Why Smartphone Cameras Struggle To Capture San Francisco's Orange Sky (axios.com) 70
The apocalyptic orange sky in San Francisco Wednesday was the talk of the town -- and well beyond. However, many people found their efforts to capture the surreal images stymied, as their iPhones "corrected" the smoke-filled sky to a more natural hue. Axios reports: Smartphone cameras do a great job in many situations thanks to software that automatically tries to improve a shot's composition, focus, and settings like white and color balance. But those adjustments can also get in the way of capturing what's unique about some of life's most vivid images. After waking up to the orange sky, I first tried to shoot out my back door, but found my iPhone was adjusting the sky to a much more common gray. On social media, I saw lots of others having the same experience with both still and video coming from their phones. In all cases I used the device's default settings. Bloomberg reporter Sarah Frier said she used the app Halide to avoid the iPhone's color correction. Halide, aware that many people were using the app yesterday to take photos of the orange skies, says: "It feels wrong to benefit from this, so we are donating yesterday's sales to our local Wildfire Relief Fund."
So smartphones (Score:5, Funny)
aren't so smart after all.
Posted from my Blackberry.
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It's not just smart phones, cameras do this too with the default auto white balance adjustment. It gives the best results most of the time but fails in unusual conditions, which is why most (all?) serious photographers shoot with manual white balance.
So the straightforward solution, now that you know about it, is to disable auto white balance when shooting unusually-coloured scenes.
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Smartphones have nothing to do with it, it is a problem between the touchscreen and the air.
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While it doesn't take a genius to use manual mode, it is usually pretty well hidden on a smartphone, needs some fiddling on a mirrorless and is very straightforward on a DSLR.
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needs some fiddling on a mirrorless and is very straightforward on a DSLR
What a strange suggestion.
To select manual mode on a Canon EOS 5D Mk IV for instance, you turn the dial on top to M.
To select manual mode on my mirrorless camera, my previous mirrorless camera and my other mirrorless camera, you turn the dial on top to M.
I can also change white balance by pressing a single button then moving a dial to choose my preferred option, although since I shoot in RAW I can also do that in post.
To focus manually on the Canon you select the 'manual' switch on the lens and turn the foc
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to select and to actually use the manual mode are two different things. It is easier to set the aperture and speed on my SD15 than on my E-PL7. But the olympus is smaller and lighter hence I use it more often.
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Well, the E-PL7 was an entry level ILS camera. Something like the Panasonic GX7 (with the same mount) gives you front and rear dials, allowing easy setting of aperture and shutter speed in manual mode.
Go for something like the Olympus OM-D EM1 range and you get two dials, a switch that lets you assign four functions between them, multiple other programmable buttons to let you change things like white balance or ISO and if you're using manual focus too, focus peaking and magnification to help you pinpoint yo
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More like too damn smart for their own good. I'm forcibly reminded of the wonderful experience of autocorrect.
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You think they are too damn smart, you should try setting the white balance to a fixed manual value.
Honestly this entire article is stupid beyond belief. We've had this problem since 1972 when automatic colour processing was rolled out. Oh you didn't think the film was "pure" or uncorrected when you handed your negatives over at the chemist who fed it through an automatic processing machine did you?
Digital cameras by necessity needed to white balance correct, because despite what people think "white" isn't
Orange sky? Must be Trump's fault (Score:5, Funny)
What else could it be?
BTW, Army rescued trapped campers [twitter.com]
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Based on what we're now hearing about what Trump knew about COVID and when, his pants weren't just on fire, they exploded. Burning fragments are now setting wildfires all over the west coast.
God virtue signaling is tiring (Score:3, Insightful)
Halide, aware that many people were using the app yesterday to take photos of the orange skies, says: "It feels wrong to benefit from this, so we are donating yesterday's sales to our local Wildfire Relief Fund."
A more honest answer would have been "We made that app because we felt we could do better image processing. And look: yesterday, we made out like bandits!" I would have respected that.
But no, they chose the way of the marketing bromide instead. Disappointing. I suppose they got good PR out of that lame stunt though...
Re:God virtue signaling is tiring (Score:4, Insightful)
Halide, aware that many people were using the app yesterday to take photos of the orange skies, says: "It feels wrong to benefit from this, so we are donating yesterday's sales to our local Wildfire Relief Fund."
... Disappointing. I suppose they got good PR out of that lame stunt though.
Why is it wrong to do good but also get credit for it? Must all altruism be anonymous and without credit given? I also get an icky feeling when a company does something that costs them nothing but expects kudos, but this is giving the money they've earned to a cause that won't directly benefit them.
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Giving the money for the recogonition or credit is not altruistic.
