Predictions about the impact of AI-generated imagery

https://boingboing.net/2022/10/14/du...i-art.html/amp

Dune subreddit bans AI art (but opens a different subreddit where it's allowed). I wonder how they can tell? But as I said, fashion is a deciding factor in where this technology will go and what role it will play. If they don't want ai art, for whatever reason, then you've still gotta be able to draw (at least digitally) to come to their party
 
ahalpert said:
That's not ai-generated imagery either. And the guy saus he can get better shots with the DSLR, it just becomes less and less worth it for him to bother
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The smartphone certainly has a lot of processing in it, AI or other. What most reviewers don't mention is how much fixin' can be done in post for the DSLR photography. They do mention that a modern smart phone does it in-camera and right on the spot.

As to the diminishing differences between a "DSLR" and a smartphone, that is precisely the point.

PS. The top camera by DxO is the Chinese made Honor, which is sort of a sub-brand of Huawei with some fudgy paperwork changes. It is sold only in China at the moment, with a photo score of 153. Pixel Pro 7's is 148. iPhone 14's is 143.
 
Phones are mostly there with the nice pixels and resolution (for photos) and most won't care to see the difference when comparing two similar visuals (like deep DOF landscapes), but they are not there with shallow DOF and beautiful bokeh, which is why traditional stills cameras continue to have the upper hand, IMO.

Once the phones will look like a $2K-$3K-$4K lens at f/1.2 with amazing AF, it's over...and the clock is ticking.
 
ahalpert said:
This guy claims his 13-year old MFT GF1 is still better than the iPhone 14 Pro: https://www.sonyalpharumors.com/rea...l-not-a-match-with-a-13-year-old-mft-cameras/
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Technically speaking, any two cameras - smartphones or ILC's - with diverging specs can be set up to provide diverging quality under diverging situations. In this instance, iPhone has a 12 MPX sensor and maximum 77 mm lens in its "telephoto" mode. An ILC with the same resolution sensor and a longer telephoto should provide superior results.

But, on a 48 MPX sensor with both an ILC and iPhone at 24mm, an iPhone should have a leg up.

And, as I mentioned before, there are phones with a longer optical periscope zoom and a higher resolution . Pixel7 Pro, as an example, has a 48 MPX sensor with a 120mm telephoto (before it goes into digital magnification). Of course, one could still use a longer telephoto on any ILC and achieve superior results on the outer fringes but that brings up that old law of diminishing returns. For most users, aside of the BiF/action/sports fans, 120mm at 48 MPX ought to cover the vast majority of shots.

As to bokeh, that is done - not that it can't be done better - via digital effects. In camera or in post.

https://cdn.dxomark.com/wp-content/...StreetSit_AppleiPhone14Pro_DxOMark_06-00.jpeg

As to the auto focus on GF1? Fuggedaboutit
 
You guys are absolutely right. Also, zoom lenses have gotten so good that nobody will ever need to use prime lenses anymore. And cheap cars have gotten so fast and comfortable that nobody will bother buying an expensive car anymore. Makes total sense
 
ahalpert said:
You guys are absolutely right. Also, zoom lenses have gotten so good that nobody will ever need to use prime lenses anymore. And cheap cars have gotten so fast and comfortable that nobody will bother buying an expensive car anymore. Makes total sense
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Once again, there's a law of diminishing returns. My dad's 1985 Mercury Marquis Brougham had an 88 HP engine and priced smack in the middle of the car market. With a 0-60 of about 16s, there was a lot of room for improvement. As of now, the average car price is around $48,000 and one could get a 0-60 into the sub-5s range, which is where the utility pretty much ends and only discretionary motives remain.

However, the utility of a smartphone camera and utility of an ILC differ - from sufficient performance and the convenience of "always being there" for a smartphone to the best performance for a given task for an ILC. However "sufficient" has already gotten so good, it renders an ILC and P&S unnecessary for a casual user and it's making inroads into the hardcore photo-video fan market as well. Within a couple of years, it'll be bumping the ILC's out of that area too.

PS. A gorgeous design too.

Honor-Magic-3-Pro-Plus-NoypiGeeks-5221.jpg
 
I'm not completely sold. Yes, I was exclusively taking family candids on a much crappier and cheaper phone than i have currently because life is hard. But just looking at that photo you linked to show off bokeh, the pine needles look horrendous. And my phone's fancy computational photography screws up all the time in challenging scenarios, causing me to lose many of the most memorable moments. And in the dark, it'll do a great job if the subject holds still (harkening back to old fashioned posing techniques. Albeit with seconds-long, not minutes-long exposures.) But when you're not in Night Mode, the sensitivity is actually pretty crap. Outside at Golden hour, it can't even deliver its optimal quality. And I'm like - cmon man, this is still bright out
 
ahalpert said:
I'm not completely sold...
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That's because you're a professional and can spot the obvious imperfections. Most casual users can't. There's always - playing the odds - going to be room for a medium format. If you're working in a studio and charging your customers for taking their head shots in a completely controlled environment, you may as well get a Hasselblad or a Fuji GFX and start living a life of a poseur.

