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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

#231

Post by verisimi »

sinuhe69 wrote: post #220

Of course, this is one in a million chance but it highlights very nicely IMO a much bigger issue: what is reality? Some would say only the classical optical camera would capture faithfully our reality. But does it? The reality of the sunlight is a broad spectrum of radio emissions: UV, infrared and more. Does the optical camera capture these? No. Thus, which reality does it capture? Our perceived reality? Other would…

> what is reality?

Well, the only thing we can say is that we can eliminate Apple phones and their software from our enquiries!

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

#232

Post by esskay »

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…

> If you're fine with Apple deciding what the subject of pictures should be and how they should look that's fine, but I expect a lot of people wont be.

The majority dont care, as the majority are not photographers, nor is it meant to be a product for photographers. Average joe just wants a good photo of that moment, which it does exceptionally well.

The tech 'taking control from you' is its exact purpose, as again, not everyone is a photographer. The whole point is to allow 'normal people' to get a good photo at the press of a button, it'd be incredibly foolish and unreasonable to expect them to faff about with a bunch of camera settings so it does it for you.

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

#233

Post by jahnu »

Timshel wrote: post #218
justinclift wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ugh, that seems like a bug which should be fixed. It's pretty inconvenient for users. :(

Probably not trivial since the back button might be linked to history and the container is doing it's job in isolation. I would expect there is a setting to force opening the container in a new tab if you want to be able to go back.

I think a new tab for the container and leaving the original tab open would be the least surprising/inconvenient behaviour.

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

#234

Post by saiya-jin »

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.…

You are overblowing things, 99% of the photographers out there and 99% of the professionals out of those don't have this sentiment, since its primitive emotional one and detrimental to any actual work. Maybe few loud people desperate for attention make different impression on you about the state of affairs, but these days for any topic internet discussions can easily twist perception of reality and give very wrong impression.

You simply have to be practical, use the best took for the job you need. If you ever actually listened to photo artists talking among their peers about their art (ie Saudek), they practically never talk about technical details of cameras or lenses, its just a tool. If they go for analog photography its because they want to achieve something thats easier for them like that maybe due to previous decades of experience, not some elitist Luddites mindset. Lightning of the scene, composition, following the rules and then breaking them cleverly, capturing/creating the mood etc are what interests them.

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

#236

Post by verisimi »

And, of course, there is the story where Samsung replaces the moon with its high res version.

I don't think photography from phone can actually be trusted to be a faithful representation of reality as it is not a purely mechanical series of actions. This will be even worse if ai is involved in the process.

I certainly think that there is an argument for photographic evidence to be inadmissible in court.

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

#237

Post by draugadrotten »

bambax wrote: post #222
TeMPOraL wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Don't fall into this trap. A lens and computational photography are not alike . One is a static filter, doing simple(ish) transformation of incoming light. The other is arbitrary computation operating in semantic space , halfway between photography and generati…

Yes. Also, it seems inevitable that at some points photos that you can't publish on Facebook won't be possible to make . Is a nipple present in the scene? Then too bad, you can't press the shutter.

> Is a nipple present in the scene? Then too bad, you can't press the shutter. reply

Oh yes you can, and the black helicopters will be dispatched, your social score obliterated and credit ratings becomes skulls and bones. EU Chat Control will morph to EU Camera Control. Think of the children!

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

#238

Post by coremoff »

karmakaze wrote: post #219

It wasn't long before we hit this Xerox digits[0] moment in 'photos'. What features do you want in your photocopier or photos? [0] https://www.theverge.com/2013/8/6/4594482/xerox-copiers-rand...

very different causes though; the xerox one was an image compression bug, IIRC; this is a "chop up multiple photots and stich together the best composite".

Still got room for library bugs! (wasn't the Samsung moon pictures sort of more like the xerox one?)

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

#239

Post by jcynix »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #195
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…

> 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. Don't fall into this trap. A lens and computational photography are not alike . One is a static filter, doing simple(ish) transformation of incoming light. The other is arbitrary computation operating in semantic space , halfway between photography and generati…

While I agree with the gist of your comment, I cannot leave this detail uncommented

>Or, put another way: you can undo effects of a lens, or the way photo was developed classically, because each pixel is still correlated with reality,

You cannot undo each and every effect. Polarizing filters (filters, as are lens coatings, are part of a classical lens in my opinion), gradual filters, etc effectively disturb this correlation.

As does classic development, if you work creatively in the lab (as I did as a hobby a long time ago in analog times) where you decide which photographic paper to use, how to dodge or burn, etc.

But yes, I agree that computational photography offers a different kind of reality distortion.

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

#240

Post by ClumsyPilot »

sinuhe69 wrote: post #220

Of course, this is one in a million chance but it highlights very nicely IMO a much bigger issue: what is reality? Some would say only the classical optical camera would capture faithfully our reality. But does it? The reality of the sunlight is a broad spectrum of radio emissions: UV, infrared and more. Does the optical camera capture these? No. Thus, which reality does it capture? Our perceived reality? Other would…

> The reality of the sunlight is a broad spectrum of radio emissions: UV, infrared

Thats irrelevant, radar reflects reality, photoshop doesn't. Even children understand this distiction.

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