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The limits of "computational photography"

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Re: The limits of "computational photography"

#151

Post by packetlost »

dusted wrote: post #46
delta_p_delta_x wrote: post #16

I would like to see computational photography applied to raw images from DSLRs and MILCs with APS-C and larger sensors. Perhaps Canon, Nikon, Sony, and Fujifilm could have built-in options in their cameras for ‘social media mode’, with a modicum of noise reduction (honestly unnecessary at ISOs lower than about 1600 for modern cameras), but drastically improved HDR and white balance. Many of these cameras are able to…

They already are. However, most photographers do not appreciate this type of distortion being applied to their images. At a glance, my samsung note 22 ultra takes better picture than my nikon d7500. At a glance. However, as soon as you want to actually DO anything to it, like, view it in any real detail, or on anything but a tiny screen, reality returns.. While the phone is absolutely fantastic for a quick snapshot,…

The workflows for someone using a DSLR/mirrorless are entirely different too. Most people edit their photos on a computer in "post production" (this isn't always true, I myself use Fujifilm's built-in JPEG processing features heavily), whereas phones are typically doing very light edits if anything.

Even if SNR isn't really the issue with the tiny sensors (it is), the minuscule lenses used by phones almost certainly don't come anywhere close to the detail fidelity of a lens 300x the size.

Re: The limits of "computational photography"

#152

Post by manv1 »

The limits are because at this point there's no way to tell the tool what you're trying to do. The various photo modes are a step in that direction, but they've been stuck.

Once they find a way to interact with the processing engine then the quality will jump again.

For the vast majority of users, the phone camera is super awesome and just fine.

Re: The limits of "computational photography"

#153

Post by MichaelZuo »

jefftk wrote: post #134
wombat_trouble wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see invented texture and layering here: https://yager.io/comp/mi.jpeg

It's pretty hard to tell without knowing what sort of image was input to the computational photography process

The actual image is right below it in the post.

Re: The limits of "computational photography"

#154

Post by corysama »

causi wrote: post #130
dusted wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They already are. However, most photographers do not appreciate this type of distortion being applied to their images. At a glance, my samsung note 22 ultra takes better picture than my nikon d7500. At a glance. However, as soon as you want to actually DO anything to it, like, view it in any real detail, or on anything but a tiny screen, reality returns.. While the phone is absolutely fantastic for a quick snapshot,…

I recently started collecting a few of the digital cameras I lusted after as a kid. It made me realize there's a huge population of cameras out there that would produce incredible photos if not for small details. Details like not having readily available batteries, or an odd cable or memory card limitation. The biggest one for me personally is CCD degradation in cameras that don't have a built in pixel mapping functi…

I don’t know what I’m talking about. But, I recall the Unity3D folks talking about a camera calibration process that involved photographing a dozen full frame images of a flat neutral gray surface, averaging all those images to average out the sensor noise and being left with an image containing the per-pixel bias of that particular sensor.

Re: The limits of "computational photography"

#155

Post by NegativeK »

delta_p_delta_x wrote: post #16

I would like to see computational photography applied to raw images from DSLRs and MILCs with APS-C and larger sensors. Perhaps Canon, Nikon, Sony, and Fujifilm could have built-in options in their cameras for ‘social media mode’, with a modicum of noise reduction (honestly unnecessary at ISOs lower than about 1600 for modern cameras), but drastically improved HDR and white balance. Many of these cameras are able to…

It's going to take ILCs switching to sensors like the Z9, without a physical shutter, doing very high frame rates at full resolution.

I'd be interested in computational photography on ILCs if they allowed tuning it -- with phones, it comes with a bunch of other stylistic choices, and I want control over that stuff.

Re: The limits of "computational photography"

#156

Post by lambdasquirrel »

packetlost wrote: post #151
dusted wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They already are. However, most photographers do not appreciate this type of distortion being applied to their images. At a glance, my samsung note 22 ultra takes better picture than my nikon d7500. At a glance. However, as soon as you want to actually DO anything to it, like, view it in any real detail, or on anything but a tiny screen, reality returns.. While the phone is absolutely fantastic for a quick snapshot,…

The workflows for someone using a DSLR/mirrorless are entirely different too. Most people edit their photos on a computer in "post production" (this isn't always true, I myself use Fujifilm's built-in JPEG processing features heavily), whereas phones are typically doing very light edits if anything . Even if SNR isn't really the issue with the tiny sensors (it is), the minuscule lenses used by phones almost certainly…

Not to mention that those giant honking lenses are where half the fun is.

Re: The limits of "computational photography"

#157

Post by lambdasquirrel »

throwanem wrote: post #149
psychphysic wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Similarly sometimes I just want to apply whatever ai magic elixir my phone does to the raw image from my DSLR. Messing around in lightroom etc is just not worth it for hundreds of shots I take per day sometimes.

If you're making the same or very similar edits to a lot of shots by hand, you don't have to do that. You can create a preset from one shot's edits, then apply it to as many others as you like in a single step.

Yeah, Photoshop has actions too. See, photographers have been doing computational photography too, this whole time. It’s just that we prefer to put it together with a general purpose tool, rather than what formula Apple or Samsung has decided would be best.

Re: The limits of "computational photography"

#158

Post by jefftk »

MichaelZuo wrote: post #153
jefftk wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's pretty hard to tell without knowing what sort of image was input to the computational photography process

The actual image is right below it in the post.

That's the image captured by a different camera (it's labeled "Fujifilm X-T5" and is from a different angle). The input I'm interested here is what the phone camera's sensor received prior to processing.

Re: The limits of "computational photography"

#160

Post by hilbert42 »

formerly_proven wrote: post #146
hilbert42 wrote: post #80

I accept that there is a place for computational/algorithmic photography but I remain deeply sceptical of its actual benefits (in its current incarnation), moreover my recent bad experiences with it have only strengthened my conviction. I have previously discussed having taken photos with a smartphone where certain objects within some images have been so modified by the processing algorithm as to be almost unrecogniz…

> 6. What's the future. On the hardware side we need better sensors with higher resolution and more sensitivity and improved optics (that, say, use metamaterials etc.). Such developments are on their way but don't hold your breath. Two interesting developments here are the pixels in Starvis 2 sensors, which as a first afaik use a 2.5D structure to increase full-well capacity by a lot. And another, non-production sens…

Thanks for that info on the Starvis 2, etc. I've not had time to fully investigate it nor the earlier Canon announcement (as per link to the HN story on dynamic range some days ago).

Both these announcements are what I'd call large incremental changes (big changes within existing technologies). If those dynamic range/noise figures turn out to be roughly in line with the publicity then they're much to be welcomed and half the world and I will be glad to see them.

Moreover, such large changes cannot be ignored by other manufacturers otherwise they'd be left behind. That means they'd have to license the tech quickly, that is unless there's some gotcha like ridiculously low or unreliable production yields etc. Anyway, we'll soon see.

I still have some reservations until more info emerges. As I mentioned in the earlier post I hope the changes are mainly real hardware improvements and not just little changes coupled with a great deal of back-end processing. As I mentioned there, we can do without 'smoke-and-mirror' announcements (which, unfortunately, are all too frequent).

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