TheGoogle Pixel 7andPixel 7 Prohave come a long way since their launch in October 2022. These phones were plagued witha few issues at release, but Google managed to fix almost all of them via updates. Every once in a while, though, a weird Pixel bug will show up, leaving you scratching your head. Recently, abizarre Pixel 7 glitch was reportedthat led to it crashing when playing a particular YouTube video clip. Now, another absurd issue has come to the spotlight involving both the Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro cameras, with the phones refusing to save close-up zoom shots.
Reddit user /u/MintySkyhawkposted a video where his Pixel 7 Pro refuses to save close-up photos of the internals of his PC taken using the 5x periscope lens with flash turned on. While the phone can take pictures from the zoom camera just fine, it won’t save any photos of his PC’s internals for some inexplicable reason. The problem occurs irrespective of whether the cabinet’s glass side panel is installed or not.
Another Redditor tried to reproduce the issue by taking close-up images of his jeans at 5x and with flash turned on, but the phone refused to save the photos.
We successfully replicated the bug across multiple Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro units on our team, including one running the latestAndroid 13 QPR2build andAndroid 14DP2 — though it deserves mentioning that all phones were running Google Camera version 8.7.250.494820638.44, regardless of which Android version. The issue occurs when you have flash enabled and try taking a close-up photo in low light conditions with the zoom level set between 2-5x.
A few Redditors on the thread tried debugging the issue andpulled a logcatwhile using the Google Camera app. Based on the captured data, the problem seems to occur due to HDR bugging out. This confirms that the bug has more to do with the Google Camera app and its image processing algorithm and not with your Pixel ensuring you don’t capture unflattering photos of whatever subject or object you are trying to photograph.
Until Google gets around to fixing the issue, you can only marvel at the weirdness of this bug. In the meantime, the easiest way to avoid the problem is turning off flash and relying on thePixel 7’s excellent Night Sight mode instead.
