A reality bending mistake in Apple's computational photography • Hacker News Board

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

#131

Post by KennyBlanken » Fri, Dec 01, 2023, 4:50 AM UTC

autoexec wrote: post #51

_kb wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That threat model has existed since the birth of photoshop et al.

There's a huge difference between someone intentionally altering an image according to their wishes and someone not even aware of changes that have been done. Before, forensic experts could decide if an image had been altered in photoshop, but I guess the only sane conclusion now is that anything taken with an iphone is fake and untrustworthy.

As opposed to Samsungs which will take any vaguely circular bright white object and turn it into the moon?

https://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/11nzrb0/samsung_sp...

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

#132

Post by Someone1234 » Fri, Dec 01, 2023, 4:50 AM UTC

ISL wrote: post #128

I hope, but am not certain, that by configuring my Pixel to save both a jpeg and a raw for each image, at least the raw would avoid these shenanigans.

Unless the raw is actually a stack of images, it may not. Both Android and iOS are taking multiple exposures and combining them into a single HDR image. This is before it hits the camera app.

This has nothing to do with "Live Photos" on iOS to be clear.

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

#133

Post by dharmab » Fri, Dec 01, 2023, 4:52 AM UTC

Ambroos wrote: post #43

kortilla wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there any way to get the noisy version? Or is that all forced by the hardware.

Shooting in RAW gets you the real sensor data without any computational magic.

My Fuji XA5 has denoising in the RAW files.

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

#134

Post by vlovich123 » Fri, Dec 01, 2023, 4:52 AM UTC

bawolff wrote: post #108

autoexec wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I think you’d be surprised how much phones have encroached on the fancy camera space. Also, the limiting factor in phone camera quality is more the lens than anything else. The SW backing it is much more powerful than what you get in standalone cameras although those manufacturers are trying to keep up (that’s why phone cameras can be so competitive with more expensive ones). I expect within the next 10 years we’ll see meaningful improvements to the lenses used in phones to the point where dedicated cameras will have shrunk even more (i.e. decoupling the size of the lens / sensor from the surface area on the back of the phone).

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

#135

Post by nucleardog » Fri, Dec 01, 2023, 4:53 AM UTC

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…

The case in the article is obviously one that any idiot could have taken without these tools.

But "in difficult scenarios", as the GP comment put it, your mistake is assuming people have been taking those photos all along no problem. They have not. People have been filling their photo albums and memory cards up with underexposed blurry photos that look more like abstract art than reality. That's where this sort of technology shines.

I'm pretty reasonable at getting what I want out of a camera. But at some point you just hit limitations of the hardware. In "difficult scenarios" like a fairly dark situation, I can open the lens on my Nikon DLSR up to f/1.4 (the depth of field is so shallow I can focus your eyes while your nose stays blurry, so it's basically impossible to focus), crank the ISO up to 6400 (basically more grain than photo at that point), and still not get the shutter speed up to something that I can shoot handheld. I'd need a tripod and a very still subject to get a reasonably sharp photo. The hardware cannot do what I want in this situation. I can throw a speedlight on top, but besides making the camera closer to a foot tall than not and upping the weight to like 4lbs, a flash isn't always appropriate or acceptable in every situation. And it's not exactly something I carry with me everywhere.

These photos _cannot_ be saved because there just isn't the data there to save. You can't pull data back out of a stream of zeros. You can't un-motion-blur a photo using basic corrections.

Or I can pull out my iPhone and press a button and it does an extremely passable job of it.

The right tool for the right job. These tools are very much the "right" tool in a lot of difficult scenarios.

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

#136

Post by dharmab » Fri, Dec 01, 2023, 4:53 AM UTC

w-ll wrote: post #100

threeseed wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can tell because of the type of file that gets saved in your photo library. Live Photos are clearly marked.

why are they not marked as video?

Because you can share them as photos and the composited image can be shared to the recipient.

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

#137

Post by luuurker » Fri, Dec 01, 2023, 4:55 AM UTC

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…

Was that picture taken with zoom?

I ask because the Pixel 7 doesn't have a dedicated zoom camera, so any zoom was digital which reduces quality a lot. The processing part has to use low quality frames and what you have there is often the result.

Phone users shouldn't have to think about this, but from experience I think that on phones without a zoom camera it's often better to take a photo without zoom (or avoid going past 2x) and crop the image afterwards.

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

#138

Post by FalconSensei » Fri, Dec 01, 2023, 4:59 AM UTC

vlovich123 wrote: post #134

bawolff wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I think you’d be surprised how much phones have encroached on the fancy camera space. Also, the limiting factor in phone camera quality is more the lens than anything else. The SW backing it is much more powerful than what you get in standalone cameras although those manufacturers are trying to keep up (that’s why phone cameras can be so competitive with more expensive ones). I expect within the next 10 years we’ll s…

> The SW backing it is much more powerful than what you get in standalone cameras

that is very due to camera makers not giving a sh*t though. Maybe now they do, but it's overdue. And I'm not even talking about the phone apps for connection, or image processing, but more on a user interface and usability PoV, and also interesting modes for the user.

Fuji and Ricoh are the only ones that I see are trying to make things easier or more fun or interesting for non-professionals. Fuji has the whole user customization that people use for recipes and film simulation (on top of the film simulations they already have), and Ricoh is the only one (I know of) that has snap focus, distance priority, and custom user modes that are easy to switch to, and to use. But even Fuji and Ricoh could still improve a lot, since there's always a detail or another that I'm like... why did they made it like that? or... why didn't they add this thing?

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

#139

Post by FalconSensei » Fri, Dec 01, 2023, 5:00 AM UTC

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…

you can still install any other photo app on your phone and use that instead

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

#140

Post by lo_zamoyski » Fri, Dec 01, 2023, 5:02 AM UTC

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…

> In the end, this tech just takes control from you.

Having control isn't always the best option. While photographers may appreciate having a camera over which they can have a high degree of control, they're not snobs about it. Photographers will tell you that having a handy point and shoot with good automation or correction of some kind is extremely useful when you're out and about and need to take a photo quickly. For everyday photos, it's what you'll want usually. If not, there are plenty of cameras on the market to choose from.