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Is the iPhone 'Years' Ahead of Android In Photography? (9to5mac.com)
Former Google senior vice president of Social, Vic Gundotra, said that Android phones are years behind the iPhone when it comes to photography. In a Facebook post, Gundotra said: "The end of the DSLR for most people has already arrived. I left my professional camera at home and took these shots at dinner with my iPhone 7 using computational photography (portrait mode as Apple calls it). Hard not to call these results (in a restaurant, taken on a mobile phone with no flash) stunning. Great job Apple." 9to5Mac reports: In response to a comment suggesting that the Samsung S8 camera was even better, Business Insider spotted that Gundotra disagreed. He said that not only was Apple way ahead of Samsung, but Android was to blame. From Gundotra's Facebook post: "I would never use an Android phone for photos! Here is the problem: It's Android. Android is an open source (mostly) operating system that has to be neutral to all parties. This sounds good until you get into the details. Ever wonder why a Samsung phone has a confused and bewildering array of photo options? Should I use the Samsung Camera? Or the Android Camera? Samsung gallery or Google Photos? It's because when Samsung innovates with the underlying hardware (like a better camera) they have to convince Google to allow that innovation to be surfaced to other applications via the appropriate API. That can take YEARS. Also the greatest innovation isn't even happening at the hardware level -- it's happening at the computational photography level. (Google was crushing this 5 years ago -- they had had 'auto awesome' that used AI techniques to automatically remove wrinkles, whiten teeth, add vignetting, etc... but recently Google has fallen back). Apple doesn't have all these constraints. They innovate in the underlying hardware, and just simply update the software with their latest innovations (like portrait mode) and ship it. Bottom line: If you truly care about great photography, you own an iPhone. If you don't mind being a few years behind, buy an Android."
Competition? bah! Humbug!. Choices? No one needs them.
Here this guy is trying to convince us that people who care about photography who mess with SLR cameras, aperture, speed and all those things are easily daunted by a few choices in the Apps.
The very same Microsoft which was so dismissive of choices became an ardent supporter of competition and consumer choice when it came to standards. With straight face it argued its deliberately misnamed OOXML "standard" is a good because you need competition between "standards"!
This guy is a photographer. He has just discovered what innovation can be packed on the processing side. Probably he was messing with RAW format picture because he would never "trust" the default jpg converter packed in Nikon and Canon. Now suddenly he is all ga-ga about software doing one button click post processing.
It is very much possible he is a good photographer. He should stick to his area of expertise and stop assuming being good, or even a great photographer, makes him an expert on computers, software and open source.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Fuck the iPhone.
Let me tell you about my grandparents. They used to love photography. They had a decent little pocket camera they'd take with them wherever they went. They'd snap tons of photos of just about everything. Some of them were really good too, but the majority of it had to do with family outings and events. Over the span of maybe 10 years, they collected about 130GB worth of JPGs. If you ever needed anything from a previous party or something, getting photos was only a phone call away.
Then, one day, they bought an iPhone.
Immediately they started taking pictures with that thing instead of their pocket camera (the one with a proper flash and a real CCD sensor). Their reasoning was that because it was such new technology (plus being advertised so actively on TV), it must be better, right? And therefore they should be using that instead of their trusty old pocket cam.
I've lost count of how many "moments" that fucking phone has destroyed. The images are either too bright, too dark, washed out, streaked (almost like the shutter was open for too long), or out of focus. They're old people so it takes them a minute to pull out the phone, remember how to operate it, and take a photo. Because there's no preview on the LCD after you take the picture (it just animates down into your camera roll), they rarely remember to check anything afterwards- they just assume it's good and put the phone away again. I'm not even going to bother mentioning how iCloud seems to downsample images transferred through it from one device to another, since I've noticed some wonderful compression artifacts showing up on their photos above and beyond the absolute garbage spat out by the iPhone in the first place.
Eventually they started to notice a pattern and just kinda stopped taking pictures, because it was always one disappointment after another. Somehow or other, they managed to blame themselves for the shitty pictures their iPhone was taking. They'd see the fancy commercials on TV and basically go "well, if they're taking such awesome pictures with their phone, and we're not, it must be us". It took us almost 2 years to convince them that wasn't the case and that they needed to stop using the phone for pictures and start using their pocket camera again. Once they did, everything went back to normal. They can take out that camera, turn it on, check the top dial to make sure it's on the green square (automatic), and pull the trigger. The LCD shows them the picture for 5 seconds after taking it so it's trivial for them to see if it turned out (which it almost always does) or retake another if it didn't. It takes bog standard SD cards (which are cheap as hell these days) and it Just Works (TM), unlike Apple's overpriced fashion oriented bullshit.
So yeah. Maybe Apple is "years ahead" of Android, but they're both decades behind a decent pocket camera (nevermind something like a low end dSLR).
The end of the DSLR for most people has already arrived. I left my professional camera at home and took these shots at dinner with my iPhone 7
Translation: Hipsters who used to use a $1,000 DSLR as a $70 point-and-shoot are now using a $1,000 iPhone as a $70 point-and-shoot. The DSLR isn't going away any time soon for anyone who cares about proper photography.
Neither are point and shoots. I recently went to the Goodwood FoS with a mate. I had a 4 year old Canon P&S (albeit a quite good one), he had the latest Samsung. He was astounded after the level of quality in my shots of fast moving cars. Furhter more, I can get my camera out of pocket and powered on in less time than it takes me to open my camera app on my Nexus 5 (and yes, I've got a shortcut on the shortcuts bar... I probably should replace it with maps or something as I hardly ever use the camera, but I digress). The P&S simply had better optics, a faster shutter, an optical zoom, faster focusing actuators and better processor and image sensor.
Whilst it's 100% true that having a better camera wont make you a better photographer, the reverse isn't true. No amount of talent in the world can get good shots out of bad cameras. As the old saying goes, a poor craftsman blames his tools but the corollary is a good craftsman buys better tools. Things have gone back to the way they were, DSLR's are the domain of professionals, P&S are the domain of amateurs, phones are good for non photographers or when you dont have a camera handy.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Their bottom line is:
If you tend to shoot portraits and that's what matters to you most, the iPhone 7 Plus is an obvious choice. Portrait mode is dSLR-esque, and we only expect it to improve by the time it gets a public release. But if brighter colors, sharper detail throughout the backgrounds of photos and capable low-light photography is more important, it's the Pixel. I have to admit, I initially thought Google over-promised on its new flagship -- especially after those disappointing Nexus cameras -- but I was wrong. It's a new chapter for Google phones and this one earned its name.
That is *exactly* synthesizing bokeh in software. It's a composite image, modified in software. The DOF on such a small lens makes 'real' bokeh pretty much impossible.
For what it is, it's handy and despite being a semi-pro photographer myself I very often grab my phone for a picture instead of keeping a real camera handy. Convenience wins over quality most of the time.
With that said, I consistently get MUCH better pictures from my Samsung than iPhone (I have both thanks to work) and can only view TFA as thinly veiled propaganda. 9 out of 10 dentists agree too. The 10th works for Apple and his NDA prohibits him from commenting ... sparing rumors about the much anticipated iBrush.
You can get rich if you own a politician, but you have to be rich to buy one in the first place.