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I didn’t read the full post, but the lack of certain keywords and the fixation on the technical details of the sensors / lenses indicates to me that my concern

I didn’t read the full post, but the lack of certain keywords and the fixation on the technical details of the sensors / lenses indicates to me that my concern is not addressed. My problem with cellphone cameras is the amount of post-processing they perform to make the picture look more attractive. They can be made to trick our neural networks into classifying the image as high quality, and they may do so with the artificial NNs present on the phone; but this doesn’t make the image more realistic. Some of the post-processing is done to make faces look different, in accordance to some societal ideals, but that doesn’t bring us closer to seeing things as they are. We are veering into a world where it is way cheaper to trick each other about reality than to pursue gaining accuracy in measuring it. GPT is another instance of a system that seems to satisfy our perception of correctness; but when more cognitive cycles spent on its results, holes and contradictions emerge. If not enough effort is spent on interrogating these results, we end up with short feedback loops that converge on the artifacts created by these models. We then get a reality tunnel formed by models and machines, with blindspots that span most of society through its dependence on these machines to acquire information. These blindspots feed back into future iterations of machinery and societal structures / policies.

artogahr 4y ago
From the full post: > Why haven't I sold my cameras: > workflow, the default JPEG/HEIF output of the iPhone is just sad, in fact I think it's worse than years before, there's so much sharpening, so much dynamic range, it just looks super fake and super flat. I could use an app to fix it, but they never work as smoothly as the native camera app. > because of how the iPhone is magically enhancing these photos, there will be a degradation in image quality when shooting fast, which is not a problem on traditional cameras
bradknowles 4y ago
With respect, the technology is meaningless. If you are Ansel Adams, you can take a fantastic phot with anything. A garbage camera will just place more limitations on you, which may make you work harder, but that's it. If you are Joe Shmoe, then the best camera in the world will not make you take pictures like Ansel Adams. No technological solution can fix that gap. This problem will not be fixed in my lifetime or yours. Not until we can take the entire genius that made Ansel Adams who he was, can this problem be fixed. At which point, you're no longer taking the pictures, but instead the virtual Ansel Adams is doing so. Now, between those two extremes, having more intelligence built into the device will help for certain types of pictures that you might want to take. And as the years go by, more and more technological advances will be incorporated, so there will be a wider and wider variety of pictures at which you have a decent chance of being able to take decent pictures. But phones will only eat the market from the bottom up, and slowly at that. It will take more and more effort for phones to be able to eat that next layer above where they are today. It will happen, but it will take more and more time, and more and more money. And in the meanwhile, higher end cameras are going to continue to be made that will extend the upper reach of what cameras can do. It's a constantly moving target. Today, I think phones have mostly eliminated the lower portion of the point-and-shoot market. But not all of it. It's going to be a while before the point-and-shoot market is completely eliminated. And much longer than that for the higher end cameras.

artogahr 4y ago

From the full post: > Why haven't I sold my cameras: > workflow, the default JPEG/HEIF output of the iPhone is just sad, in fact I think it's worse than years before, there's so much sharpening, so much dynamic range, it just looks super fake and super flat. I could use an app to fix it, but they never work as smoothly as the native camera app. > because of how the iPhone is magically enhancing these photos, there will be a degradation in image quality when shooting fast, which is not a problem on traditional cameras

bradknowles 4y ago

With respect, the technology is meaningless. If you are Ansel Adams, you can take a fantastic phot with anything. A garbage camera will just place more limitations on you, which may make you work harder, but that's it. If you are Joe Shmoe, then the best camera in the world will not make you take pictures like Ansel Adams. No technological solution can fix that gap. This problem will not be fixed in my lifetime or yours. Not until we can take the entire genius that made Ansel Adams who he was, can this problem be fixed. At which point, you're no longer taking the pictures, but instead the virtual Ansel Adams is doing so. Now, between those two extremes, having more intelligence built into the device will help for certain types of pictures that you might want to take. And as the years go by, more and more technological advances will be incorporated, so there will be a wider and wider variety of pictures at which you have a decent chance of being able to take decent pictures. But phones will only eat the market from the bottom up, and slowly at that. It will take more and more effort for phones to be able to eat that next layer above where they are today. It will happen, but it will take more and more time, and more and more money. And in the meanwhile, higher end cameras are going to continue to be made that will extend the upper reach of what cameras can do. It's a constantly moving target. Today, I think phones have mostly eliminated the lower portion of the point-and-shoot market. But not all of it. It's going to be a while before the point-and-shoot market is completely eliminated. And much longer than that for the higher end cameras.