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Samsung used my DSLR photo to fake their phone’s “portrait mode”

diyphotography.net

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Re: Samsung used my DSLR photo to fake their phone’s “portrait mode”

#71

Post by peterangular »

rococode wrote: post #68
peterangular wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep - zero trust is exactly right... I bought a Samsung smart watch for Black Friday for $280-ish. Figured "hey - this will probably have better calendar/application support than my Garmin watch!" Nope. Literally can't get it to vibrate/alert when a notification comes through unless it's through Samsung's SPECIFIC applications. So my HipChat messages, Gmail inbox, etc have ZERO notifications even though it WILL show…

Are there more trustworthy options for Android smartphones in the US? I was recently shopping for an upgrade from my LG G4 and settled for the S9+. I'm pretty satisfied, actually, but it really felt like I had an extremely limited selection From my understanding, the only flagship-level choices that aren't big hassles to to get are Samsung (Galaxy/Note), Google (Pixel), OnePlus, LG. Of those, LG seems to be the only…

I've been looking into Blackberry (Key2 specifically) because they seem to be putting security first and I don't mind if my platform is a tiny bit behind on the raw system specs. If anyone has experiences to share I am ALL ears!

Re: Samsung used my DSLR photo to fake their phone’s “portrait mode”

#72

Post by mark-r »

gnopgnip wrote: post #31
lostlogin wrote: post #4

The crazy thing is, their phones take amazing photos. Why do they need to fake it?

These ads are made months before the product is released, and often the team making the ad does not have physical access to the product. Even if they could get access it is standard to use stock photography to keep cost down and get the ads turned around quickly. For the same reason restaurants use stock photography instead of taking their food to a studio or any other type of marketing

This. Why send your device out with a photographer and hope they can get a compelling image when they can browse thousands from a stock photo outlet and get something perfect in an afternoon? The stock photo will be much cheaper as well.

Re: Samsung used my DSLR photo to fake their phone’s “portrait mode”

#73

Post by PascLeRasc »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #3
amatecha wrote: post #2

Ah man, I immediately thought of another recent case of a smartphone manufacturer faking their phone's camera shots[0] (turns out TFA links to it as well). Just a single instance of this kind of fraud is enough for me to write off a brand forever, frankly. If you're lying to my face before I even bought your product, who knows how much else you're lying about. Zero trust for companies like this. [0] https://www.diyph…

You'd write off an entire massive company for the mistakes of Hauwei Egypt or Samsung Malaysia? It's not like this is central company policy, it's the people localizing the marketing.

We don't owe companies anything. I'm a big proponent of not putting up with shitty design, and after a lot of bad experiences with Microsoft they're dead to me. I don't mind missing out on a good version of Windows sometime in the future, it's not worth dealing with their current awful software. Same goes for Samsung with the permanent Bixby button and Touchwiz UI. I'd rather reward good design like we have on the Google Pixel and iPhone X{'','R','S'} lines.

Re: Samsung used my DSLR photo to fake their phone’s “portrait mode”

#74

Post by peterangular »

13of40 wrote: post #49
peterangular wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep - zero trust is exactly right... I bought a Samsung smart watch for Black Friday for $280-ish. Figured "hey - this will probably have better calendar/application support than my Garmin watch!" Nope. Literally can't get it to vibrate/alert when a notification comes through unless it's through Samsung's SPECIFIC applications. So my HipChat messages, Gmail inbox, etc have ZERO notifications even though it WILL show…

Heh - I was stuck at Costco getting tires installed the other day and ended up buying one of those watches. My favorite part so far is the Bixby app, which presents itself as a Siri-like assistant that collects all of my contacts and GPS data, because hey, but fails on everything I ask it, including dead simple questions like "Where's the closest Starbucks?"

I'm just going to take a hammer to it. I know it's unreasonable but I'm that p'd off.

Re: Samsung used my DSLR photo to fake their phone’s “portrait mode”

#75

Post by mark-r »

bsenftner wrote: post #37
izzydata wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Samsung must have a nice view from somewhere within walking distance of one of their buildings. How hard could it be to have the intern go snap some pictures. Perhaps hundreds of pictures and then choose the best.

