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A reality bending mistake in Apple's computational photography

appleinsider.com

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Re: A reality bending mistake in Apple's computational photography

#101

Post by bigallen »

_kb wrote: post #42
afavour wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have no objection with what we have today either but it does feel slippery slope-y, especially in the AI era. Before we know it our cameras won’t just be picking the best frame for each person, it’ll be picking the best eye, tweaking their symmetry, making the skin tone as aesthetically pleasing as possible, etc etc etc. It was always this way to an extent but now that we’ve given up the pretence of photos being “r…

That already happens, in realtime. FaceTime uses eye gaze correction, Cisco is all in on AI codecs for image and audio compression, and other vendors are on similar tracks too. When you talk to a client, a colleague or a loved one we’re on the verge of you conversing with a model that mostly represents their image and voice (you hope). The affordances of that abstraction layer will only continue to deepen from here t…

> When you talk to a client, a colleague or a loved one we’re on the verge of you conversing with a model that mostly represents their image and voice (you hope)

Wow, this threw me for a loop. There’s not much difference between talking to a heavily filtered image of a person and texting with them. Both the image and the words are merely representations of the person. Even eye-to-skin perceiving someone is a representation of their “person” to a degree. The important part is that “how” and “how much” the representation differs from reality is known to the observer

Re: A reality bending mistake in Apple's computational photography

#102

Post by dmix »

macintux wrote: post #59
PlunderBunny wrote: post #29

I heard mention on a podcast recently [0] that if you hold down the button in the iPhone camera app it will capture a set of photos and then mark the one that it thinks is the 'best' (based on, for example, the photo where everyone has their eyes open). Not the same as what happened here of course. (I keep forgetting to try this, not least because I always try to get the people out of my photos!) [0] This one, I thin…

Unfortunately they changed the behavior a few major releases ago: now holding the button down switches to video recording. Annoying for me, since I don't do video. If you use the software button you can slide to the left for burst, but afaik there's no way to trigger burst photos from the volume buttons. Maybe the new programmable button on the iPhone 15 series.

That’s still a cool shortcut I didn’t know about. It not only switches to video but it “gates” the button press so it only records a video for as long as you press the button

Re: A reality bending mistake in Apple's computational photography

#103

Post by doctoboggan »

I don't think this is true, Apple hasn't openly said they do this level of manipulation (although that doesn't mean they don't necessarily), and I don't think the range of motions she would have to go through would be possible within a single capture. Even with "Live Photos" this wouldn't happen.

Re: A reality bending mistake in Apple's computational photography

#105

Post by bawolff »

autoexec wrote: post #76
frogblast wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In the end, this tech just takes control from you. In these difficult scenarios, the alternative photo I'd get using such a small camera without this kind processing would be entirely unusable. I couldn't rescue those photos with hours of manual edits. That may be "in control", but it isn't useful.

For decades people have had the ability to get great photos using cell phones that included useful features like automatically adjusting focus, or exposure, or flash all without their phones inventing total misrepresentations of what the camera was pointed at. I mean, at a certain point taking a less than perfect photo is more important than getting a fake image that looks good. If I see a pretty flower and want to t…

> Are you saying that you're just bad at photography?

That is a bit harsh. The vast majority of all people are worse at photography than apple's algorithm.

Re: A reality bending mistake in Apple's computational photography

#106

Post by Toutouxc »

zoklet-enjoyer wrote: post #21
dgacmu wrote: post #3

I had a related experience with my Pixel 7 a few months ago. In this picture of a deer: https://photos.app.goo.gl/qChwaw9C29WVdAmr6 If you zoom in, you'll note that .. everything at a detail level looks like an oil painting, especially the deer's face and the wall behind it. Very weird effect, and that's certainly not what the wall or deer actually look like. No filters applied. Computational photography is really aw…

This is how all my bird and squirrel photos look. It really disappoints me

Well, in the big camera world, birding and wildlife means huge and expensive lenses that are both fast (i.e. they let a lot of light in) and have a large focal length. The fact that you can even attempt to take similar photos on something as tiny as a phone camera and have the object come out recognizable is nothing short of amazing.

Re: A reality bending mistake in Apple's computational photography

#107

Post by autoexec »

willseth wrote: post #97
leephillips wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Odd. I have hundreds of great shots of my toddlers, none taken with these “features”.

I know you’re pretending to be dense on purpose, but taking a dozen pictures at once and automatically picking the best one can obviously save a lot of shots. Same with combining exposures.

The camera in this case wasn't taking many shots and selecting one. It wasn't just combining exposures either. It did a bunch of shitty cut/paste operations to produce an altered composite image which showed something that never happened.

Some automatic features are wonderful. People have been able to take pictures of fast moving toddlers and pets for ages because of them. The camera "features" that secretly alter images to create lies and don't give you a photograph of what you asked them to capture are a problem.

Re: A reality bending mistake in Apple's computational photography

#108

Post by bawolff »

autoexec wrote: post #55
Aurornis wrote: post #12

Purists will always hate the idea of computational photography, but I love how well my iPhone captures handheld nighttime, low-light, and motion images. I’ve captured some photos at night that I never would have thought possible from a physically small sensor due to the laws of physics. Is it 100% pixel perfect to what was happening at the time? No, but I also don’t care. I’ve used HDR exposure stacking in the past.…

> Is it 100% pixel perfect to what was happening at the time? No, but I also don’t care. No photographer thinks images the they get on film are perfect reflections of reality. The lens itself introduces flaws/changes as does film and developing. You don't have to be a purist to want the ability to decide what gets captured or to have control over how it looks though. Those kinds of choices are part of what make photo…

> Those kinds of choices are part of what make photography an art.

Ah yes, for all those people using their iphone to make true art instead of for taking a selfie.

The market for cell phone cameras are generally casual users. High end artists generally use fancy cameras. Different trade offs for different use cases.

Re: A reality bending mistake in Apple's computational photography

#109

Post by tiltowait »

doctoboggan wrote: post #103

I don't think this is true, Apple hasn't openly said they do this level of manipulation (although that doesn't mean they don't necessarily), and I don't think the range of motions she would have to go through would be possible within a single capture. Even with "Live Photos" this wouldn't happen.

I’m also skeptical. I want it to be true, because it’s pretty wild, but it seems a little too perfect. I suppose people must already be trying to prove or disprove it.

Re: A reality bending mistake in Apple's computational photography

#110

Post by macintux »

dmix wrote: post #102
macintux wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately they changed the behavior a few major releases ago: now holding the button down switches to video recording. Annoying for me, since I don't do video. If you use the software button you can slide to the left for burst, but afaik there's no way to trigger burst photos from the volume buttons. Maybe the new programmable button on the iPhone 15 series.

That’s still a cool shortcut I didn’t know about. It not only switches to video but it “gates” the button press so it only records a video for as long as you press the button

You can also lock the video recording by sliding to the right.
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