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Which is a great if you consider that 99.98% of iphone owners wont know how to do it better themselves. It will be fascinating for anthropologists a few hundre

Which is a great if you consider that 99.98% of iphone owners wont know how to do it better themselves. It will be fascinating for anthropologists a few hundred years from now to see the increase in quality in «every day photography» that came with the increasing quality of smartphone camera software.

cdogl 3y ago
I can’t help but nitpick that this isn’t really an anthropologists’ domain.
- jb1991 3y ago
  Why not? Studying a culture from hundreds of years ago and measuring its advances in various ways, technological and societal.. seems fitting for the National Geographic's definition of anthropology as "study of the development of human societies and cultures".
  - guappa 3y ago
    The point is moot. Apple and google cloud won't exist and all the photos will be gone.
    - gambiting 3y ago
      You do know that people still print photos, right? Some of them will definitely survive. And unless the human civilization collapses I don't see why some digital media wouldn't survive either.
      - DonHopkins 3y ago
        Speaking of photography and the progression of technology (and not spoiling the amazing final scene of the story) I highly recommend reading this poignant prescient classic: "The Wedding Album" short story by David Marusek >"Wait a minute!" shouted Benjamin, waving his arms above his head. "I get it now. we're the sims!" The guests laughed, and he laughed too. "I guess my sims always say that, don't they?" The other Benjamin nodded yes and sipped his champagne. "I just never expected to be a sim," Benjamin went on. This brought another round of laughter, and he said sheepishly, "I guess my sims all say that, too." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wedding_Album_(short_story) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wedding_Album_(short_story... >"The Wedding Album" is a science fiction short story by David Marusek. It was first published in Asimov's Science Fiction in June 1999. >Synopsis: After their wedding, Anne and Ben realize that they are merely recordings of the real Anne and Ben, destined to relive the hours surrounding the wedding for all eternity. https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/13576562 https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/13576562 >With wedding photos and videos and mementos of all kinds, newlyweds attempt to hold on to their special day and to cherish it forever. Someday technology may enable us to record not only our appearance and voices but everything we know, feel, fear, and love at the moment the shutter clicks. Then our wedding mementos, like Anne and Ben’s in this story, take on a life of their own in a world where love may be eternal, but the world is not. Till deletion do us part . . .
      - fragmede 3y ago
        Apple and Google seem dominant now, but how much stuff do you have from Yahoo and Myspace and Flickr?
        gambiting 3y ago
        I don't understand why that's relevant. I never upload my photos anywhere. I'm pretty sure my photos that I have printed and/or stored locally don't go anywhere if Google shuts down tomorrow.
        godelski 3y ago
        > but how much stuff do you have from Yahoo and Myspace and Flickr? A fair amount. Not everything, but a decent chunk. You don't store things in multiple locations?
matsemann 3y ago
Yes, nothing really wrong with this. Just pointing out that what hits the sensor is far off from what's being saved. However, some phones now even apply AI filters to fill in detail it didn't capture. Like adding craters to the moon. And the thing about contrast, sharpness etc is that "more always looks better" at a quick glance. So when people are doing comparisons between phones etc, the one destroying the picture the most might be declared the winner.
plastic3169 3y ago
I think just the fact that people started practicing every day photography and seeing hundreds of shots done by peers everyday will be a huge factor in raising quality as well.
soultrees 3y ago
I actually think what’s happening is that it’s averaging out photography with such amazing tools in everyone’s hands, however we are seeing an outlier explosion of creative photography that we haven’t seen before. That said, the dopamine hit comes from taking your own shots and seeing the visual perfectness Apple creates, rarely if ever will those shots give the same effect to a viewer. So they don’t need to be photography-perfect, they just need to appeal enough to our monkey brains and monkey eyes to get that shot of dopamine to want us to take more pictures, therefore using the phone and resulting cloud storage more.
- baz00 3y ago
  The magic of phone cameras disappears in a moment when you get hold of a mirrorless for 5 minutes. Even a bottom end one is orders of magnitude better than the best phone camera even if it’s got a lot less megapixels.
  - cooper_ganglia 3y ago
    The magic of phone cameras lies in their convenience.
  - ClikeX 3y ago
    My mirrorless definitely beats my iPhone. But I have to put in more time, it’s not with me at all times and I need to transfer the images. In the end, the best camera is the one I have with me. And if I can take a pretty good portrait shot of my kid while I’m at a diner then I’m happy. To me, the memory/moment is more important than the “quality”.
  - kajecounterhack 3y ago
    I love my mirrorless, but it certainly wasn't 5 minutes. The first two lenses I tried (cheap ones obviously) were pretty underwhelming. Once I got a large aperture lens, I started to really get it. Even then, so many of my photos came out dark or blurry because I hadn't learned how to pick settings or focus for different lighting conditions and subject movement speeds. Autofocus on consumer cameras is pretty trash compared to iPhone/Pixel. EyeAF my ass. These camera companies need to invest more in their software. Superzoom, night sight, subject tracking and smart autofocus should be table stakes. Auto mode on my mirrorless should at least be on par out of the box with my phone. It's sad that the pixel phones with very old Sony sensors can take better 10x pictures than mirrorless out of the box. They need to worry less about better lenses and sensors, and worry more about better onboard compute capabilities.
JKCalhoun 3y ago
You remind me of a comment I heard from a user, "I like the magic wand button in Photos. Why doesn't it just automatically magic wand every photo?" Ha ha, I have no idea. Almost a decade ago I worked on the Photos team for a stint, I should have asked.
- jameshart 3y ago
  Maybe similar to the (alleged) reason cakemixes require you to add an egg: it makes it feel more like you baked it yourself if you have to do more than just add water and put it in the oven. Maybe users feel like they ‘touched up’ their photo if they tap the magic wand button.

