macOS Sonoma + Continuity Camera + iPhone 13 = Wide Angle Only (unless you use Center Stage)

[nbfa]

This seems like a bug, but perhaps there's either a setting I'm not noticing.

I love using my iPhone 13 (iOS 17.0.1) on my Intel-based MacBook Pro running macOS 14 Sonoma (final release, 23A344), however I noticed something that's been frustrating me. This issue only seem to have occurred in a recent Zoom release, perhaps as early as 5.15, but it might have also corresponded with the final release of macOS.

This iPhone has a wide angle and standard (main) on the back.  Using Continuity Camera, it seems the only way to use the standard (main) camera is to use Center Stage, which is the macOS video processing feature that tracks and zooms in on the figure in the video conference. I don't like using Center Stage, because it's distracting; there's too much motion: zooming in and out, even when I move slightly.

However, turning off Center Stage will always default to the wide angle camera, which is also not desirable. It reminds me of a fisheye lens.

Irrespective of whether I set Zoom preferences to use HD or Original Ratio, the effect is the same. There's no option to set the preference to standard (main) lens, either in macOS or Zoom.

When using FaceTime, however, I can choose wide angle or standard, independent of Center Stage.

[laidiferruni]

I'm having exactly the same issue. Don't know why. I think it's a bug.

[claytonjohnson]

I figured this out, you need to 

• Click on the continuity camera icon in the menubar
• It should bring up the settings
• In the video, there is a zoom slider that has a .5 and 1 
• You're probably stuck on the .5 which is the wide angle lens
• You need to select the 1 which is the main lens

I made a video here: 

https://youtu.be/thiyBF7qLDs

Hope that helps

[laidiferruni]

Duuuuude! You're the man! Can't believe it was such a simple fix. Apple needs to make this more intuitive. I tried everything I could think of, besides this lol!

But I wasn't seeing it because the main camera used to be the facetime camera.

Appreciate it a lot! 

[nbfa]

The bug is that this doesn't work, at least on my iPhone 13. There's no slider, neither with Photo Booth (as in your video) or with FaceTime, or with Zoom. As I mentioned earlier, there's only Main and Ultra Wide as toggles when you enable Center Stage, but disabling Center Stage makes the options disappear and it defaults to Ultra Wide.

[claytonjohnson · Accepted solution]

Try this - 

1. Turn center stage off (make sure it's NOT green... it has to be off for the sliders to appear)

2. Then hover over the video area with your mouse - that's when the sliders appear for me

At least for me thats how I got it to work!

Hope that's hepful

[nbfa]

Yes, that's the ticket. The hover. Either I didn't read your post appropriately, or didn't pay attention enough. I agree with the other poster that this is not intuitive. Thanks for stickin' with me on this. 

[Kaizentric]

Yeeees!, You're my hero Clayton. This was so frustrating and unintuitive to figure out. The 1x main iphone lense is so good compared to the .5x or any other webcam for that matter

[selfdirected]

THANK YOU! Our future Podcast episodes will look so much better. Thank you for pointing me n the right direction 🙂