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I used to be really (really really) into photography. I respect anyone working hard on a physical product, but this misses the mark on every front I can think o

I used to be really (really really) into photography. I respect anyone working hard on a physical product, but this misses the mark on every front I can think of. The real issue that photographers grapple with, emotionally and financially, is that pictures have become so thoroughly commodified that nobody assigns them cultural value anymore. They are the thumbnail you see before the short video clip starts playing. Nobody has ever walked past a photograph because they can't inspect its digital authenticity hash. This is especially funny to me because I used to struggle with the fact that people looking at your work don't know or care what kind of camera or process was involved. They don't know if I spent two hours zoomed in removing microscopic dust particles from the scanning process after a long hike to get a single shot at 5:30am, or if it was just the 32nd of 122 shots taken in a burst by someone holding up an iPad Pro Max at a U2 concert. This all made me sad for a long time, but I ultimately came to terms with the fact that my own incentives were perverse; I was seeking the external gratification of getting likes just like everyone else. If you can get back to a place where you're taking photographs or making music or doing 5 minute daily synth drills for your own happiness with no expectation of external validity, you will be far happier taking that $399 and buying a Mamiya C330. This video is about music, but it's also about everything worth doing for the right reasons. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NvQF4YIvxwE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NvQF4YIvxwE

SubiculumCode 1y ago
That's not the point. The point is trying to make a device that can help capture evidence of events that can be verified as not AI generated.
october8140 1y ago
The biggest lie capitalism tells us is that something only has value if it can be sold.
- grumpy-de-sre 1y ago
  Or just maybe free markets expose the bitter truth. That can take a lot of self reflection to come to terms with. Applies to a lot of aspects to life, eg. career planning, creative endeavors etc. But at the same time it's true that some vital public activities aren't rewarded by the system atm. Eg. quality journalism, family rearing, open source, etc. Often that's an issue of privatized costs and socialized rewards. Finding a way to correct for this is a really big deal.
  - fsloth 1y ago
    "Finding a way to correct for this is a really big deal." But aren't you now feeding back to the system? Why would there need to be a financial reward and incentive for everything? I do realize "contributing free value" is perceived by some as free value a third party can capture and financially profit from" which might the reason for thinking of how to then cycle some of that value back?
    - grumpy-de-sre 1y ago
      Thinking about the three examples I gave, I think it's more that the externalities of not doing these activities aren't priced in. Tabloid press is fantastically profitable, but fake news over time will erode a great deal of social trust. Closed source software might be individually advantageous but collectively holds back industrial progress. It's a similar reason to why patents were first introduced for physical goods. And yes people voluntarily without kids should have to pay significantly more social contributions.
  - anigbrowl 1y ago
    I think this is only true when you abstract things away from their spatiotemporal context and treat market information as a snapshot. The art market thought Van Gogh was a weirdo with bad brush technique until after he died and people began to recognize how innovative his work was.
    - grumpy-de-sre 1y ago
      Naturally many a startup has also failed due to similar factors (only for the core idea to be resurrected some years later to great success).
- beeflet 1y ago
  The desire to "make money" is generally a proxy for the desire to provide value for others. It is easier to justify the investment of labor and resources that went into the production a camera if you can reciprocate the value for others.
- numpad0 1y ago
  And the most important lesson Internet taught it is that something only has value when seller loses money on it.
- mlrtime 1y ago
  Capitalism doesn't 'tell us' anything, it just like everything else has pros and cons. I don't know anyone who understand economics would say this, unless you're talking about very specific meanings of 'value'. I'm not trying to be pedantic, I know what you mean, but these comments are not insightful or helpful.
Gigachad 1y ago
There is absolutely a market for social media that bans AI slop. People in general don’t want the slop, but it’s seeping in everywhere with no easy way to mass remove. The problem with the linked product is it’s basically DRM with a baked in encryption key. And we have seen time and time again that with enough effort, it’s always been possible to extract that key.
- XorNot 1y ago
  Also the inversed incentive problem: the less people think it can be done, the more value in doing it. That said in theory TPMs are proof against this: putting that to the test at scale, publicly, would be quite useful.
- Someone 1y ago
  > People in general don’t want the slop True. > There is absolutely a market for social media that bans AI slop. There’s a market for social media that bans slop, period. I don’t think it matters how it was made. Also, that market may not be large. Yes, people prefer quality, but (how much) are they willing to pay for it?
- vineyardmike 1y ago
  Respectfully, I completely disagree. People "at large" absolutely don't care about AI slop, even if they point and say eww when it's discussed. Some people care, and some additional people pretend they care, but it just isn't a real issue that is driving behavior. Putting aside (for now) the idea of misinformation, slop is socially problematic when it puts artists out of work, but social media slop is just a new, sadder, form of entertainment that is generally not replacing the work of an artist. People have been warning about the downfall of society with each new mode of entertainment forever. Instagram or TikTok don't need to remove slop, and people won't care after they acclimate. Misinformation and "trickery" is a real and horrific threat to society. It predates AI slop, but it's exponentially easier now. This camera, or something else with the same goal, could maybe provide some level of social or journalistic relief to that issue. The problem, of course, is that this assumes that we're OK with letting something be "real" only when someone can remember to bring a specialty camera. The ability of average citizens to film some injustice and share it globally with just their phone is a remarkably important social power we've unlocked, and would risk losing.