Giving the money because you want to help the victims of the fires is altruistic, even if your PR department then makes sure you get recognition and credit for it.
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Why is it wrong to do good but also get credit for it? Must all altruism be anonymous and without credit given?
Yes. Because if it really were in the name of altruism it would be anonymous since the exact same amount of good is done. By definition, shouting for credit means you also want credit which means it is not purely altruism; you are also doing it for publicity.
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if it really were in the name of altruism it would be anonymous since the exact same amount of good is done. By definition, shouting for credit means you also want credit which means it is not purely altruism; you are also doing it for publicity.
I would argue that this company getting credit is also a good thing. If they make a great camera app, it's good for them and everyone else if that company succeeds. When you do a good deed, you probably don't scream for recognition. But do you appreciate it? I'm assuming you don't engineer the situation so nobody knows it was you--especially at work. And you are certainly right that it's not pure altruism. Another argument that we wouldn't be able to resolve here is whether pure altruism exists, or is simpl
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But no, they chose the way of the marketing bromide instead.
The days of businesses putting on a facade of neutrality in political matters are long gone. There's some bar up the road which recently put up the biggest Trump/Pence sign I've ever seen (where does one even buy something like that?). Seems like potentially offending about half your customers would be bad for business, but who knows.
Ironically, the news is also perpetuating this app developer's windfall, because there's actually quite a few 3rd other party camera apps for iOS which allow you to manually
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A more honest answer would have been "We made that app because we felt we could do better image processing. And look: yesterday, we made out like bandits!" I would have respected that.
But no, they chose the way of the marketing bromide instead. Disappointing. I suppose they got good PR out of that lame stunt though...
No you wouldn't have respected that. You respect nothing, clearly.
Let's turn it around. What was the last good decent human thing you did?
It's fine, you don't need to answer. The question was asked without you prompting, which is your only requirement.
ZOMG Rosco is making a lame PR stunt!! by being asked a question! Lozer!
You could have done something different and I would have respected that, but no, you had to be asked a question all for some lame grab at attention and fame for personal benefit to y
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What else did you expect from a company called Halide?
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Marketing fluoride would have had more bite.
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They just used a windfall to gain international publicity and improve their brand.
Even a cynic would recognise that they're going to make out like bandits as a result, earning rather more revenue than they gave to charity yesterday.
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Re:God virtue signaling is tiring (Score:5, Insightful)
To the virtueless, every act looks like mere signalling.
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Of course there's the more cynical take about it being good publicity even if it costs them, but I'm not that sure. I've never heard of this developer and probably never will again. Their business
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We made that app because we felt we could do better image processing.
But can they? It sounds like they stopped white balance correcting. That isn't "better" image processing.
"Smartphones" or just iPhones? (Score:2)
Re:"Smartphones" or just iPhones? (Score:5, Informative)
Any camera that doesn't let you manually set the white balance is going to have this issue to some degree.
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The most common smartphone that that lacks a "pro" mode in the stock camera app is the iPhone. Typical Apple - it just works until it doesn't, then it just doesn't work.
Yeah, you can download a 3rd party camera app, but it seems kind of silly that a phone you can pay upwards of a grand for doesn't even ship with a fully featured stock camera app.
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Not just phones, The default processing even with my DSLR corrected it a lot (though way less than my cell phone). The difference is that with my DSLR, I could go back and set the white balance on the RAW processing to "cloudy" after the fact (and drop the exposure and add more blue in the dark parts of the picture) to get a pretty close approximation of what it actually looked like to the naked eye without all that compensation.
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I have a really expensive camera and I do know how to use it. I'd be willing to bet I was doing photography before you were born, kid.
I just don't see a reason to bother shooting with white balance set to anything other than Auto, because 99.99% of the time, it does the right thing, or at least close enough, and the remaining .01% of the time, it's a lossless one-second tweak in Lightroom.
Besides, there's no such thing as "correct" when you're talking about a situation like this. The extent to which one
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Yet you couldn't figure out how to correctly take a picture.
He told you exactly how he correctly took a picture.
I'm not sure about your professional photography but I'm willing to put his reading comprehension up against yours.
Professional photographer? So fucking what.
If you're a "pro", you're missing something HUGE (Score:5, Informative)
> Yet you couldn't figure out how to correctly take a picture.
I don't know how you got into photography, what you're charging, or whatever, but he mentioned something that you really, really should know if you're calling yourself a professional. If you're charging people for "professional" photography, you really, really should know what RAW mode is and why you should use it. It's going to make a huge difference in your results.
