I disagree, because instructing the device the circumstances to capture the image, whether it's a timer or motion or some other detector or your direct button p

I disagree, because instructing the device the circumstances to capture the image, whether it's a timer or motion or some other detector or your direct button press, that is not the only element of photography. They're saying the only creative elements of the work were done by machine. If you asked me to write a poem about copyright law in the style of Shakespeare, is that something you can copyright, or a work derived from something you can copyright? I don't think so. It's not that producing a prompt for a writer might not be a somewhat creative act itself, but that's not really recognized by copyright law. Ideas aren't copyright, works are. Colloquially people might agree that a work could be significantly derived from an idea, but I don't think that's how copyright law itself works. Linux was written from scratch, copying no code from Unix and therefore is not a derived work or infringing on Unix copyright. Unquestionably it faithfully copied many ideas verbatim from Unix, the invention or development or discovery of those ideas were probably the most substantial creative contributions that Ritchie and Thompson had, and the code itself relatively mundane (though expertly written) by comparison. Those ideas/inventions are not classed as copyright works though.