Live data from Hacker News

iPhone camera app replaces person’s head with a leaf in photo

twitter.com

131–140 of 467 posts

Re: iPhone camera app replaces person’s head with a leaf in photo

#131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Those of us who have been shooting large digital cameras for the past decade and are some times sad that our photos often come out unsharp in poor light compared to smartphones can at least take some joy in this “no free lunch” demonstration. Can't replace sensor area with anything other than more sensor area. Week ago I got the perfect demo of that when I filmed a happening at around 10pm with only some dim garden…

With video you can’t “cheat”. You can’t gather up a second of frames and stack to one photo. That’s what phones to quite well. You only have 1/24s (say) to get the shot before you need to get the next one. I bet an Iphone12 would have made better stills than my aging canon 60D which I try to keep at 1600 or lower. And that’s pretty remarkable to be honest.

> You can’t gather up a second of frames and stack to one photo.

Oh, but you can. A full second would make for a very choppy video of course so you don't have as long in which to do it as you might for a still, but there are benefits to be gained and the Pixel 6 series does exactly that.

https://9to5google.com/2021/08/02/google-pixel-6-video-hdr-t...

Re: iPhone camera app replaces person’s head with a leaf in photo

#132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Those of us who have been shooting large digital cameras for the past decade and are some times sad that our photos often come out unsharp in poor light compared to smartphones can at least take some joy in this “no free lunch” demonstration. Can't replace sensor area with anything other than more sensor area. Week ago I got the perfect demo of that when I filmed a happening at around 10pm with only some dim garden…

With video you can’t “cheat”. You can’t gather up a second of frames and stack to one photo. That’s what phones to quite well. You only have 1/24s (say) to get the shot before you need to get the next one. I bet an Iphone12 would have made better stills than my aging canon 60D which I try to keep at 1600 or lower. And that’s pretty remarkable to be honest.

I don't understand, why is this ruled out? Assuming that phones reach a point where this is computationally cheap, what would be so hard about having a sliding window for each frame in the video?

Re: iPhone camera app replaces person’s head with a leaf in photo

#133

This gives me the same feeling as those ML-powered “enhanced zoom” features: where does the photograph end and the machine made-up fantasy start?

AI enhancement of imagery injecting made-up data was a minor plot point in the novel Congo (the one about diamonds and apes), if I recall correctly, so this has been a known risk for a long time, and ML educators and practitioners aren't doing a good enough job of managing and talking about that risk.

Re: iPhone camera app replaces person’s head with a leaf in photo

#134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No free lunch, but an incredibly good value lunch. The quality that comes out of phone cameras is remarkable. And the times it messes up are so rare that it becomes a talking point worthy of hundreds of comments.

Indeed. I wish I had a list of everyone parroting the wisdom that "it's all about the size of the lens, a smartphone can never be as good as a DSLR" so as to ignore their future opinions. Camera phones now beat cameras worth thousands of dollars with better software and larger R&D budgets, at least in low light performance and color gamut. Closely related: "It's impossible to just 'enhance' an image to make a license…

In theory what prevents me from using a huge lens and sensor on a DSLR or a mirrorless camera and then using the same advanced software but now running on a desktop computer or a server that is many times more powerful than a smartphone to do advanced post processing?

Re: iPhone camera app replaces person’s head with a leaf in photo

#135

Wouldn’t looking at the RAW give insight on what’s happening here

The iPhone Camera app doesn't support RAW except on some specific Pro models, and then you have to turn it on - you can't get RAW retroactively.

Re: iPhone camera app replaces person’s head with a leaf in photo

#136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. I wish I had a list of everyone parroting the wisdom that "it's all about the size of the lens, a smartphone can never be as good as a DSLR" so as to ignore their future opinions. Camera phones now beat cameras worth thousands of dollars with better software and larger R&D budgets, at least in low light performance and color gamut. Closely related: "It's impossible to just 'enhance' an image to make a license…

In theory what prevents me from using a huge lens and sensor on a DSLR or a mirrorless camera and then using the same advanced software but now running on a desktop computer or a server that is many times more powerful than a smartphone to do advanced post processing?

Nothing at all. It’s honestly surprising that it’s not a bigger thing.

Guessing what stops you is that the Apple team that makes camera software has a budget that makes the Nikon pc app team look quite small.

Re: iPhone camera app replaces person’s head with a leaf in photo

#137
post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can set Apple's devices to shoot RAW, and it's usually pretty great, without the painting-like qualities of its default image processing.

How raw is “raw”? If you take a long exposure in a dark room with a recent iPhone you can see the long exposure shake being removed and the picture coming out a lot sharper than it should. Would a “raw” version of that photo be a traditional long exposure or would it be the clever stacked image but with less post sharpening etc? Or is the raw even a short video sequence? (that would actually make the most sense) I ha…

It wouldn’t make any difference in this instance, all the computational stuff still happens.

I just took a long exposure on my 12 Pro and purposely moved the camera around a bit and my phone produced a sharp RAW image.

Re: iPhone camera app replaces person’s head with a leaf in photo

#139
post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple possibly caught a break here. It could have been worse and people would probably have accused Apple of being bigoted or something else.

Or, maybe, knowing that releasing software that turns out to deliver markedly lower quality results for people already weary from centuries of marginalization would open them up to such accusations, they didn't get lucky so much as their are enjoying the benefit of having listened to such criticism, testing their software across a set of data as diverse as their customers, instead of just that set of photos from D'Br…

They still caught a break.

Here people are like “lol Apple” and understand it’s the fault of the software and there isn’t incipient malice intended. Whereas on the other hand people are apt to make it into something it isn’t.

Re: iPhone camera app replaces person’s head with a leaf in photo

#140
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve never owned Bose nor Beats specifically but more generally I find bassiness is a desirable feature rather than a gimmick for dumb consumers. With room sized speakers it’s not a problem because you’ll have multiple cones dedicated to the low end and usually some subs too. Thus it’s easy to have a rich low end without sacrificing the fidelity of the higher end. But with headphones that’s much harder to pull off. S…

If I hadn't been gifted a pair of beats earbuds, I could see myself believing similarly. The ones I was given were very nicely built, with tactile components that felt of significant quality, as though they were assembled with great care. They were also the muddiest, mushiest, and most unpleasant listening experience I've had in the last couple of decades outside of bad laptop / phone speakers or scenarios that used…

Obviously shit earphones are going to sound shit. That’s true whether they’re bass heavy or not. So its a sentiment that is not contradictory to my point.

My point is having earphones and headphones that can offer a deep and rich low end without sacrificing sharpness a not novelty feature. And there are earphones and headphones out there that can do that. I know this because I’ve owned plenty over the years. :)

Post reply on HN