When you set your camera to only save a jpeg, as you've apparently been doing, it does all of the adjustments such as white balance, saturation, etc and saves only the RESULT of all that processing. So whatever settings and adjustments you had at the moment you're stuck with. Later, you can try to "correct" it by applying the opposite adjustment, but the more you do that the more muddy the pic gets and you loose dynamic range.
What RAW does is save all of the information that came from the sensor, exactly as it comes from the sensor, and also save *metadata* suggesting how it might be processed. So in this example there is a "suggested white balance" entry in the metadata, which can be applied later when the image is displayed. If that value isn't quite right, you just change it. You still have the raw sensor data so later on you can apply any white balance you want. You're not stuck with whatever settings and adjustments the camera came up at the moment.
Later, at your desk, you can try out different white balance and only after you get it right, you save as jpeg. That's why he doesn't CARE what the (suggested) white balance is set to at the time he takes the pic - by shooting RAW he gets to choose the actual white balance later, at his desk.
Try that out; it'll get you much better pictures, so you'll be doing your job that much better. And don't we all want to do our jobs just a little bit better?
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I'd be willing to bet I was doing photography before you were born, kid.
Then it's really sad that you're still a shit photographer. Unlike you I'm a professional, not a pretend photographer and I'm willing to put any of my photos up against yours, little man.
Also considering I'm middle-aged, you must be positively ancient (and probably senile).
Amazing. Given that your petulant attitude made me assume you were 12, I couldn't imagine you could possibly be a day over 30. I've been doing photography/videography since I was about 12 or so, and semi-professionally off and on since 15. I refuse to call myself a professional, precisely because it has been my experience that the people who go out of their way to call themselves "professionals" usually just barely knew how to use their gear.
The fact that you have an antiquated notion that there is a "co
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You're a moron if you run around trying to set white balance in a DSLR at the time of shooting. This is something that can be losslessly set during post processing, a step you need to do anyway.
Re:"Smartphones" or just iPhones? (Score:5, Informative)
At least on my Android phone you can save a raw and then process it manually, so no, it doesn't have the same issue because I can have complete control over the white balance and a ton of other things "in post." You can't save raws in the iOS camera, so you simply can't do that. (If you heard iOS had raw support, it does, but it's only via API, so you need to use a special camera app to access it, such as the app the article mentions. You can't save raws via the built-in camera app.)
If you were to use the JPEG Android spits out by default, then yes, it would have the same issue. The problem is that there is no problem, the camera is working as intended. Pretty much any camera that doesn't let you control the white balance is going to see an orange scene and say "OK, the light is really orange here, I need to treat orange as white and adjust appropriately." If it didn't do that, then pictures shot indoors would appear very orange or pictures shot outside would appear blue.
You can get similar issues if you try and take pictures of sunsets or sunrises, the camera will see the orange and decide to white balance towards that. These days, a lot of the "AI driven" cameras have special modes to detect sunrise/sunset pictures and compensate, while a completely orange sky just makes the camera think it's indoors.
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I think it's disingenuous to suggest that there is no problem - yes, the software is working as intended, but the *aim* of the software is not to artificially modify orange skies to grey, it's a side effect of their heavy handed approach to colour correction. I imagine the image team will be trying to work out if there is something clever they can do to help, but it's probably more in the realm of exposing a white balance slider rather than making the algorithm understand and compensate.
It's also the case t
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Or use the Open Camera app and set the white balance to "Daylight" or "Manual".
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Do the hundreds of different Android cameras have the same issue?
It is mostly an iPhone issue, all phone adjust white-balance, but the iPhone tries to automatically photoshop your photos to look "what they know is best for you".
Tatooine (Score:2)
The proper tool is a camera.
Duh... (Score:2)
Ok, so here's a mind blowing trick. Use your iPhone for apping, calling and videochat. And buy a frikking camera if you want to properly shoot photo's.
Yes, i know smartphones have advanced and it's amazing what they can do, and it's often better than nothing. But if you're serious about photography.. Invest in a camera. Can have a decent digital for under $200. And even a professional camera starts cheaper than your iPhone.
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What of the MANY MANY people who can't say they're really serious about photography, but when presented with a novelty like their city looking like it's on Mars, would like to take a picture that shows that?
Where am I? (Score:2)
Feels wrong to benefit, so (Score:3, Insightful)
Most people don't understand photography. (Score:2)
Auto White Balance is like Auto Pilot, great until it's not.
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Auto White Balance is like Auto Pilot, great until it's not.
I think that's my new favourite comment.
Orange skyline with Blade Runner 2049 music (Score:2)
https://twitter.com/Jason/stat... [twitter.com]
So IOW (Score:2)
Peoples' faces are a lot more orange than you might think, when you look at their photos.