7 ms·

Is it just me or does it feel a little off-putting that he doesn't bother to post the pre-edited photos? What the picture looks like after potentially hours of

by tw04 5y ago

Is it just me or does it feel a little off-putting that he doesn't bother to post the pre-edited photos? What the picture looks like after potentially hours of tweaking in lightroom is less interesting for the average consumer than what the pics look like without any editing IMO. Don't get me wrong, it's still valuable to see what CAN be accomplished, but most people aren't going to spend that amount of time, so show us how much work you had to put into post-processing for those results. Otherwise it just kind of feels like an advertisement for Apple.

binbag 5y ago
Also, the end results look quite good, but not amazing.
smoldesu 5y ago
I agree 100%. One of the biggest things I'm curious about is how bad the artifacting is on features like focus racking and the macro lens. Sure it's cool to see a photography showcase, but it doesn't really feel substantial as a review. His rhetoric is also extremely awkward, like here for example: > As I watched this piece, particularly the interview in Cinematic mode, it dawned on me that we’re moving beyond the world of just computational photography and into the realm of computational videography. The release of Cinematic mode marks another one of those fundamental shifts where software, unbounded by the limitations of hardware, has opened up entirely new possibilities in the creative process. This is not a new experience, it's just one that Apple put inside your iPhone. Reading stuff like this really makes me wonder how critical they're being here, because it seems like "it shoots photos better than the last one" is enough to warrant a perfect review. And if that's the case, every camera system on every phone ever is perfect and there's no point to reviewing them at all, because you can rest assured knowing your next phone will have 25% better digital zoom, or whatever.
- GoodJokes 5y ago
  You seem triggered. Are you invested in something competing with the phone. It is a new experience! For most people without an expensive stand alone camera. perfect review? You obviously didn’t read the criticisms he wrote or notice the lack of a rating or any sort of measure of perfection. You sound jealous.
squeaky-clean 5y ago
The pre-edited photos are in proRaw format, is that format viewable in a browser? Outside of posting the raw files for download, any means of making them viewable on the web would involve some form of editing, even if it's the process iOS does automatically. I do agree though that it would be useful to state how much time and effort was spent in lightroom and PS.
- squeaky-clean 5y ago
  Would be nice if downvoters explained why. I looked it up and you can't embed raw format images in a web page without converting the file which compresses the dynamic range. Asking for someone to post the unedited version of a raw photo is a big misunderstanding of what that format even means.
qwertyuiop_ 5y ago
I have an iPhone and I am always disappointed with the results when compared to a mirror less and DSLR. If you see the lions picture closely there is no sharpness. There is a lot of computational color magic that goes behind the scenes to make the images pop but when you look closer they are obviously no where close to pro-am cameras.
- mosselman 5y ago
  But an iPhone fits in your pocket. I have a DSLR and I now don't bring it along anymore. I have three kids, so I already have to carry around a lot of stuff and children, so there is no more room or energy for my DSLR. My phone is always in my pocket though. I recently invested in some phone lenses by Moment and I am very excited about them. They also fit in my pocket and I can pop one on my phone in about 10 seconds.
  - lostgame 5y ago
    A ukulele is easy to carry around, but is pretty pathetic sounding compared to a proper acoustic guitar when it comes time to actually play songs. For the average consumer who doesn't know how to play music at all, maybe the ukulele would be a nice option. If you hand a professional guitarist a ukulele, and tell them it's a proper guitar, they will probably laugh at you. That a ukulele is smaller is actually the opposite of what I'm looking for. I don't need a smaller guitar. I need a nice one, that plays and responds like I'd expect a guitar to. I would never use a ukulele as a way to somehow replace a recording of a traditional guitar, even though it's more convenient. There are thousands of photographers who feel this way about DSLR's. If it doesn't fit your current/busy lifestyle, cool - the ukulele works for you. But don't pretend the ukulele is / can be a guitar. Popping lenses onto an iPhone camera is like putting an amplifier onto the ukulele. You're still trying to make something better that is, due to its size alone, never going to have the depth or quality a guitar or DSLR would have. Also, I'm not dissing the ukulele, here. I'm trying to provide an example that just because a tool can work for a purpose, doesn't mean it's the right tool for the job.
    - 5y ago
strogonoff 5y ago
Pre-edited photo is a myth. Cameras capture light values far exceeding dynamic range of any output media. Fitting scene-referred data into capabilities of screens or paper is always a subjective art and is ultimately photographer’s job. In digital, all “unedited” means is using camera firmware’s interpretation of raw values; especially with complex processing in modern phones this isn’t a very good measure as scene recognition can be hit or miss and the algorithm is a black box. (What could be indicative is posting scene raws alongside exhaustive development presets, of course.)
