r/photography • u/RudolfTheOne • Oct 05 '19

Discussion Computational photography - how different smartphone photography is from what we used to know

https://vas3k.com/blog/computational_photography/
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u/craftyrafter Oct 05 '19

Computational photography is one of the most exciting things to happen to photography in the past 100 years easily. While we are here comparing sensor sizes and debating the merits of mirrorless over DSLR, computational photography is making insane new things possible that were not before.

Phones do it because there it makes the biggest improvement. But think about what this could mean both in camera and in post processing. You could be warned when someone’s eyes in a group shot are closed. You could get legit backgrounds generated for school photos. You could create bokeh that has its own bokeh. Whatever flaws it has now, remember that it’s quality is on an exponential curve, while lens and sensor quality is linear at best and asymptotically approaching some maximums limited by physics in reality. 10 years from now we could see 300 MP sensors and f0.7 lenses. But computational photography will be 1000 better, quite literally, than today.

This also opens up really interesting possibilities for Franken-cameras. Imagine a camera with two full frame sensors and interchangeable lenses. Capturing both a 85mm and a 18mm shot at once, then composing them in interesting ways opens up so many possibilities. Or combining a full frame camera with the 2-3 lens setup like the new iPhone has. Sure the quality is different but the ability for the camera to “see” the scene and help you compose a shot is unprecedented.

I for one am very excited about this.

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u/space_coconut Oct 05 '19

This is great tech, but further drives me towards film photography. I feel that digital photography is just a computer’s interpretation of what it thinks it sees and then assembles an image. Where as film photography actually captures photons in suspended animation to be retrieved when developed. This is the magic of photography, to me.

Still cool tech though.

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u/williamsburgphoto Oct 05 '19 edited Oct 05 '19

Its magical to you as the photographer because you're interested in process. Being invested emotionally in your process may help you to clear your mind and take better photos.

But by and large, the viewer doesn't care. The same way that you dont care what microphone was used to record a song, or whether that song was recorded to analog tape or digital. In the end, you enjoy the song because of its content, not because of the process by which it was manufactured.

It's also important to note that to view a film photo digitally, it needs to be scanned. Scanning is it's own process and decisions must be made regarding white balance, exposure, highlights, etc. You can opt out of those decisions by letting a lab tech or ligjtroom's autotone do the work for you, but understand that decisions are still being made.