keepamovin 1y ago
I think real photography is sort of like archery, you know, in the moment, feeling it, release at the right time, to capture that. I think in a sense of the candid street, or Magnum photogs. That kind of spirit. And that is innately satisfying and a fun way to engage with the world around you. :)
- danielbln 1y ago
  Even "unreal" photography can be like that . My phone may do all of the mechanical work + post-processing, but framing, angle, foreground/background and capturing just the right moment is just as much fun (well, for me anyway).
  - keepamovin 1y ago
    Ha! :) sure.
barrell 1y ago
I also used to be really (really really) into photography. Personally, I’ve stopped taking pictures because of the stigma around a camera. Everyone, me more than most, doesn’t want their picture taken, or to be in the background of other photos. When someone can take thousands of pictures an hour, and upload them all to some social media site to be permanently stored… idk it’s shifted from a way to capture a moment to feeling like you’re being survieled. A bit hyperbolic, but it’s the best way to describe what I’m feeling
- MarcelOlsz 1y ago
  Can't you just not care and power through? Someones always going to be miffed regardless. I keep a Rollei A110 on me at all times and a tiny Minox EC that takes me hours to refill. When I bring it out people love it. It's a throwback that people very much appreciate. I can see people getting miffed at a big digital camera though.
  - mikepurvis 1y ago
    I have an entry level Sony Alpha that I picked up for a vacation earlier this year. With the portrait lens on there it definitely registers as “camera” far more than a phone. Between that factor and the hassle of having to manually go through and upload the photos afterward, I only take it on special occasions — trips, hikes, etc. It’s not worth all that hassle for trying to get day to day stuff.
    - MarcelOlsz 1y ago
      Why not live a little and get a film camera? It's more time for sure but are you not tired of optimizing everything in life?
      - asimovDev 1y ago
        I found our childhood film camera last year and I took it to a couple trips. price of scanners/getting your film scanned and needing to buy 10eur film rolls for like 20 photos turned me off. I still haven't scanned my first and only roll I shot last year.
foxglacier 1y ago
People absolutely care that photos are real. There was somebody on here recently who had to read the photographer's story of how he planned it all to be comfortable it was real. Especially for those bird-in-front-of-sun type photos.
quietfox 1y ago
I really need to get back to that mindset. I keep catching myself unconsciously checking my hobbies and abilities for marketability. I've been playing guitar for almost three decades, one of them spent in a touring metal band. When I started, I used to enjoy making music so much that I played and composed so often an album would just come together naturally. And then another one and another one, I just couldn't stop. These days, I no longer sit down to play just for myself and the moment — instead, I catch myself thinking, “Can I sell sample packs from this? Record a course? Should I code a VST plugin for it and sell that?” And after weeks of moments like this, all I have are three random riffs and frustration.
- BrokenCogs 1y ago
  Which band, may I ask?
- pards 1y ago
  I try to look at my music as something that I do because I enjoy it. I play in a casual/amateur band and I regularly have to remind the guys that I do it for no other reason than because I enjoy it; I'm not interested in playing gigs. Not everyone sees it the same way. I know a few musicians that tried to make a living out of music similar to your story. Most have now stopped making music and are both frustrated with the music industry, and angry at listeners for not valuing their work.
oxalorg 1y ago
I have clicked about ~20,000 photographs on a Sony camera in the last year and a half. And I have published exactly 0 of those photos on social media. Whenever I meet my friends and family, I show them the pictures myself and the story behind them. I love the thrill of street photography and it gives me immense pleasure to capture candid moments of humans. It's a great creative outlet for me and helps me think about life and philosophy through my pictures. Maybe one day I will care enough about publishing these pictures, maybe one day I will care about AI. But right now, I don't. This is the closest I've been to my "kid"-like self, just enjoying something for the heck for it.
- nuancebydefault 1y ago
  The pictures go with a story, that's the interesting part.
- LandR 1y ago
  As someone who would love to get into street photography, and has an old NIkdon D7100, what would you recommend is a good lense (not model, but focal length, zoom, etc) for street photography ?
  - bentcorner 1y ago
    It all depends on what you want to do. If you want to get started cheaply the kit lens is more than enough. Prime lenses will have larger apertures that can give you more creative options. How close do you want to stand? Indoor/outdoors? What are you planning on taking pictures of? D7100 is APS-C, I find that 50mm (~75mm ff) on APS-C doesn't give you quite enough room indoors to take photos. So you might want a 35mm prime or a zoom that goes down there. If you're planning on taking portraits you don't want something too wide (~20mm and below can be good for real estate/architecture) because it makes people look weird. Most everything else is dictated by how much you want to spend and how large/heavy you want your camera to be. Personally I have a 35mm f1.8 on my camera and am happy with it, I use it for family outings, a lot of portrait-level shots and just general "hey we're at the museum" kind of photos.
ludicrousdispla 1y ago
This might have immediate application in certain business sectors, such as real estate and insurance.
- Theodores 1y ago
  Yes but it is a hard sell, arguably too hard, and the product pitch, which is away from these applications, is the right one. They are not promising to be 'blockchain two' with hypothetical business use cases. Imagine going to the solicitors with lots of documents that they need copies of. If they are making scans themselves then that is all the proof they need. If an assistant has copied that important certificate, then that copy is all that is needed for normal legal services. The Roc Camera would not be helpful in this regard, even if it had some magic means of scanning A4 pages. In a serious solicitor interaction there will be forms that need to be signed and witnessed. These important documents then need to go in the post. In theory, the client could just whip out their Roc Camera and... But who is going to buy a Roc Camera when a stamp will do the job? Maybe you might if you have a lot of photos to take for 'evidence', for example, of the condition of a house before work is done, or after it is done. However, nobody is asking for this so there is no compulsion to get the Roc Camera when the camera on your phone suffices for the needs of the real world.
