The Bizarre Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro Camera Bug
Despite the Google Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro phones receiving numerous updates since their launch in October 2022, occasional odd bugs do pop up. The latest peculiar bug involves the phones’ cameras not saving close-up zoom shots – a problem that Reddit user /u/MintySkyhawk highlighted in a video. MintSkyhawk took a photo of the interiors of their PC using the 5x periscope lens with flash on, but the phone did not save the picture despite other photos being taken fine. Another user also tried to reproduce the issue by taking close-up photos of their jeans at 5x and with flash turned on.
The bug occurred on multiple phones on a team and different Android versions, with the common factor being that Google Camera version 8.7.250.494820638.44 was installed on all of them. The issue happens when taking a close-up photo with flash enabled, in low light conditions, and at the 2-5x zoom level. Since HDR bugging out is the cause according to data captured by a few debugging Redditors, it confirms that this is a Google Camera app and image processing algorithm problem rather than the phone’s faulty hardware.
To avoid the problem until Google fixes it, users should turn off flash and use the Pixel 7’s Night Sight mode instead.
Thanks goes to Mishaal for highlighting the issue.
