Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

A reality bending mistake in Apple's computational photography

appleinsider.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

311–320 of 414 posts

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

#311

Post by actionfromafar »

londons_explore wrote: post #274
TeMPOraL wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Might be my age showing, but I swear it wasn't like this just a few years ago - this kind of story would genuinely go viral from the first rando posting it on social media ("wtf is my camera broken?") or the second rando that adapted it into a goofy scene/video ("look I'm a vampire now").

Social media algorithms have changed. Viral things used to be semi-random (eg. the 6:01pm on sunday bug, which heavily promoted things initially published at 6:01pm on a sunday because thats when some weekly stats aggregation function ran, and the age of the video in seconds was used as a divisor, so you got huge popularity boosts for the first week if you could post in the right second).

Yep. The algorithms have locked onto value stream extraction mode.

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

#312

Post by timeon »

graypegg wrote: post #84
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…

To play devils advocate here: the best camera is the one you have with you, and computational photography does mean you can just push a button without thinking and get a clear picture that captures a memory. It’s obviously an argument to say that Apple shouldn’t get to choose how your memories are recorded, but I know I’ve captured a lot more moments I would’ve otherwise missed because of just how automatic phone cam…

Here iPhone is using collage instead of showing particular photo. Then there was Samsung taking sharp picture of moon that was just completely generated.

> the best camera is the one you have with you

> I’ve captured a lot more moments I would’ve otherwise missed

Soon these moments will be 'captured' so perfectly with simulation that there wouldn't be reason taking them. Generate them when you want to recall them, not when the moment is happening.

JIT 'photography'

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

#313

Post by HumblyTossed »

tonmoy wrote: post #152
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.…

I just want to be able to turn it off when I want to

Agreed. But since the 13 (12 was the last), there's no way to remove even the HDR processing.

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

#314

Post by TheFuzzball »

jorvi wrote: post #309
fsloth wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, computational photography is actually closer to Terry Pratchet’s Discworld version of a camera - a box with an imp who paints the picture. Artistic interpretation of a scene is often very nice. But we would really need to be able to discern cameras that give you the pixels from the ccd from the irreversible kind. In the worst case scenario it’s back to photographic film if you want to be sure no-one is molestin…

> Yeah, computational photography is actually closer to Terry Pratchet’s Discworld version of a camera - a box with an imp who paints the picture. I mean… you’ve pretty much described our brain. Your blue isn’t my blue. People need to stop clutching pearls. For the scenario it is used in, computational photography is nothing short of magic. > In the worst case scenario it’s back to photographic film if you want to be…

I think you might mean Apple ProRaw [1]. ProLog might mean ProRes Log [2], which is Apple's implementation of the Log colour profile, which is a "flat looking" video profile that transforms colours to preserve shadow and highlight detail.

[1]: https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT211965 [2]: https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/iphone/iphde02c478d/io...

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

#315

Post by Majestic121 »

draugadrotten wrote: post #237
bambax wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

Nipple restriction is an American thing, not so much an EU thing

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

#316

Post by visarga »

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…

> Of course, this is one in a million chance but it highlights very nicely IMO a much bigger issue: what is reality?

What photo is admissible in court?

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

#317

Post by wizzard0 »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #213
lukeschlather wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In circumstances where it really matters having a prettied up image might be worse than having no image at all. If you rely on the image being correct to make some consequential decision, you could convict someone of a crime, or if you were trying to diagnose some issue with some machine you might cause damage. While if the camera gave an honest but uninterpretable picture you would be forced to try again.

Couple other common cases: - Photographing serial numbers or readouts on hard-to-reach labels and displays, like e.g. your water meter. - Photographing damage to walls, surfaces or goods, for purpose of warranty or insurance claim. - DIY / citizen science / school science experiments of all kind. - Workshops, auto-repairs, manufacturing, tradespeople - all heavily relying on COTS cameras for documenting, calibrating,…

Photo copiers replacing digits on scanned financial reports with digits that compress better are a decade old already :)

http://www.dkriesel.com/en/blog/2013/0802_xerox-workcentres_...?

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

#319

Post by thfuran »

kazinator wrote: post #145

Changing the positions of limbs is computational, but it's not photography. Photography refers to the capturing of the reflected light to create an image, which then corresponds to how the scene actually was. Bringing out detail in shadows being called "computational photography": that I could swallow.

It's not changing limb positions computationally, it's computationally jamming limb positions recorded at different instants into one 'photograph'.

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

#320

Post by DonHopkins »

WWLink wrote: post #90
graypegg wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To play devils advocate here: the best camera is the one you have with you, and computational photography does mean you can just push a button without thinking and get a clear picture that captures a memory. It’s obviously an argument to say that Apple shouldn’t get to choose how your memories are recorded, but I know I’ve captured a lot more moments I would’ve otherwise missed because of just how automatic phone cam…

I used to keep a powershot digital elph in my pocket whenever I left the house. TBH I took way more pictures with it. I could blindly turn it on and snap a picture while driving, without ever taking my eyes off the road. There's no way in the world I could do that with an iphone lol. I mean, I suppose if I happened to hit the bottom right corner button and then used the volume button maybe? Maybe. It's way more likel…

>I could blindly turn it on and snap a picture while driving, without ever taking my eyes off the road.

Isn't driving while blind illegal?

Post reply on HN