  - ludicrousdispla 1y ago
    I agree with your points, but your argument is so rational and well supported that I believe the opposite is likely to happen. Does that make me a pessimist or an optimist?
patates 1y ago
> I was seeking the external gratification of getting likes just like everyone else. “You will be happy to look okay. You will be happy to turn heads. You will be happy with smoother skin. You will be happy with a flat stomach. You will be happy with a six-pack. You will be happy with an eight-pack. You will be happy when every photo of yourself gets 10,000 likes on Instagram. You will be happy when you have transcended earthly woes. You will be happy when you are at one with the universe. You will be happy when you are the universe. You will be happy when you are a god. You will be happy when you are the god to rule all gods. You will be happy when you are Zeus. In the clouds above Mount Olympus, commanding the sky. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe.” ― Matt Haig, Notes on a Nervous Planet , Shortened version of the many-paragraphs-long quote found on: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/10913632-you-will-be-happy-to-look-okay-you-will-be https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/10913632-you-will-be-happy-...
maurits 1y ago
I'm cynical and don't fear a world in which people can't verify photos for their authenticity. I fear (channeling a brave new world) that they simply will not care.
bambax 1y ago
Agreed. This product seems pointless because nobody's interested in a proof of authenticity (except maybe in certain legal niches?) I take pics for me and my friends and family, and AI has almost zero impact on this (although, face swaping is lots of fun, and everyone understands it's fake and a joke). Edit: also, and more importantly, the question of authenticity is moot. The point of art in general is to say something / make a statement, and certainly not to produce a faithful representation of the world. Anything that's not an exact copy (which is hard to do if you're not God), has a point of view, which gives it value.
- clifdweller 1y ago
  The idea isn't a bad one in some cases like travel photography. Between background people removal and lightroom a good chunk of travel pictures are not a good representation of what you can expect. on Instagram there are plenty of pictures of people standing alone in front of the Eifel tower or at inari gates in afternoon lighting that is unrealistic outside the pandemic or a 6am shot. Or take cherry blossom viewing in tokyo. More trees are white or very light pink but you would not know that looking at what people post often the camera auto balancing to make them more pink because if it doesn't people think there is a problem with the camera; that incentivizes sony, canon etc to build that in.
- SubiculumCode 1y ago
  Taking pics and videos of events with political ramifications and being able to show that it isn't AI generated or tampered with has HUGE utility, not the least of which by reporters and restablishing trust with disaffected.
huimang 1y ago
> Nobody has ever walked past a photograph because they can't inspect its digital authenticity hash That the average person hasn't thought about this doesn't mean it couldn't become a thing in the future. People do value authenticity and genuine things, though I agree the particulars aren't relevant in a lot of cases. This is a (very expensive!) toy camera, but I could see traditional camera companies like Fujifilm, Canon, etc, incorporating this tech later down the line.
kybernetyk 1y ago
How did you get out of your photography obsession? Because currently I’m really really into photography as well and it gets unhealthy. (Both time and money wise).
kristo 1y ago
I'm not sure this is targeting you, but possibly rather journalistic photos where being able to prove authenticity is important
Cthulhu_ 1y ago
Commoditization is a good way to phrase it; first with affordable digital cameras, then with smartphones, photos have become more content than art. With smart filters and digital enhancement, mistakes and imperfect conditions have been fixed. AI won't replace that, just creates an alternative way to generate content without needing to be physically present somewhere.
fidotron 1y ago
> Nobody has ever walked past a photograph because they can't inspect its digital authenticity hash Nit, but there are reasons Canon and Nikon will sell you cameras that sign the pictures with their keys already. Even if they have been shown insecure in specific implementations the market is very much there. Ten years ago in the NYC art market this was also true in a niche but very real audience. I think the NFT wave burnt that out completely.
Jean-Papoulos 1y ago
>Nobody has ever walked past a photograph because they can't inspect its digital authenticity hash. Some will once AI is ubiquitous. Especially of the art & entertainment sectors
nuancebydefault 1y ago
The words 'external gratification' popped out. I only recently found out that my sensitivity to it is the biggest flaw/weakness in my and many other's personality.
divan 1y ago
I’ve been (really, really) into photography since I was six, and I’m still (really, really) at it three decades later. I never felt much appeal toward photography as an art form – it’s always been a way to capture moments and share them with people I care about. These days I play with both AI photography and “normal” photography. My main camera is the A9 III with a global shutter – a machine gun that fires 120fps RAW files. I shoot a lot of sports, and the people I photograph are thrilled to get such high-quality shots of moments that mattered to them. It doesn’t really matter how much cultural value society attaches to photos – those captured moments will always be meaningful to them, and they feel joy when they see them. That’s the whole point of photography for me. AI photography is a bit different. I take 15–20 photos of a friend’s face with my camera, train a LoRA model to use with Flux1.dev, and upload it to network storage on RunPod. Then I spin up a serverless worker on an H100 that runs the ComfyUI API, and use my own Flutter-based frontend to play with prompts and generate new photos of that person. I can make far better headshots this way than in a real studio. For some friends, it’s even been a therapeutic experience – seeing so many high-quality images of themselves looking confident, happy, and fully alive helped them feel that way, even if just for a moment. One friend told me, “You did more with these AI photos of me than therapy did in the past year.”
- LaGrange 1y ago
  Wow that’s bleak. “Look at that fake photo of you but better.”
  - divan 1y ago
