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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

#181

Post by tmalsburg2 »

dylan604 wrote: post #65
tmalsburg2 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If this phenomenon is so obvious, why is this story the top post on HN? And why did it take a picture of the mirror scenario to make people aware of this issue? Hell, the article even implies that this an issue only with images of mirrors when that is of course completely false.

You seem to think that all lawyers are dumb, and unable to defend against photographic evidence. If you think a lawyer would not be able to find a witness that fully understands how the modern mobile device camera systems alter images, you're just not being honest with yourself. The Apple propaganda videos tout the fact their cameras are doing something with "AI" even if they don't tell you exactly what. To assume th…

No, I do not think that all lawyers are dumb. What a bizarre thing to say. Why derail an interesting conversation in such an aggressive way?

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

#182

Post by _trampeltier »

willseth wrote: post #82
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…

Try to photograph a toddler without this feature. Good luck. Does the fact that the iPhone allows me to do this pretty reliably without any fuss mean I have more or less control?

[flagged]

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

#183

Post by hgomersall »

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.

Are colour filters allowed?

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

#184

Post by TeMPOraL »

Tangent, but:

> A U.K. comedian and actor named Tessa Coates

Why is it always some kind of celebrity that "discovers" stuff like this? Was it luck (yet again), or are those extreme failure modes of computational photography already somewhat known, just too nerdy to report on until they can be attached to a public person?

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

#185

Post by dgacmu »

panarky wrote: post #175
dagmx wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s just what happens when you really aggressively do noise reduction on small sensor data. The noise pattern of any sensor that small will blotch in patterns that when combined with aggressive noise reduction, it will look this way. It’s less apparent on bigger sensors but you’ll see the same if you really crank the noise reduction

Yes, it's denoising and sharpening due to extreme digital zoom that only uses a small portion of an already tiny sensor.

That deer image definitely had digital zoom (I wasn't standing next to the critter).

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

#186

Post by dgacmu »

luuurker wrote: post #137
dgacmu wrote: post #3

I had a related experience with my Pixel 7 a few months ago. In this picture of a deer: https://photos.app.goo.gl/qChwaw9C29WVdAmr6 If you zoom in, you'll note that .. everything at a detail level looks like an oil painting, especially the deer's face and the wall behind it. Very weird effect, and that's certainly not what the wall or deer actually look like. No filters applied. Computational photography is really aw…

Was that picture taken with zoom? I ask because the Pixel 7 doesn't have a dedicated zoom camera, so any zoom was digital which reduces quality a lot. The processing part has to use low quality frames and what you have there is often the result. Phone users shouldn't have to think about this, but from experience I think that on phones without a zoom camera it's often better to take a photo without zoom (or avoid goin…

Yes, it was.

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

#187

Post by atomlib »

gnabgib wrote: post #14

Is maybe the original article[0] (referenced by this short recap piece) a better source? [0]: https://petapixel.com/2023/11/16/one-in-a-million-iphone-pho...

Why not link directly to Instagram instead then? https://www.instagram.com/p/CzPGNmJIebC/

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

#188

Post by unethical_ban »

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.…

That last example is where I draw the line. It's one thing to enhance an image, or to alter the contrast across multiple frames to capture a more vibrant photo and a challenging lighting. But for our photography apps to be instantly altering the actual reality of what is occurring in a photo, such as whether someone is smiling or has their hands in a certain pose, or whether they're in a crowd or all alone next to a landmark, is not a feature that I think should be lauded.

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

#189

Post by andrei_says_ »

frogblast wrote: post #68
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…

> 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.

Is an argument about corner cases where computational improvement does make sense an argument in good faith when used as an excuse to take away control in all cases?

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

#190

Post by eproxus »

kazinator wrote: post #147
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 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".

No lens is going to reproduce a perfectly straight line without lens compensation either. Lenses are bending light to distill a moment in space time into a 2D representation which by definition will always be imperfect. What counts as “photography” really?

GP> In the end, this tech just takes control from you.

In the end, any tech is always going to take control away from you one way or another. That’s the whole point of using it, so you can achieve things you wouldn’t otherwise be able to.

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