Enough, already!

[Pieter12]

When You Take a Great Photo, Thank the Algorithm in Your Phone

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/15/...on=click&module=Editors Picks&pgtype=Homepage

 

[Sirius Glass]

What we need for all cameras, film and digital, is an automatic feature so that as the shutter is tripped, the feature modifies the composition, moves people or objects as necessary, to greatly improve the photograph. No more sloppy snapshots!

 

[Pieter12]

What I'm waiting for is for me to be able to just think of a scene and have it appear on my screen. We used to use previsualization software to set up shots for motion pictures. You would arrange 3D models of people, buildings, etc. and then be able to view and move through the scene from different distances, lenses, lighting and so on. It was crude but effective for planning a sometimes complicated shot.

 

[George Mann]

Actually, my best camera phone, a Samsung S7 Edge, requires costum app Camera FV5 to take a decent photo.

 

[MFstooges]

Actually, my best camera phone, a Samsung S7 Edge, requires costum app Camera FV5 to take a decent photo.

I use Camera FV5 too but I am really upset that their updates delete the long shutter feature!!! And I bought the app for that exact feature!

 

[removed account4]

When You Take a Great Photo, Thank the Algorithm in Your Phone

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/15/technology/personaltech/google-pixel-photography.html?action=click&module=Editors Picks&pgtype=Homepage

not sure what the problem is. you don't like phones with cameras don't use them ?
were you also really mad when point and shoot cameras were upgraded with great features ( like the Yashica T4 )
or when hand held light meters evolved from extinction meters and paper charts ?

personally I am happy there are more people making images to look at, I just wish people would learn how to edit.

 

[Pieter12]

not sure what the problem is. you don't like phones with cameras don't use them ?
were you also really mad when point and shoot cameras were upgraded with great features ( like the Yashica T4 )
or when hand held light meters evolved from extinction meters and paper charts ?

personally I am happy there are more people making images to look at, I just wish people would learn how to edit.

Did you read the article?

 

[wyofilm]

Sameness. Yum!

 

[radiant]

So now it is bad to have better change to get good photograph? Gatekeeping I would say.

 

[removed account4]

Did you read the article?

yes I did.
the computer systems used to make the photograph to the equivalent of preflash slide film, or use a good lens
or make HDR-like burst composite images, nothing new. as I said. when point and shoot TOOLS improved did you complain?
when light meters became more sophisticated did you complain because consumers were able to make better photographs
without thinking, and their images looked "professional" ? SSDD..
I think its great because we live in a visual rich world and its wonderful to see photographs made by amateurs that rival those made by some commercial shooter who might get paid $10,000/day. Again, I see nothing wrong with making it easier for Aunt Milly to use her hand held computer with a camera to make interesting photographs of their latest cruise, their grand kids, maybe their latest meal. I think there are other more important things to be cranky about...
it is pretty funny though. Its like my digital negatives coming out of a crappy 65$ printer looking as nice or nicer than those being made in a $10,000 printer... I'd be bummed too if I spent $10,000 for the printer.

 

[Pieter12]

yes I did.
the computer systems used to make the photograph to the equivalent of preflash slide film, or use a good lens
or make HDR-like burst composite images, nothing new. as I said. when point and shoot TOOLS improved did you complain?
when light meters became more sophisticated did you complain because consumers were able to make better photographs
without thinking, and their images looked "professional" ? SSDD..
I think its great because we live in a visual rich world and its wonderful to see photographs made by amateurs that rival those made by some commercial shooter who might get paid $10,000/day. Again, I see nothing wrong with making it easier for Aunt Milly to use her hand held computer with a camera to make interesting photographs of their latest cruise, their grand kids, maybe their latest meal. I think there are other more important things to be cranky about...
it is pretty funny though. Its like my digital negatives coming out of a crappy 65$ printer looking as nice or nicer than those being made in a $10,000 printer... I'd be bummed too if I spent $10,000 for the printer.

I am more concerned with AI used to render backgrounds out of focus, etc. Next, why not use AI to make everyone look happy? Or slim them down to some programmers' ideal? It is the intrusion of someone's standards to alter images of the real world--and then folks are disappointed when that real world doesn't live up to the images they are used to seeing.

 

[removed account4]

I am more concerned with AI used to render backgrounds out of focus, etc. Next, why not use AI to make everyone look happy? Or slim them down to some programmers' ideal? It is the intrusion of someone's standards to alter images of the real world--and then folks are disappointed when that real world doesn't live up to the images they are used to seeing.

you craft your own photographic emulsions and lenses, and your film based work is "the real world"?

Anyone who does chemical based photography's images are made through someone else's standards and ideals, unless of course s/he makes their own emulsions and lenses.

velvia is reality ? fujichrome is reality ? kodacolor is reality ? Kodachrome or ektachrome is reality ?
black and white film based images are reality ? slivers of time captured on a light sensitive emulsion creating a static image out of the river of time is reality ?

seems to me if all those things are real world based images. than a cellphone with ai is the same thing.

 

[radiant]

you craft your own photographic emulsions and lenses, and your film based work is "the real world"?

This. And personal choice of cropping, choosing what to show, what NOT to show, when to shoot? Those aren't affecting the real world?

 

[warden]

I am more concerned with AI used to render backgrounds out of focus, etc. Next, why not use AI to make everyone look happy? Or slim them down to some programmers' ideal? It is the intrusion of someone's standards to alter images of the real world--and then folks are disappointed when that real world doesn't live up to the images they are used to seeing.