    That's actually working technique in sports psychology – one version of it called VSM (Video Self-Modelling), where edited video shows athlete performing correct/advanced technique. It tricks brain to belive in "future self". I'm not surprised it works with photos that well, but I think it's not studied yet. These AI photos I make a very different from, say, photoshopped faced. I tried it on myself too, and can confirm that it does have psychological effect.
    - LaGrange 1y ago
MontyCarloHall 1y ago
>Nobody has ever walked past a photograph because they can't inspect its digital authenticity hash. This has rapidly changed over the last few months. As more and more pictures/videos going viral on social media are AI-generated [0, 1], real pictures/videos of remarkable things are increasingly falsely called out as AI-generated [2]. People are definitely starting to care, and while the toy camera in the linked article is merely an artistic statement, having some ubiquitously standardized way of unambiguously validating content generated by a real recording device is going to become paramount. [0] https://www.today.com/news/bunnies-jumping-trampoline-viral-video-ai-concern-rcna223637 https://www.today.com/news/bunnies-jumping-trampoline-viral-... [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9O-8kAnBL2s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9O-8kAnBL2s [2] https://old.reddit.com/r/skiing/comments/1oeda67/my_highlight_moment/nl1lvih/ https://old.reddit.com/r/skiing/comments/1oeda67/my_highligh...
- pnathan 1y ago
  Nikon is building in authenticity tooling at the camera & sensor level with its latest cameras. Z6iii I believe was the first.
cassepipe 1y ago
Photography is when the image is not moving right ?
wvlia5 1y ago
This is not about photographers. Imagine the president wants to deliver a video message. Was it authentic or AI generated? If it was filmed with this camera, the population can verify.
- SubiculumCode 1y ago
  Yes. I am surprised by off the rails this conversation went. It's not about art. It's about verifiable evidence in these crazy times.
  - wvlia5 1y ago
    Yeah, 1st he misunderstands the product and then he believes he is qualified to valuate it negatively (due to him being a great photographer ): "this misses the mark on every front I can think of"
toobulkeh 1y ago
Maybe it’s not for common use? I could see this betting important in the intelligence community, for example.
cush 1y ago
I think this kind of tech is designed for journalists and professionals, not enthusiasts and social media folk
Kiboneu 1y ago
I am still really (really really) into photography! Nothing has changed that, the pictures are just as beautiful as they always were. My friends are touched when they see pictures of themselves spending time together. There is still plenty of things to see and take pictures of, and not enough time to worry about whether someone will appreciate my "work". You can definitely get back into it. Just have fun, don't do it for anyone (that goes with any art).
mfer 1y ago
I don't think about this as much for professional or amateur photography. I think of verifiable images as something for legal purposes. So much is easily made up with AI. Having verifiable real photos (and eventually video) can be a benefit for things like legal proceedings.
- scottlamb 1y ago
  > I think of verifiable images as something for legal purposes. That makes sense to me, but who is this particular $399 camera made for? Can you imagine someone choosing it for a photo they intend to be used in legal proceedings? The specs and appearance do not scream high-quality professional tool to me. The price is lower than a professional would be willing to spend (on something high-quality), higher than someone would drop on a whim. It looks kinda like a designer's school assignment that they're trying to sell.
elil17 1y ago
I view this as something that could be more useful in a journalistic, legal, or governmental context rather than in a creative or artistic one.
wiether 1y ago
I read your comment this morning and it resonated with me. A few hours later, YouTube suggested me this video: Psychology of People Who Don't Post their Photos on Social Media Not some big revelations, but an interesting perspective https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGx_cmEH8Lw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGx_cmEH8Lw
doctorpangloss 1y ago
On the other hand, if taking a picture on a Canon dSLR instantly uploaded it to Apple Photos the same way your iPhone does, when you’re outside, that would be a really popular product.
lgleason 1y ago
Back before digital became really high res I was into small, medium and large format silver halide cameras balancing cost with high quality optics. You could get Exackta's, Speed Graphics and Roleiflexes relatively inexpensively and take amazing high quality photos with them. The larger you went though, the more you had to be mindful about the cost of eash shot both in terms of time and cost for film and developing. There is something to be said about the curation that happened when taking photos like that. You put a lot more though upfront into composition and had to think about your shutter speed, aperture etc.. One thing I learned about during that time was how the old time press photographers would use a Speed Graphic on 4x5 negative, grab a wide angled shot and then crop it. Also, press conferences used to create a lot of broken glass as photographers would snap a shot, shoot out the one time use flash bulb on the ground and then quickly put in another bulb to get another shot.
angelgonzales 1y ago
Yep, I make many pictures but don’t feel like I need to share them with others. Sometimes I show my girlfriend and sometimes I frame them or put them on my fridge. I actually don’t really want to show strangers my work because I make photographs for myself and I’m not looking for critique because I’m developing my own style and exploring what interests me. I don’t need to prove my photographs are authentic because I know I took them!
wvlia5 1y ago
> this misses the mark on every front I can think of. YOU are missing the mark on every front I can think of.
dcchambers 1y ago
The value here is not in a product used to make art. The value is for documenting history and being able to *prove* something happened (eg for lawsuits, criminal cases, security, etc).
marssaxman 1y ago
Funny you mention the C330. I have not done any photography in well over a decade, and long ago sold all my gear, but just a week ago decided to take my grandfather's old Rolleicord in for cleaning & service. I am looking forward to shooting with it again, just for the sake of practicing the art. I might even learn to develop my own film this time around!
ratmeadow 1y ago
Agreed, the issue is more that the average person doesn't care about photos. Even now you can tell what is real vs fake in photography and people don't care, they eat it all up. The good, the bad, the fake, doesn't matter because no one gives a fuck. If you actually appreciate the art of photography then you already do and will continue to regardless of AI or whatever.