cdogl 3y ago

I can’t help but nitpick that this isn’t really an anthropologists’ domain.

jb1991 3y ago
Why not? Studying a culture from hundreds of years ago and measuring its advances in various ways, technological and societal.. seems fitting for the National Geographic's definition of anthropology as "study of the development of human societies and cultures".
- guappa 3y ago
  The point is moot. Apple and google cloud won't exist and all the photos will be gone.
  - gambiting 3y ago
    You do know that people still print photos, right? Some of them will definitely survive. And unless the human civilization collapses I don't see why some digital media wouldn't survive either.
    - DonHopkins 3y ago
      Speaking of photography and the progression of technology (and not spoiling the amazing final scene of the story) I highly recommend reading this poignant prescient classic: "The Wedding Album" short story by David Marusek >"Wait a minute!" shouted Benjamin, waving his arms above his head. "I get it now. we're the sims!" The guests laughed, and he laughed too. "I guess my sims always say that, don't they?" The other Benjamin nodded yes and sipped his champagne. "I just never expected to be a sim," Benjamin went on. This brought another round of laughter, and he said sheepishly, "I guess my sims all say that, too." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wedding_Album_(short_story) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wedding_Album_(short_story... >"The Wedding Album" is a science fiction short story by David Marusek. It was first published in Asimov's Science Fiction in June 1999. >Synopsis: After their wedding, Anne and Ben realize that they are merely recordings of the real Anne and Ben, destined to relive the hours surrounding the wedding for all eternity. https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/13576562 https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/13576562 >With wedding photos and videos and mementos of all kinds, newlyweds attempt to hold on to their special day and to cherish it forever. Someday technology may enable us to record not only our appearance and voices but everything we know, feel, fear, and love at the moment the shutter clicks. Then our wedding mementos, like Anne and Ben’s in this story, take on a life of their own in a world where love may be eternal, but the world is not. Till deletion do us part . . .
    - fragmede 3y ago
      Apple and Google seem dominant now, but how much stuff do you have from Yahoo and Myspace and Flickr?
      - gambiting 3y ago
        I don't understand why that's relevant. I never upload my photos anywhere. I'm pretty sure my photos that I have printed and/or stored locally don't go anywhere if Google shuts down tomorrow.
      - godelski 3y ago
        > but how much stuff do you have from Yahoo and Myspace and Flickr? A fair amount. Not everything, but a decent chunk. You don't store things in multiple locations?

matsemann 3y ago

Yes, nothing really wrong with this. Just pointing out that what hits the sensor is far off from what's being saved. However, some phones now even apply AI filters to fill in detail it didn't capture. Like adding craters to the moon. And the thing about contrast, sharpness etc is that "more always looks better" at a quick glance. So when people are doing comparisons between phones etc, the one destroying the picture the most might be declared the winner.

plastic3169 3y ago

I think just the fact that people started practicing every day photography and seeing hundreds of shots done by peers everyday will be a huge factor in raising quality as well.

soultrees 3y ago

I actually think what’s happening is that it’s averaging out photography with such amazing tools in everyone’s hands, however we are seeing an outlier explosion of creative photography that we haven’t seen before. That said, the dopamine hit comes from taking your own shots and seeing the visual perfectness Apple creates, rarely if ever will those shots give the same effect to a viewer. So they don’t need to be photography-perfect, they just need to appeal enough to our monkey brains and monkey eyes to get that shot of dopamine to want us to take more pictures, therefore using the phone and resulting cloud storage more.

baz00 3y ago
The magic of phone cameras disappears in a moment when you get hold of a mirrorless for 5 minutes. Even a bottom end one is orders of magnitude better than the best phone camera even if it’s got a lot less megapixels.
- cooper_ganglia 3y ago
  The magic of phone cameras lies in their convenience.
- ClikeX 3y ago
  My mirrorless definitely beats my iPhone. But I have to put in more time, it’s not with me at all times and I need to transfer the images. In the end, the best camera is the one I have with me. And if I can take a pretty good portrait shot of my kid while I’m at a diner then I’m happy. To me, the memory/moment is more important than the “quality”.
- kajecounterhack 3y ago
  I love my mirrorless, but it certainly wasn't 5 minutes. The first two lenses I tried (cheap ones obviously) were pretty underwhelming. Once I got a large aperture lens, I started to really get it. Even then, so many of my photos came out dark or blurry because I hadn't learned how to pick settings or focus for different lighting conditions and subject movement speeds. Autofocus on consumer cameras is pretty trash compared to iPhone/Pixel. EyeAF my ass. These camera companies need to invest more in their software. Superzoom, night sight, subject tracking and smart autofocus should be table stakes. Auto mode on my mirrorless should at least be on par out of the box with my phone. It's sad that the pixel phones with very old Sony sensors can take better 10x pictures than mirrorless out of the box. They need to worry less about better lenses and sensors, and worry more about better onboard compute capabilities.

JKCalhoun 3y ago

You remind me of a comment I heard from a user, "I like the magic wand button in Photos. Why doesn't it just automatically magic wand every photo?" Ha ha, I have no idea. Almost a decade ago I worked on the Photos team for a stint, I should have asked.

jameshart 3y ago
Maybe similar to the (alleged) reason cakemixes require you to add an egg: it makes it feel more like you baked it yourself if you have to do more than just add water and put it in the oven. Maybe users feel like they ‘touched up’ their photo if they tap the magic wand button.