If I understand what you are saying, it might be that your phone had a better camera than your ipad? The depth of field and atmospheric lens effects aren't really what you want - a pinhole lens like old phones (and my flir) works better since blur is the enemy.
Gaussian splats are surprisingly easy to make: https://superspl.at/scene/82eb1744 (I used a thermal camera - so I could also project the IR onto it too)https://superspl.at/scene/f9672a5e