SubiculumCode 1y ago

That's not the point. The point is trying to make a device that can help capture evidence of events that can be verified as not AI generated.

october8140 1y ago

The biggest lie capitalism tells us is that something only has value if it can be sold.

grumpy-de-sre 1y ago
Or just maybe free markets expose the bitter truth. That can take a lot of self reflection to come to terms with. Applies to a lot of aspects to life, eg. career planning, creative endeavors etc. But at the same time it's true that some vital public activities aren't rewarded by the system atm. Eg. quality journalism, family rearing, open source, etc. Often that's an issue of privatized costs and socialized rewards. Finding a way to correct for this is a really big deal.
- fsloth 1y ago
  "Finding a way to correct for this is a really big deal." But aren't you now feeding back to the system? Why would there need to be a financial reward and incentive for everything? I do realize "contributing free value" is perceived by some as free value a third party can capture and financially profit from" which might the reason for thinking of how to then cycle some of that value back?
  - grumpy-de-sre 1y ago
    Thinking about the three examples I gave, I think it's more that the externalities of not doing these activities aren't priced in. Tabloid press is fantastically profitable, but fake news over time will erode a great deal of social trust. Closed source software might be individually advantageous but collectively holds back industrial progress. It's a similar reason to why patents were first introduced for physical goods. And yes people voluntarily without kids should have to pay significantly more social contributions.
- anigbrowl 1y ago
  I think this is only true when you abstract things away from their spatiotemporal context and treat market information as a snapshot. The art market thought Van Gogh was a weirdo with bad brush technique until after he died and people began to recognize how innovative his work was.
  - grumpy-de-sre 1y ago
    Naturally many a startup has also failed due to similar factors (only for the core idea to be resurrected some years later to great success).
beeflet 1y ago
The desire to "make money" is generally a proxy for the desire to provide value for others. It is easier to justify the investment of labor and resources that went into the production a camera if you can reciprocate the value for others.
numpad0 1y ago
And the most important lesson Internet taught it is that something only has value when seller loses money on it.
mlrtime 1y ago
Capitalism doesn't 'tell us' anything, it just like everything else has pros and cons. I don't know anyone who understand economics would say this, unless you're talking about very specific meanings of 'value'. I'm not trying to be pedantic, I know what you mean, but these comments are not insightful or helpful.

Gigachad 1y ago

There is absolutely a market for social media that bans AI slop. People in general don’t want the slop, but it’s seeping in everywhere with no easy way to mass remove. The problem with the linked product is it’s basically DRM with a baked in encryption key. And we have seen time and time again that with enough effort, it’s always been possible to extract that key.

XorNot 1y ago
Also the inversed incentive problem: the less people think it can be done, the more value in doing it. That said in theory TPMs are proof against this: putting that to the test at scale, publicly, would be quite useful.
Someone 1y ago
> People in general don’t want the slop True. > There is absolutely a market for social media that bans AI slop. There’s a market for social media that bans slop, period. I don’t think it matters how it was made. Also, that market may not be large. Yes, people prefer quality, but (how much) are they willing to pay for it?
vineyardmike 1y ago
Respectfully, I completely disagree. People "at large" absolutely don't care about AI slop, even if they point and say eww when it's discussed. Some people care, and some additional people pretend they care, but it just isn't a real issue that is driving behavior. Putting aside (for now) the idea of misinformation, slop is socially problematic when it puts artists out of work, but social media slop is just a new, sadder, form of entertainment that is generally not replacing the work of an artist. People have been warning about the downfall of society with each new mode of entertainment forever. Instagram or TikTok don't need to remove slop, and people won't care after they acclimate. Misinformation and "trickery" is a real and horrific threat to society. It predates AI slop, but it's exponentially easier now. This camera, or something else with the same goal, could maybe provide some level of social or journalistic relief to that issue. The problem, of course, is that this assumes that we're OK with letting something be "real" only when someone can remember to bring a specialty camera. The ability of average citizens to film some injustice and share it globally with just their phone is a remarkably important social power we've unlocked, and would risk losing.

keepamovin 1y ago

I think real photography is sort of like archery, you know, in the moment, feeling it, release at the right time, to capture that. I think in a sense of the candid street, or Magnum photogs. That kind of spirit. And that is innately satisfying and a fun way to engage with the world around you. :)

danielbln 1y ago
Even "unreal" photography can be like that . My phone may do all of the mechanical work + post-processing, but framing, angle, foreground/background and capturing just the right moment is just as much fun (well, for me anyway).
- keepamovin 1y ago
  Ha! :) sure.