- ValentineC 5y ago
  I'm guessing what the parent might have wanted is something straight out of the Camera app (or Halide), without any further post-processing.
  - strogonoff 5y ago
    It could be helpful if one could assume if you took the same photo in the same location by the same phone, the result would look the same, which I don’t think would be a valid assumption anymore.
- stared 5y ago
  Sure, no photo is unedited. But there is a difference what is the effort of post-processing. Is it none, a few seconds, a few minutes with Lightroom, or hours with Photoshop? With enough effort you can basically do whatever you wish, especially when it comes to increasing quality (see for example this one https://gizmodo.com/deep-learning-can-now-flawlessly-correct-photos-taken-i-1825919192 https://gizmodo.com/deep-learning-can-now-flawlessly-correct...).
  - strogonoff 5y ago
    It is true that there is a difference in the amount of manual tweaking, but at the same time any remaining objectivity in “unedited” phone-produced output-referred (non-raw) images is fading fast. In other words, imagine if the technology by your link is silently incorporated in the next version of iOS Camera app without you knowing—and I’m not even sure this is an outrageous exaggeration.
scko 5y ago
I don't think they did tweak it that much. The chromatic aberration and distortion from the lens is still visible. Maybe a bit of colour work and changing the shadows was done. Probably still very representative of what the iPhone's camera can do.
drcongo 5y ago
He's shooting in raw, if you do that you _have_ to post process because otherwise it'll look flat and listless because raw is capturing as much information as possible so that you can choose later how you want it to look.
- derefr 5y ago
  -
  - katbyte 5y ago
    My dslr did that - every photo had a .raw and a .jpg but it rarely ended up close to what I’d get processing the raw
  - skhr0680 5y ago
    Sorry If I’m misunderstanding something, but aren’t both of the things you mentioned already a reality? I thought RAWs included jpeg already, and Bridge already has an option to prefer that.
  - galago 5y ago
    RAW formats can/usually have a thumbnail/preview embedded. I convert all of my Nikon RAW files to Adobe DNG (Adobe's RAW format) and I have a Leica camera that uses DNG natively. When I convert, I can chose to have a full-sized preview embeded. This makes certain software give a faster preview.
- zitterbewegung 5y ago
  Maybe in the future photo reviews would also include the photo in the raw format?
  - MrBoomixer 5y ago
    I'm curious as to what value would that provide most end users of the content? If you're a photographer perhaps you have software for processing the raw file and you want to see what you can do with a raw file; however I still feel that for most end users this would be useless. I would be one of the few I think that may play around with this.
hbosch 5y ago
This is a professional photographer. Editing is part of the photography process, just as important as taking the picture in the first place and sometimes even more important to the end result (that is to say, a poorly edited photo is often worse than just having never taken the photo at all). There are many, many, many more reviews out there on the internet that show casual, unedited photos from this camera. I think this person's use case and exhibition are interesting due to his entire workflow.
- Frost1x 5y ago
  The more surprising aspect to this review (maybe I missed this part, I skimmed) is how there wasn't much discussed about having a bigger and more ergonomic hand mount for the phone when shooting. I don't even mean with all sorts of nifty expensive stabilizers, just something to hold onto the phone and shoot better. I did see use of a small tripod at one point and a mount to a vehicle but for the hands, nothing. Maybe I'm getting old but I find it difficult to shoot good photos even with the bulkiest of phone cases, while also being able to hit the shutter without shifting my camera drastically. I personally use a Note so the S pen works great as a built in remote shutter (especially nice for tripod shots) but I can't for the life of me get good shots with the UI shutter or even volume/side button rockers. Sure you have voice controls or shutter timmers but timmers are not ideal in most shooting conditions from my experience, unless you have humans. You can also burst or drop frames from video but ick, shooting professional photos with a phone as is seems unnecessarily uncomfortable to me.
  - vlovich123 5y ago
    I haven't tried this but apparently the Apple watch has integration for showing you a preview & letting you take a photo. More expensive for sure but probably similar utility as the pen approach?
    - eric_h 5y ago
      it does - I've used it for properly aiming a tripod video recording setup when it was in a location where I could not see the screen (well above me).
PragmaticPulp 5y ago
> Is it just me or does it feel a little off-putting that he doesn't bother to post the pre-edited photos? This is a professional photographer writing a review targeted at other professional photographers, so it feels appropriate to post photos shot and developed as a professional photographer would. Regardless, the article is more about features like the new macro mode with short focus distance and the performance of the telephoto lens. Those don’t depend on manual post-processing.

