4 ms·

Knowing little about photography all of these photos look like an obscure combination of fake and dull. Like over saturated HDR-era style photos with too little

Knowing little about photography all of these photos look like an obscure combination of fake and dull. Like over saturated HDR-era style photos with too little depth. It's like those voice compression algos where at a certain threshold "the character" of the person talking has just completely disappeared then magically reappears at a high enough bitrate. These photos seem compressed in a way that takes away the "soul" of what's photographed. Mirrors the way heavy loudness compression and autotune has become standard in pop music, and audiences now prefers "metallic" voices and very little dynamic range - so people will probably prefer this ghostly aesthetic to actual reality going forward.

chrisseaton 4y ago
> with too little depth There's a limit to what you can do with these tiny optics to get depth via separation with a shallow depth of field.
freetime2 4y ago
I’ve always felt that my eye handles high dynamic range scenes much better than cameras. In the past I would shoot a photo and the shadows in the photo would be much darker than they appeared to me in person, and the sky would be blown out with no color. These compressed images feel closer to me to the way I actually perceive the world. The colors do sometimes get a little funky though.
- neogodless 4y ago
  https://www.digitalcameraworld.com/news/if-your-eyes-were-cameras-what-would-the-specs-be https://www.digitalcameraworld.com/news/if-your-eyes-were-ca... Human Eye - 21 stops Best Camera - <= 15 stops
- jsjohnst 4y ago
  > I’ve always felt that my eye handles high dynamic range scenes much better than cameras. Depending on what you mean by “eye handles”, yes, you have far more dynamic range than most cameras. The reason I caveat is that just like how modern smartphones with their “computation images” are really combining multiple shots together, so is your brain. I forget the exact numbers, but I think the retina itself is around 5-8 stops of dynamic range and what your brain “sees” when you are looking around is something like 15-20 stops.
lm28469 4y ago
> Knowing little about photography all of these photos look like an obscure combination of fake and dull. Like over saturated HDR-era style photos with too little depth. That's what you get when not a single artistic soul is present during the development, they maximise everything for pure raw """performance""". "see in the dark", "maximum amount of dynamic range HDR", "improve faces", "improve colors" &c. So yes, the camera can see in the dark, see 20 stops of dynamic range, add fake depth of field, but it looks like shit because they fundamentally don't know what makes a good image. You have the same thing with photographers: - the "technicians" who have the most expensive and advanced gear and often produce lacking results - the "artists" with limited funds taking breathtaking pictures on prehistoric hardware
- coldtea 4y ago
  >So yes, the camera can see in the dark, see 20 stops of dynamic range, add fake depth of field, but it looks like shit because they fundamentally don't know what makes a good image. Or it looks that way to faux-artistic purist sensibility, but actual users have managed to create awesome pictures with it just fine for over a decade...
  - lm28469 4y ago
    You can take good picture with a toy camera from 1990 These crazy HDR, face smoothing and fake background blur are objectively ugly, but sure you can take good pictures with them, the pictures would be better with proper tools though
    - coldtea 4y ago
      >are objectively ugly Not if subjects disagree... E.g. fake blur most would find bad only when it's badly done - when it exposes edges and so on. If it's done right in a image, they'd have no issue with it, nor find it "objectively ugly".
maewsa 4y ago
The photos are intentionally dull. It's just a product of comparing cameras in a controlled environment. You can go to product pages for the iPhone 14 Pro or Galaxy S22 and see photos with a bit more soul... though still with a forced feeling that comes from marketing. You can look at professional photos taken with phone cameras circa 2015 and they still look good.

chrisseaton 4y ago

> with too little depth There's a limit to what you can do with these tiny optics to get depth via separation with a shallow depth of field.

freetime2 4y ago

I’ve always felt that my eye handles high dynamic range scenes much better than cameras. In the past I would shoot a photo and the shadows in the photo would be much darker than they appeared to me in person, and the sky would be blown out with no color. These compressed images feel closer to me to the way I actually perceive the world. The colors do sometimes get a little funky though.

neogodless 4y ago
https://www.digitalcameraworld.com/news/if-your-eyes-were-cameras-what-would-the-specs-be https://www.digitalcameraworld.com/news/if-your-eyes-were-ca... Human Eye - 21 stops Best Camera - <= 15 stops
jsjohnst 4y ago
> I’ve always felt that my eye handles high dynamic range scenes much better than cameras. Depending on what you mean by “eye handles”, yes, you have far more dynamic range than most cameras. The reason I caveat is that just like how modern smartphones with their “computation images” are really combining multiple shots together, so is your brain. I forget the exact numbers, but I think the retina itself is around 5-8 stops of dynamic range and what your brain “sees” when you are looking around is something like 15-20 stops.

lm28469 4y ago

> Knowing little about photography all of these photos look like an obscure combination of fake and dull. Like over saturated HDR-era style photos with too little depth. That's what you get when not a single artistic soul is present during the development, they maximise everything for pure raw """performance""". "see in the dark", "maximum amount of dynamic range HDR", "improve faces", "improve colors" &c. So yes, the camera can see in the dark, see 20 stops of dynamic range, add fake depth of field, but it looks like shit because they fundamentally don't know what makes a good image. You have the same thing with photographers: - the "technicians" who have the most expensive and advanced gear and often produce lacking results - the "artists" with limited funds taking breathtaking pictures on prehistoric hardware

coldtea 4y ago
>So yes, the camera can see in the dark, see 20 stops of dynamic range, add fake depth of field, but it looks like shit because they fundamentally don't know what makes a good image. Or it looks that way to faux-artistic purist sensibility, but actual users have managed to create awesome pictures with it just fine for over a decade...
- lm28469 4y ago
  You can take good picture with a toy camera from 1990 These crazy HDR, face smoothing and fake background blur are objectively ugly, but sure you can take good pictures with them, the pictures would be better with proper tools though
  - coldtea 4y ago
    >are objectively ugly Not if subjects disagree... E.g. fake blur most would find bad only when it's badly done - when it exposes edges and so on. If it's done right in a image, they'd have no issue with it, nor find it "objectively ugly".

maewsa 4y ago

The photos are intentionally dull. It's just a product of comparing cameras in a controlled environment. You can go to product pages for the iPhone 14 Pro or Galaxy S22 and see photos with a bit more soul... though still with a forced feeling that comes from marketing. You can look at professional photos taken with phone cameras circa 2015 and they still look good.