barrell 1y ago

I also used to be really (really really) into photography. Personally, I’ve stopped taking pictures because of the stigma around a camera. Everyone, me more than most, doesn’t want their picture taken, or to be in the background of other photos. When someone can take thousands of pictures an hour, and upload them all to some social media site to be permanently stored… idk it’s shifted from a way to capture a moment to feeling like you’re being survieled. A bit hyperbolic, but it’s the best way to describe what I’m feeling

MarcelOlsz 1y ago
Can't you just not care and power through? Someones always going to be miffed regardless. I keep a Rollei A110 on me at all times and a tiny Minox EC that takes me hours to refill. When I bring it out people love it. It's a throwback that people very much appreciate. I can see people getting miffed at a big digital camera though.
- mikepurvis 1y ago
  I have an entry level Sony Alpha that I picked up for a vacation earlier this year. With the portrait lens on there it definitely registers as “camera” far more than a phone. Between that factor and the hassle of having to manually go through and upload the photos afterward, I only take it on special occasions — trips, hikes, etc. It’s not worth all that hassle for trying to get day to day stuff.
  - MarcelOlsz 1y ago
    Why not live a little and get a film camera? It's more time for sure but are you not tired of optimizing everything in life?
    - asimovDev 1y ago
      I found our childhood film camera last year and I took it to a couple trips. price of scanners/getting your film scanned and needing to buy 10eur film rolls for like 20 photos turned me off. I still haven't scanned my first and only roll I shot last year.

foxglacier 1y ago

People absolutely care that photos are real. There was somebody on here recently who had to read the photographer's story of how he planned it all to be comfortable it was real. Especially for those bird-in-front-of-sun type photos.

quietfox 1y ago

I really need to get back to that mindset. I keep catching myself unconsciously checking my hobbies and abilities for marketability. I've been playing guitar for almost three decades, one of them spent in a touring metal band. When I started, I used to enjoy making music so much that I played and composed so often an album would just come together naturally. And then another one and another one, I just couldn't stop. These days, I no longer sit down to play just for myself and the moment — instead, I catch myself thinking, “Can I sell sample packs from this? Record a course? Should I code a VST plugin for it and sell that?” And after weeks of moments like this, all I have are three random riffs and frustration.

BrokenCogs 1y ago
Which band, may I ask?
pards 1y ago
I try to look at my music as something that I do because I enjoy it. I play in a casual/amateur band and I regularly have to remind the guys that I do it for no other reason than because I enjoy it; I'm not interested in playing gigs. Not everyone sees it the same way. I know a few musicians that tried to make a living out of music similar to your story. Most have now stopped making music and are both frustrated with the music industry, and angry at listeners for not valuing their work.

oxalorg 1y ago

I have clicked about ~20,000 photographs on a Sony camera in the last year and a half. And I have published exactly 0 of those photos on social media. Whenever I meet my friends and family, I show them the pictures myself and the story behind them. I love the thrill of street photography and it gives me immense pleasure to capture candid moments of humans. It's a great creative outlet for me and helps me think about life and philosophy through my pictures. Maybe one day I will care enough about publishing these pictures, maybe one day I will care about AI. But right now, I don't. This is the closest I've been to my "kid"-like self, just enjoying something for the heck for it.

nuancebydefault 1y ago
The pictures go with a story, that's the interesting part.
LandR 1y ago
As someone who would love to get into street photography, and has an old NIkdon D7100, what would you recommend is a good lense (not model, but focal length, zoom, etc) for street photography ?
- bentcorner 1y ago
  It all depends on what you want to do. If you want to get started cheaply the kit lens is more than enough. Prime lenses will have larger apertures that can give you more creative options. How close do you want to stand? Indoor/outdoors? What are you planning on taking pictures of? D7100 is APS-C, I find that 50mm (~75mm ff) on APS-C doesn't give you quite enough room indoors to take photos. So you might want a 35mm prime or a zoom that goes down there. If you're planning on taking portraits you don't want something too wide (~20mm and below can be good for real estate/architecture) because it makes people look weird. Most everything else is dictated by how much you want to spend and how large/heavy you want your camera to be. Personally I have a 35mm f1.8 on my camera and am happy with it, I use it for family outings, a lot of portrait-level shots and just general "hey we're at the museum" kind of photos.

ludicrousdispla 1y ago

This might have immediate application in certain business sectors, such as real estate and insurance.

Theodores 1y ago
Yes but it is a hard sell, arguably too hard, and the product pitch, which is away from these applications, is the right one. They are not promising to be 'blockchain two' with hypothetical business use cases. Imagine going to the solicitors with lots of documents that they need copies of. If they are making scans themselves then that is all the proof they need. If an assistant has copied that important certificate, then that copy is all that is needed for normal legal services. The Roc Camera would not be helpful in this regard, even if it had some magic means of scanning A4 pages. In a serious solicitor interaction there will be forms that need to be signed and witnessed. These important documents then need to go in the post. In theory, the client could just whip out their Roc Camera and... But who is going to buy a Roc Camera when a stamp will do the job? Maybe you might if you have a lot of photos to take for 'evidence', for example, of the condition of a house before work is done, or after it is done. However, nobody is asking for this so there is no compulsion to get the Roc Camera when the camera on your phone suffices for the needs of the real world.
- ludicrousdispla 1y ago
  I agree with your points, but your argument is so rational and well supported that I believe the opposite is likely to happen. Does that make me a pessimist or an optimist?

