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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

#141

Post by Toutouxc »

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…

> For decades people have had the ability to get great photos using cell phones

Not in these light conditions. Simple as that. What iPhones are doing nowadays gives you the ability to take some photos you couldn’t have in the past. Try shooting a few photos with an iPhone and the app Halide. It can give you a single RAW of a single exposure. Try it in some mildly inconvenient light conditions, like in a forest. Where any big boy camera wouldn’t bat an eye, what the tiny phone sensor sees is a noisy pixel soup that, if it came from my big boy camera, I’d consider unsalvageable.

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

#142

Post by wkat4242 »

FalconSensei wrote: post #138
vlovich123 wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I don't think it's only that. The processing in a phone is expensive. If you'd build a high end camera with a Snapdragon 8 gen 3 it would raise the price a lot. In a phone that's not an issue because you need the chip there anyway for other tasks. So there's just much more compute power available, not to mention a connection to the cloud with even more potential compute.

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

#143

Post by thaumasiotes »

afavour wrote: post #32
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 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…

> 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.

What we have today already includes phone cameras that will add teeth to the image of your smiling newborn, or replace your image of what looks like the moon with stock photography of the moon.

> I’m reminded of that scene in WALL-E where it shows the captain portraits as people get fatter and fatter. It’s clearly inaccurate: over time the photos should show ever more attractive, chiseled captains.

Interestingly, the opposite thing happened with official depictions of Roman emperors.

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

#145

Post by kazinator »

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.

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

#146

Post by kazinator »

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.…

> Purists will always hate the idea of computational photography

A non-purist will hate it too, as soon as the technology re-imagines the positions of his hands such that they are around someone's throat.

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

#147

Post by kazinator »

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…

No lens is going to produce a straight arm out of one that was bent at the elbow, or vice versa, while not disturbing anything else. It is not "photography".

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

#149

Post by macintux »

fshbbdssbbgdd wrote: post #119
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.

I think if you have the Live photos option turned on (the default) it will automatically take a burst every time you hit the red button.

Video, although there might be a configuration option somewhere.

Historically Live Photos were of poorer overall image quality, so I only turn them on when I want to simulate a long exposure. Not sure whether that's still true.

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

#150

Post by Toutouxc »

leephillips wrote: post #36
dylan604 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is what it is attempting to do any different from when someone takes multiple pictures of a group shot, and then uses the different shots to ensure no blinks and "best" expression from each subject? There's a reason professional photogs use the mulitiple snaps mode for non-sports. It used to be a lot of work in post, but a lot of apps have made that easier to now it's a built in feature of our phones.

The difference is in what some photographers call “editorial integrity”. There’s nothing wrong with any kind of image manipulation, as long as it’s done knowingly and deliberately, and as long as the nature of the manipulation is known to the audience. But the typical iphone consumer is just taking snaps and sharing them around, and almost no one knows what’s really happening. It’s creepy and unethical.

> and almost no one knows what’s really happening

And almost no one cares, btw.

And what do you even propose? A mandatory “picture might not represent reality” watermark? Because the way I see it, you either take the computational features away from people, and prevent them from taking an entire class of pictures, or you add a big fat warning somewhere that no one will read anyway, or you keep things the way they are. Which one of these is the ethical choice?

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