by tw04 5y ago

binbag 5y ago

Also, the end results look quite good, but not amazing.

smoldesu 5y ago

I agree 100%. One of the biggest things I'm curious about is how bad the artifacting is on features like focus racking and the macro lens. Sure it's cool to see a photography showcase, but it doesn't really feel substantial as a review. His rhetoric is also extremely awkward, like here for example: > As I watched this piece, particularly the interview in Cinematic mode, it dawned on me that we’re moving beyond the world of just computational photography and into the realm of computational videography. The release of Cinematic mode marks another one of those fundamental shifts where software, unbounded by the limitations of hardware, has opened up entirely new possibilities in the creative process. This is not a new experience, it's just one that Apple put inside your iPhone. Reading stuff like this really makes me wonder how critical they're being here, because it seems like "it shoots photos better than the last one" is enough to warrant a perfect review. And if that's the case, every camera system on every phone ever is perfect and there's no point to reviewing them at all, because you can rest assured knowing your next phone will have 25% better digital zoom, or whatever.

GoodJokes 5y ago
You seem triggered. Are you invested in something competing with the phone. It is a new experience! For most people without an expensive stand alone camera. perfect review? You obviously didn’t read the criticisms he wrote or notice the lack of a rating or any sort of measure of perfection. You sound jealous.

squeaky-clean 5y ago

The pre-edited photos are in proRaw format, is that format viewable in a browser? Outside of posting the raw files for download, any means of making them viewable on the web would involve some form of editing, even if it's the process iOS does automatically. I do agree though that it would be useful to state how much time and effort was spent in lightroom and PS.

squeaky-clean 5y ago
Would be nice if downvoters explained why. I looked it up and you can't embed raw format images in a web page without converting the file which compresses the dynamic range. Asking for someone to post the unedited version of a raw photo is a big misunderstanding of what that format even means.

qwertyuiop_ 5y ago

I have an iPhone and I am always disappointed with the results when compared to a mirror less and DSLR. If you see the lions picture closely there is no sharpness. There is a lot of computational color magic that goes behind the scenes to make the images pop but when you look closer they are obviously no where close to pro-am cameras.

mosselman 5y ago
But an iPhone fits in your pocket. I have a DSLR and I now don't bring it along anymore. I have three kids, so I already have to carry around a lot of stuff and children, so there is no more room or energy for my DSLR. My phone is always in my pocket though. I recently invested in some phone lenses by Moment and I am very excited about them. They also fit in my pocket and I can pop one on my phone in about 10 seconds.
- lostgame 5y ago
  A ukulele is easy to carry around, but is pretty pathetic sounding compared to a proper acoustic guitar when it comes time to actually play songs. For the average consumer who doesn't know how to play music at all, maybe the ukulele would be a nice option. If you hand a professional guitarist a ukulele, and tell them it's a proper guitar, they will probably laugh at you. That a ukulele is smaller is actually the opposite of what I'm looking for. I don't need a smaller guitar. I need a nice one, that plays and responds like I'd expect a guitar to. I would never use a ukulele as a way to somehow replace a recording of a traditional guitar, even though it's more convenient. There are thousands of photographers who feel this way about DSLR's. If it doesn't fit your current/busy lifestyle, cool - the ukulele works for you. But don't pretend the ukulele is / can be a guitar. Popping lenses onto an iPhone camera is like putting an amplifier onto the ukulele. You're still trying to make something better that is, due to its size alone, never going to have the depth or quality a guitar or DSLR would have. Also, I'm not dissing the ukulele, here. I'm trying to provide an example that just because a tool can work for a purpose, doesn't mean it's the right tool for the job.
  - 5y ago

strogonoff 5y ago

Pre-edited photo is a myth. Cameras capture light values far exceeding dynamic range of any output media. Fitting scene-referred data into capabilities of screens or paper is always a subjective art and is ultimately photographer’s job. In digital, all “unedited” means is using camera firmware’s interpretation of raw values; especially with complex processing in modern phones this isn’t a very good measure as scene recognition can be hit or miss and the algorithm is a black box. (What could be indicative is posting scene raws alongside exhaustive development presets, of course.)