patates 1y ago

> I was seeking the external gratification of getting likes just like everyone else. “You will be happy to look okay. You will be happy to turn heads. You will be happy with smoother skin. You will be happy with a flat stomach. You will be happy with a six-pack. You will be happy with an eight-pack. You will be happy when every photo of yourself gets 10,000 likes on Instagram. You will be happy when you have transcended earthly woes. You will be happy when you are at one with the universe. You will be happy when you are the universe. You will be happy when you are a god. You will be happy when you are the god to rule all gods. You will be happy when you are Zeus. In the clouds above Mount Olympus, commanding the sky. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe.” ― Matt Haig, Notes on a Nervous Planet , Shortened version of the many-paragraphs-long quote found on: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/10913632-you-will-be-happy-to-look-okay-you-will-be https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/10913632-you-will-be-happy-...

maurits 1y ago

I'm cynical and don't fear a world in which people can't verify photos for their authenticity. I fear (channeling a brave new world) that they simply will not care.

bambax 1y ago

Agreed. This product seems pointless because nobody's interested in a proof of authenticity (except maybe in certain legal niches?) I take pics for me and my friends and family, and AI has almost zero impact on this (although, face swaping is lots of fun, and everyone understands it's fake and a joke). Edit: also, and more importantly, the question of authenticity is moot. The point of art in general is to say something / make a statement, and certainly not to produce a faithful representation of the world. Anything that's not an exact copy (which is hard to do if you're not God), has a point of view, which gives it value.

clifdweller 1y ago
The idea isn't a bad one in some cases like travel photography. Between background people removal and lightroom a good chunk of travel pictures are not a good representation of what you can expect. on Instagram there are plenty of pictures of people standing alone in front of the Eifel tower or at inari gates in afternoon lighting that is unrealistic outside the pandemic or a 6am shot. Or take cherry blossom viewing in tokyo. More trees are white or very light pink but you would not know that looking at what people post often the camera auto balancing to make them more pink because if it doesn't people think there is a problem with the camera; that incentivizes sony, canon etc to build that in.
SubiculumCode 1y ago
Taking pics and videos of events with political ramifications and being able to show that it isn't AI generated or tampered with has HUGE utility, not the least of which by reporters and restablishing trust with disaffected.

huimang 1y ago

> Nobody has ever walked past a photograph because they can't inspect its digital authenticity hash That the average person hasn't thought about this doesn't mean it couldn't become a thing in the future. People do value authenticity and genuine things, though I agree the particulars aren't relevant in a lot of cases. This is a (very expensive!) toy camera, but I could see traditional camera companies like Fujifilm, Canon, etc, incorporating this tech later down the line.

kybernetyk 1y ago

How did you get out of your photography obsession? Because currently I’m really really into photography as well and it gets unhealthy. (Both time and money wise).

kristo 1y ago

I'm not sure this is targeting you, but possibly rather journalistic photos where being able to prove authenticity is important

Cthulhu_ 1y ago

Commoditization is a good way to phrase it; first with affordable digital cameras, then with smartphones, photos have become more content than art. With smart filters and digital enhancement, mistakes and imperfect conditions have been fixed. AI won't replace that, just creates an alternative way to generate content without needing to be physically present somewhere.

fidotron 1y ago

> Nobody has ever walked past a photograph because they can't inspect its digital authenticity hash Nit, but there are reasons Canon and Nikon will sell you cameras that sign the pictures with their keys already. Even if they have been shown insecure in specific implementations the market is very much there. Ten years ago in the NYC art market this was also true in a niche but very real audience. I think the NFT wave burnt that out completely.

Jean-Papoulos 1y ago

>Nobody has ever walked past a photograph because they can't inspect its digital authenticity hash. Some will once AI is ubiquitous. Especially of the art & entertainment sectors

nuancebydefault 1y ago

The words 'external gratification' popped out. I only recently found out that my sensitivity to it is the biggest flaw/weakness in my and many other's personality.

divan 1y ago

I’ve been (really, really) into photography since I was six, and I’m still (really, really) at it three decades later. I never felt much appeal toward photography as an art form – it’s always been a way to capture moments and share them with people I care about. These days I play with both AI photography and “normal” photography. My main camera is the A9 III with a global shutter – a machine gun that fires 120fps RAW files. I shoot a lot of sports, and the people I photograph are thrilled to get such high-quality shots of moments that mattered to them. It doesn’t really matter how much cultural value society attaches to photos – those captured moments will always be meaningful to them, and they feel joy when they see them. That’s the whole point of photography for me. AI photography is a bit different. I take 15–20 photos of a friend’s face with my camera, train a LoRA model to use with Flux1.dev, and upload it to network storage on RunPod. Then I spin up a serverless worker on an H100 that runs the ComfyUI API, and use my own Flutter-based frontend to play with prompts and generate new photos of that person. I can make far better headshots this way than in a real studio. For some friends, it’s even been a therapeutic experience – seeing so many high-quality images of themselves looking confident, happy, and fully alive helped them feel that way, even if just for a moment. One friend told me, “You did more with these AI photos of me than therapy did in the past year.”

