoom will, likely, go unnoticed, but if you zoom in too far, it’s obvious.

Tap your subject to focus on it: Your smartphone’s autofocus can sometimes think the wrong thing is the subject.

Clean the lens: A microfiber lens cloth is best, but a bit of tissue will do.

Take manual control of your phone: If you’re in a really tricky situation, you can set the shutter speed and ISO you need to get the best possible photo. Here’s how to do this on an iPhone or Samsung phone.

Be realistic: Smartphone cameras have come a long way, but they’re still limited compared to dedicated cameras. This is due to the size of the sensors, the fixed aperture of the lenses, and the more constrained designs. Given this, you can’t expect to capture the perfect image every time.

Comments

Moon Minhas 5 year ago
Hi, You explained the topic very well. The contents has provided meaningful information thanks for sharing info
Best10.today

Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
France: Less Than a Month After His Appointment, the New French Prime Minister Resigns
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán stated that Hungary will not adopt the euro because the European Union is falling apart.
Sarah Mullally Becomes First Woman Appointed Archbishop of Canterbury
Mayor in western Germany in intensive care after stabbing
Australian government pays Deloitte nearly half a million dollars for a report built on fabricated quotes, fake citations, and AI-generated nonsense.
US Prosecutors Gained Legal Approval to Hack Telegram Servers
Macron Faces Intensifying Pressure to Resign or Trigger New Elections Amid France’s Political Turmoil
Standard Chartered Names Roberto Hoornweg as Sole Head of Corporate & Investment Banking
UK Asylum Housing Firm Faces Backlash Over £187 Million Profits and Poor Living Conditions
UK Police Crack Major Gang in Smuggling of up to 40,000 Stolen Phones to China
BYD’s UK Sales Soar Nearly Nine-Fold, Making Britain Its Biggest Market Outside China
Trump Proposes Farm Bailout from Tariff Revenues Amid Backlash from Other Industries
FIFA Accuses Malaysia of Forging Citizenship Documents, Suspends Seven Footballers
Latvia to Bar Tourist and Occasional Buses to Russia and Belarus Until 2026
A Dollar Coin Featuring Trump’s Portrait Expected to Be Issued Next Year
Australia Orders X to Block Murder Videos, Citing Online Safety and Public Exposure
Three Scientists Awarded Nobel Prize in Medicine for Discovery of Immune Self-Tolerance Mechanism
OpenAI and AMD Forge Landmark AI-Chip Alliance with Equity Option
Munich Airport Reopens After Second Drone Shutdown
France Names New Government Amid Political Crisis
Trump Stands Firm in Shutdown Showdown and Declares War on Drug Cartels — Turning Crisis into Opportunity
Surge of U.S. Billionaires Transforms London’s Peninsula Apartments into Ultra-Luxury Stronghold
Pro Europe and Anti-War Babiš Poised to Return to Power After Czech Parliamentary Vote
Jeff Bezos Calls AI Surge a ‘Good’ Bubble, Urges Focus on Lasting Innovation
Japan’s Ruling Party Chooses Sanae Takaichi, Clearing Path to First Female Prime Minister
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Sentenced to Fifty Months in Prison Following Prostitution Conviction
Taylor Swift’s ‘Showgirl’ Launch Extends Billion-Dollar Empire
Trump Administration Launches “TrumpRx” Plan to Enable Direct Drug Sales at Deep Discounts
Trump Announces Intention to Impose 100 Percent Tariff on Foreign-Made Films
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Singapore and Hong Kong Vie to Dominate Asia’s Rising Gold Trade
Trump Organization Teams with Saudi Developer on $1 Billion Trump Plaza in Jeddah
Manhattan Sees Surge in Office-to-Housing Conversions, Highest Since 2008
Switzerland and U.S. Issue Joint Assurance Against Currency Manipulation
Electronic Arts to Be Taken Private in Historic $55 Billion Buyout
Thomas Jacob Sanford Named as Suspect in Deadly Michigan Church Shooting and Arson
Russian Research Vessel 'Yantar' Tracked Mapping Europe’s Subsea Cables, Raising Security Alarms
New York Man Arrested After On-Air Confession to 2017 Parents’ Murders
U.S. Defense Chief Orders Sudden Summit of Hundreds of Generals and Admirals
Global Cruise Industry Posts Dramatic Comeback with 34.6 Million Passengers in 2024
Trump Claims FBI Planted 274 Agents at Capitol Riot, Citing Unverified Reports
India: Internet Suspended in Bareilly Amid Communal Clashes Between Muslims and Hindus
Supreme Court Extends Freeze on Nearly $5 Billion in U.S. Foreign Aid at Trump’s Request
Archaeologists Recover Statues and Temples from 2,000-Year-Old Sunken City off Alexandria
China Deploys 2,000 Workers to Spain to Build Major EV Battery Factory, Raising European Dependence
Speed Takes Over: How Drive-Through Coffee Chains Are Rewriting U.S. Coffee Culture
U.S. Demands Brussels Scrutinize Digital Rules to Prevent Bias Against American Tech
Ringo Starr Champions Enduring Beatles Legacy While Debuting Las Vegas Art Show
Private Equity’s Fundraising Surge Triggers Concern of European Market Shake-Out
Colombian President Petro Vows to Mobilize Volunteers for Gaza and Joins List of Fighters
×