You'd be surprised, very very surprised, when asking someone to take a "good photo" they return with utter crap. One of the "thought crimes" in our society is people thinking they can take a good photo - most can't, even if their life depended upon it. It is actually shocking, because most people, seeing professional photography all the time, just assume they can shoot professional quality - until they try.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect

Re: Samsung used my DSLR photo to fake their phone’s “portrait mode”

#76

Post by ur-whale »

ilamont wrote: post #53
ur-whale wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a reaction I see a lot (and used to be tempted to have as well), but it is imo a mistake, grounded in the fact that we tend to think of companies as individuals whom once they've betrayed us, are likely to do so again. Companies like Samsung, while they claim to have a "culture" are, at the end of the day nothing but a large group of ever changing people, whose responsibilities in what the company does is qui…

Organizations most definitely have their own cultures including codified practices, management frameworks, and a culture of "X." Patterns of behavior emerge from those cultures, and can lead to success or failure. It's been studied quite extensively - browse HBR.org to see research and theory about this. If you're fortunate, the company you deal with as a customer or employee has a culture that rewards competence and…

This is only true insofar as the company remains small. As soon as it grows, the cultural standards you describe diverge.

Google is the perfect example of this, where while they remained at a reasonable size adhered to their cultural standards staunchly.

They've grown way past the point where that's sustainable and are now exhibiting the exact same predatory business attitude they swore they wouldn't ever (dragonfly, contracts for the military, systematic and all-encompassing spying on their customers, obvious anti-competitive practice in the android space, shameless support for a specific political party, etc...)

That doesn't mean there isn't still some pockets of folks somewhere in there that play by the old rules. It just these business practices can't be wrapped under the "Google culture" umbrella anymore.

Re: Samsung used my DSLR photo to fake their phone’s “portrait mode”

#77

Post by conradev »

reaperducer wrote: post #44
spuz wrote: post #11

There is a small disclaimer on Samsung's site: > The contents within the screen and images are simulated for illustrative purposes only. I don't really have a problem with Samsung using a higher res DSLR photo for the purposes of illustration of their background blur technology. I will always check review sites to get real sample images to evaluate a phone's camera technology. Edit: I assume this was downvoted becaus…

I view this as more of an example of a company's marketing showing their product in the best possible light. But it doesn't show their product in the best possible light. It shows some DSLR company's product in the best possible light. It's like a magazine ad for a Kia, and inside the car photo the dashboard has been replaced with a Tesla's.

Or a commercial for McDonald’s, except instead of using real food, they use fake stuff that looks better.

Re: Samsung used my DSLR photo to fake their phone’s “portrait mode”

#78

Post by sschueller »

Kind of lazy for Samsung to do that when their phones and others manufactures actually can take some astonishing pictures. But even Apple "cheats" a bit with their photos which are shot on an actual iPhone. [1]

[1] https://petapixel.com/assets/uploads/2017/06/shotoniphone-80...

Re: Samsung used my DSLR photo to fake their phone’s “portrait mode”

#79

Post by rmc »

mc32 wrote: post #34
amatecha wrote: post #2

Ah man, I immediately thought of another recent case of a smartphone manufacturer faking their phone's camera shots[0] (turns out TFA links to it as well). Just a single instance of this kind of fraud is enough for me to write off a brand forever, frankly. If you're lying to my face before I even bought your product, who knows how much else you're lying about. Zero trust for companies like this. [0] https://www.diyph…

Sometimes mfgs don’t have enough oversight over their creative agencies. Often agencies use interns for these kinds of image search —and things fall through the cracks. Not exculpating the mfgs or agencies just putting it out there that sometimes it’s some poor schlep who ends up holding the bag.

> Often agencies use interns for these kinds of image search —and things fall through the cracks.

You mean... if we paid employees properly, it might prevent fuck ups like this?!?!

Re: Samsung used my DSLR photo to fake their phone’s “portrait mode”

#80

Post by TeMPOraL »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #3
amatecha wrote: post #2

Ah man, I immediately thought of another recent case of a smartphone manufacturer faking their phone's camera shots[0] (turns out TFA links to it as well). Just a single instance of this kind of fraud is enough for me to write off a brand forever, frankly. If you're lying to my face before I even bought your product, who knows how much else you're lying about. Zero trust for companies like this. [0] https://www.diyph…

You'd write off an entire massive company for the mistakes of Hauwei Egypt or Samsung Malaysia? It's not like this is central company policy, it's the people localizing the marketing.

Personally, I've written all companies by default. Seeing things like that from both outside and sometimes inside, I came to conclusion that most sales&marketing material is simply full of shit, and unless your company gives me evidence otherwise, I'm assuming anything not casually verifiable is likely to be a lie.

Also, RE Samsung vs. Samsung Malaysia, etc. - that's a flip side of having a brand. If you want various groups of people to inherit good reputation from the common pool of a brand, you should also expect they'll all inherit bad reputation too.

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