LaGrange 1y ago
Wow that’s bleak. “Look at that fake photo of you but better.”
- divan 1y ago
  That's actually working technique in sports psychology – one version of it called VSM (Video Self-Modelling), where edited video shows athlete performing correct/advanced technique. It tricks brain to belive in "future self". I'm not surprised it works with photos that well, but I think it's not studied yet. These AI photos I make a very different from, say, photoshopped faced. I tried it on myself too, and can confirm that it does have psychological effect.
  - LaGrange 1y ago

MontyCarloHall 1y ago

>Nobody has ever walked past a photograph because they can't inspect its digital authenticity hash. This has rapidly changed over the last few months. As more and more pictures/videos going viral on social media are AI-generated [0, 1], real pictures/videos of remarkable things are increasingly falsely called out as AI-generated [2]. People are definitely starting to care, and while the toy camera in the linked article is merely an artistic statement, having some ubiquitously standardized way of unambiguously validating content generated by a real recording device is going to become paramount. [0] https://www.today.com/news/bunnies-jumping-trampoline-viral-video-ai-concern-rcna223637 https://www.today.com/news/bunnies-jumping-trampoline-viral-... [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9O-8kAnBL2s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9O-8kAnBL2s [2] https://old.reddit.com/r/skiing/comments/1oeda67/my_highlight_moment/nl1lvih/ https://old.reddit.com/r/skiing/comments/1oeda67/my_highligh...

pnathan 1y ago
Nikon is building in authenticity tooling at the camera & sensor level with its latest cameras. Z6iii I believe was the first.

cassepipe 1y ago

Photography is when the image is not moving right ?

wvlia5 1y ago

This is not about photographers. Imagine the president wants to deliver a video message. Was it authentic or AI generated? If it was filmed with this camera, the population can verify.

SubiculumCode 1y ago
Yes. I am surprised by off the rails this conversation went. It's not about art. It's about verifiable evidence in these crazy times.
- wvlia5 1y ago
  Yeah, 1st he misunderstands the product and then he believes he is qualified to valuate it negatively (due to him being a great photographer ): "this misses the mark on every front I can think of"

toobulkeh 1y ago

Maybe it’s not for common use? I could see this betting important in the intelligence community, for example.

cush 1y ago

I think this kind of tech is designed for journalists and professionals, not enthusiasts and social media folk

Kiboneu 1y ago

I am still really (really really) into photography! Nothing has changed that, the pictures are just as beautiful as they always were. My friends are touched when they see pictures of themselves spending time together. There is still plenty of things to see and take pictures of, and not enough time to worry about whether someone will appreciate my "work". You can definitely get back into it. Just have fun, don't do it for anyone (that goes with any art).

mfer 1y ago

I don't think about this as much for professional or amateur photography. I think of verifiable images as something for legal purposes. So much is easily made up with AI. Having verifiable real photos (and eventually video) can be a benefit for things like legal proceedings.

scottlamb 1y ago
> I think of verifiable images as something for legal purposes. That makes sense to me, but who is this particular $399 camera made for? Can you imagine someone choosing it for a photo they intend to be used in legal proceedings? The specs and appearance do not scream high-quality professional tool to me. The price is lower than a professional would be willing to spend (on something high-quality), higher than someone would drop on a whim. It looks kinda like a designer's school assignment that they're trying to sell.

elil17 1y ago

I view this as something that could be more useful in a journalistic, legal, or governmental context rather than in a creative or artistic one.

wiether 1y ago

I read your comment this morning and it resonated with me. A few hours later, YouTube suggested me this video: Psychology of People Who Don't Post their Photos on Social Media Not some big revelations, but an interesting perspective https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGx_cmEH8Lw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGx_cmEH8Lw

doctorpangloss 1y ago

On the other hand, if taking a picture on a Canon dSLR instantly uploaded it to Apple Photos the same way your iPhone does, when you’re outside, that would be a really popular product.

lgleason 1y ago

Back before digital became really high res I was into small, medium and large format silver halide cameras balancing cost with high quality optics. You could get Exackta's, Speed Graphics and Roleiflexes relatively inexpensively and take amazing high quality photos with them. The larger you went though, the more you had to be mindful about the cost of eash shot both in terms of time and cost for film and developing. There is something to be said about the curation that happened when taking photos like that. You put a lot more though upfront into composition and had to think about your shutter speed, aperture etc.. One thing I learned about during that time was how the old time press photographers would use a Speed Graphic on 4x5 negative, grab a wide angled shot and then crop it. Also, press conferences used to create a lot of broken glass as photographers would snap a shot, shoot out the one time use flash bulb on the ground and then quickly put in another bulb to get another shot.

angelgonzales 1y ago

Yep, I make many pictures but don’t feel like I need to share them with others. Sometimes I show my girlfriend and sometimes I frame them or put them on my fridge. I actually don’t really want to show strangers my work because I make photographs for myself and I’m not looking for critique because I’m developing my own style and exploring what interests me. I don’t need to prove my photographs are authentic because I know I took them!

wvlia5 1y ago

> this misses the mark on every front I can think of. YOU are missing the mark on every front I can think of.

dcchambers 1y ago

The value here is not in a product used to make art. The value is for documenting history and being able to *prove* something happened (eg for lawsuits, criminal cases, security, etc).

marssaxman 1y ago

Funny you mention the C330. I have not done any photography in well over a decade, and long ago sold all my gear, but just a week ago decided to take my grandfather's old Rolleicord in for cleaning & service. I am looking forward to shooting with it again, just for the sake of practicing the art. I might even learn to develop my own film this time around!

ratmeadow 1y ago

Agreed, the issue is more that the average person doesn't care about photos. Even now you can tell what is real vs fake in photography and people don't care, they eat it all up. The good, the bad, the fake, doesn't matter because no one gives a fuck. If you actually appreciate the art of photography then you already do and will continue to regardless of AI or whatever.