I don't have a problem with the manufactured bokeh trick at all; that same development team is also likely responsible for the super zoom feature mentioned in the article that corrects for shaky hands, which is marvelous. I personally wouldn't use the former, but would love the latter if I had it on my phone. The amount of development that's happening with cell phone cameras is incredible and ranges from the silly to the sublime. I'm glad they're busy with it.

But yes, allow me to turn off the permanent-smile and straighter teeth filter, please.

 

[removed account4]

This. And personal choice of cropping, choosing what to show, what NOT to show, when to shoot? Those aren't affecting the real world?

exactly ! from what I understand, photography has never been about reality..

 

[Agulliver]

Yes, the AI can make a lot of difference to how a photo looks....and for the average shooter who would have bought an Instamatic in the 60s or a box camera in the 40s the AI can be very useful. But you are aware that you can turn most if not all of it off and shoot in RAW mode, even selecting your own shutter speed, ISO and colour balance? Stock Android and Samsung stock phones from at least the S6 onwards can do that. So the device can cater for those who want more control over their images.

We all choose which tools we work with. I might choose a specific body/lens combination for a specific look.

 

[RalphLambrecht]

What we need for all cameras, film and digital, is an automatic feature so that as the shutter is tripped, the feature modifies the composition, moves people or objects as necessary, to greatly improve the photograph. No more sloppy snapshots!

why didn't anybody else think of that yet?

 

[jay moussy]

Maybe the digital imaging products (stills, video, VR) should have a readable tag rating its closeness to reality?

 

[guangong]

If able to move elements of composition within a picture as in making a painting, then it’s painting and no longer photography. Not painting with a brush, but painting nevertheless. What makes taking a picture interesting is trying to do the best possible with things in the scene as they are, either by selecting a camera position, choice if lens, film, etc.
Without challenge, it’s not living.

 

[Deleted member 88956]

It appears OP is concerned about "automacity" of the algorithms that are claimed to make one's photographs "more impressive".

I don't need to smell bullshit when I see one, it still stinks from miles away.

HDR was the beginning of this trend towards making photographs ... without actually making them. What article is essentially saying is: let's make taking a photograph so easy, the person taking them is actually unaware of what happened, why thinks look the way they do, nor why some viewers are so amazed at what they see. End result is fake, or saying it more "artistically" - a grand unintended kitsch.

We could argue whether kitsch is part of art culture (and it is, so long as it is done with conviction of controlled decisions). However, when that seemingly same kitsch is result of someone else's idea of what it should look like (any algorithm is nothing, but that) then we are no longer dealing with intent of the capturer.

When an algorithm is developed that applies all kinds of computational trickery, most if not all of which is beyond user's control, it should not be recognized as conscious photography and ought not to be discussed within realms of creativity. Once we put that aside, if a picture looks attractive to some, fine. Just let's not call it as advancing visual form, it isn't.

Millions upon millions of photographs on display now, some from financially successful "photographic" endeavors, are giving bad name to photography, visual art form in general, as well as instilling fakeness as a legitimate argument.

I agree that tools capable of capturing "a moment" are now in everybody's hand, which by statistical argument alone bring out lots of great images we can all enjoy. Most of them are coming from people nobody would not otherwise ever know about. But at the same time, what most of us actually enjoy, have not been a result of brainless use of uncontrolled artificial deception.

In the end, if an image is a work of thought process, it ought not to matter whether it was a straight shot, a mildly altered one, or heavily edited with all kinds of available tools. When that same shot was a result of automated cheating, it is no longer in the same category. In fact the latter is just a truck load of horse manure that stinks even, if one can't smell how badly it does.

 

[removed account4]

In the end, if an image is a work of thought process, it ought not to matter whether it was a straight shot, a mildly altered one, or heavily edited with all kinds of available tools. When that same shot was a result of automated cheating, it is no longer in the same category. In fact the latter is just a truck load of horse manure that stinks even, if one can't smell how badly it does

does it really matter how it was made? a photograph is a photograph whether it was made with a modern machine that helps or a point and shoot camera that helps. I find it laughable that any of this matters. Send a can of film made with an Olympus stylus or yashica T4 p/s to a mini lab. the automated machine develops the film and then when it goes through the machine the machine does a reading of the film and using magic figures out the right combination of color enlargement filters to use to make a print. there is no difference. the only difference is now a sophisticated machine programmed by humans helps make images less in need of editing after the fact, and of course film lovers complain because it is "too easy"
photography really isn't hard, doing it well and having something to say is hard. who cares about how ez the camera is ... now if you will excuse me I have some mercury to fume, you film users are a bunch of lightweights.

 

[DonW]

So when is art about reality?

 

[Deleted member 88956]

does it really matter how it was made? a photograph is a photograph whether it was made with a modern machine that helps or a point and shoot camera that helps. I find it laughable that any of this matters. Send a can of film made with an Olympus stylus or yashica T4 p/s to a mini lab. the automated machine develops the film and then when it goes through the machine the machine does a reading of the film and using magic figures out the right combination of color enlargement filters to use to make a print. there is no difference. the only difference is now a sophisticated machine programmed by humans helps make images less in need of editing after the fact, and of course film lovers complain because it is "too easy"
photography really isn't hard, doing it well and having something to say is hard. who cares about how ez the camera is ... now if you will excuse me I have some mercury to fume, you film users are a bunch of lightweights.

It matters whether result is intended or not. AI has nothing to do with intent, outside of what programmer's "intent" was.

 

[Deleted member 88956]

So when is art about reality?

Hardly ever is. Random use of someone else's ideas of what that "art" should like is another matter.