ValentineC 5y ago
I'm guessing what the parent might have wanted is something straight out of the Camera app (or Halide), without any further post-processing.
- strogonoff 5y ago
  It could be helpful if one could assume if you took the same photo in the same location by the same phone, the result would look the same, which I don’t think would be a valid assumption anymore.
stared 5y ago
Sure, no photo is unedited. But there is a difference what is the effort of post-processing. Is it none, a few seconds, a few minutes with Lightroom, or hours with Photoshop? With enough effort you can basically do whatever you wish, especially when it comes to increasing quality (see for example this one https://gizmodo.com/deep-learning-can-now-flawlessly-correct-photos-taken-i-1825919192 https://gizmodo.com/deep-learning-can-now-flawlessly-correct...).
- strogonoff 5y ago
  It is true that there is a difference in the amount of manual tweaking, but at the same time any remaining objectivity in “unedited” phone-produced output-referred (non-raw) images is fading fast. In other words, imagine if the technology by your link is silently incorporated in the next version of iOS Camera app without you knowing—and I’m not even sure this is an outrageous exaggeration.

scko 5y ago

I don't think they did tweak it that much. The chromatic aberration and distortion from the lens is still visible. Maybe a bit of colour work and changing the shadows was done. Probably still very representative of what the iPhone's camera can do.

drcongo 5y ago

He's shooting in raw, if you do that you _have_ to post process because otherwise it'll look flat and listless because raw is capturing as much information as possible so that you can choose later how you want it to look.

derefr 5y ago
-
- katbyte 5y ago
  My dslr did that - every photo had a .raw and a .jpg but it rarely ended up close to what I’d get processing the raw
- skhr0680 5y ago
  Sorry If I’m misunderstanding something, but aren’t both of the things you mentioned already a reality? I thought RAWs included jpeg already, and Bridge already has an option to prefer that.
- galago 5y ago
  RAW formats can/usually have a thumbnail/preview embedded. I convert all of my Nikon RAW files to Adobe DNG (Adobe's RAW format) and I have a Leica camera that uses DNG natively. When I convert, I can chose to have a full-sized preview embeded. This makes certain software give a faster preview.
zitterbewegung 5y ago
Maybe in the future photo reviews would also include the photo in the raw format?
- MrBoomixer 5y ago
  I'm curious as to what value would that provide most end users of the content? If you're a photographer perhaps you have software for processing the raw file and you want to see what you can do with a raw file; however I still feel that for most end users this would be useless. I would be one of the few I think that may play around with this.

hbosch 5y ago

This is a professional photographer. Editing is part of the photography process, just as important as taking the picture in the first place and sometimes even more important to the end result (that is to say, a poorly edited photo is often worse than just having never taken the photo at all). There are many, many, many more reviews out there on the internet that show casual, unedited photos from this camera. I think this person's use case and exhibition are interesting due to his entire workflow.

Frost1x 5y ago
The more surprising aspect to this review (maybe I missed this part, I skimmed) is how there wasn't much discussed about having a bigger and more ergonomic hand mount for the phone when shooting. I don't even mean with all sorts of nifty expensive stabilizers, just something to hold onto the phone and shoot better. I did see use of a small tripod at one point and a mount to a vehicle but for the hands, nothing. Maybe I'm getting old but I find it difficult to shoot good photos even with the bulkiest of phone cases, while also being able to hit the shutter without shifting my camera drastically. I personally use a Note so the S pen works great as a built in remote shutter (especially nice for tripod shots) but I can't for the life of me get good shots with the UI shutter or even volume/side button rockers. Sure you have voice controls or shutter timmers but timmers are not ideal in most shooting conditions from my experience, unless you have humans. You can also burst or drop frames from video but ick, shooting professional photos with a phone as is seems unnecessarily uncomfortable to me.
- vlovich123 5y ago
  I haven't tried this but apparently the Apple watch has integration for showing you a preview & letting you take a photo. More expensive for sure but probably similar utility as the pen approach?
  - eric_h 5y ago
    it does - I've used it for properly aiming a tripod video recording setup when it was in a location where I could not see the screen (well above me).

PragmaticPulp 5y ago

> Is it just me or does it feel a little off-putting that he doesn't bother to post the pre-edited photos? This is a professional photographer writing a review targeted at other professional photographers, so it feels appropriate to post photos shot and developed as a professional photographer would. Regardless, the article is more about features like the new macro mode with short focus distance and the performance of the telephoto lens. Those don’t depend on manual post-processing.