For an average Joe on an average day, a $600 smartphone is almost as good.
 
DLD said:
That's because you're a professional and can spot the obvious imperfections. Most casual users can't. There's always - playing the odds - going to be room for a medium format. If you're working in a studio and charging your customers for taking their head shots in a completely controlled environment, you may as well get a Hasselblad or a Fuji GFX and start living a life of a poseur.

For an average Joe on an average day, a $600 smartphone is almost as good.
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Sure but then what are we really talking about here. Are we talking about the end of standalone camera manufacturing, or merely its confinement to the professional sector. I'm betting on the latter, and I'm betting that most of the transition has already taken place. Certainly, Canon said they think that camera sales have passed their nadir and will return to growth (not like before, of course). And from what I've seen of this year's CIPA numbers, that seems to be true, with above-expectations sales driving upward revisions of annual sales estimates

And medium format- it doesn't even need to be medium format. Just a camera with a nice, clean capture and a physical design for taking pictures
 
ahalpert said:
Sure but then what are we really talking about here. Are we talking about the end of standalone camera manufacturing, or merely its confinement to the professional sector. I'm betting on the latter, and I'm betting that most of the transition has already taken place. Certainly, Canon said they think that camera sales have passed their nadir and will return to growth (not like before, of course). And from what I've seen of this year's CIPA numbers, that seems to be true, with above-expectations sales driving upward revisions of annual sales estimates

And medium format- it doesn't even need to be medium format. Just a camera with a nice, clean capture and a physical design for taking pictures
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My take on CIPA numbers is that they're a short term rebound off the 2020-2021 lows in the global camera sales, with the overall trend still being downward. There's just less and less need for a "DSLR" for those non-pros who also own a high end smartphone.

As we had talked here before, there are about 35,000 professional photographers in the US. The well-heeled advanced amateurs can also upgrade their gear selection quite often but I don't think GAS is otherwise all that prevalent.

https://www.zippia.com/professional-photographer-jobs/demographics/

Side note - I see occasionally pages of the professional photogs from Russia/Belarus/Ukraine and it's rather rare to see them sporting a camera that is less than two-three years old. I saw a 6D on a young lady only a few days ago. And I don't think it was MKII. (another friend of a friend has a 5Ds)

As to medium format, it's where the cartel wants to go with the studio-portrait photography. Obviously, an APS-C or full frame product can be perfectly sufficient for the job. The 40 MPX of Fuji X-H2 is more than enough for portraits (especially when paired with its new 56mm prime). The division between the various sensor sizes may not be entirely artificial but it's mostly due to the product positioning map than anything else.
 
The Elvis video is fascinating. That's a real achievement. One thing I notice with Deep Fakes is that the home users seem to do a better job than the corporate level. The CGI Mark Hamil that appeared in a Disney show doesn't look as good as the one done by someone sitting at home. They even brought in one of the internet artists to fine-tune their version. The Hamill that appeared was too stiff and unnatural in movements--it felt like they were afraid to have him act normally. Not to mention the dialogue was awful. The Indiana Jones movie should be interesting for its use of Deep Fakes but I suspect it will be less than convincing compared with what the internet fan can do. The corporate mentality just destroys merit these days.
The Elvis and the Tom Cruise videos that were circulating--they weren't afraid to act out and move around in normal fashion.

When they made a cgi Peter Cushing for Star Wars someone made a good point--they said, wouldn't it be more interesting if they got someone real to do the part, i.e. Charles Dance, and give a real performance (granted, the writing was nothing worth a real performance). Star Wars is just a corporate mascot anyway.

It's still a great observation because they are removing the traditional organic theatrical element from filmmaking by using this approach.
Now, realistically, studio movies are so poorly made these days--absolutely infantile in all departments, that it really matters little--actors are less than puppets to the owners of the studios. I don't think it has ever been so toxic and restrained. Completely devoid of freedom and joy.

This technology might have some good uses for the independent artist but on the corporate level--forget it.
They are too far gone.
For western entertainment to survive, it will have to be done outside of Hollywood lunatic asylum.
And this technology will be too difficult to mass produce for some time--thus they cannot just churn out a million films starring dead actors.

They would love to bypass actors-especially the European. The attitude of the media companies is to want to destroy anything real. I doubt many people even pay attention to movies now--not like it used to be where people would remember catch phrases or scenes. It's too artificial and alien now. It must be like staring at a Lenin poster. For decades they had giant posters of Lenin all over town but when people were able to vote, they changed Leningrad back to St. Petersburg. I don't think today's entertainment is going to stick in anyone's memory beyond 5 minutes. It's like visual noise.

Oh, there's another Batman movie out? Another Jurassic Park?


Who cares?
 
Don't be like one of those people who see one video online and make an end-all assumption. Of course the technology will make mistakes and may never be perfect, but how many humans make mistakes on a day-to-day basis since the beginning of time, some who can't even follow simple instructions to put extra BBQ sauce in the bag for your nuggets.

 
NorBro said:
Don't be like one of those people who see one video online and make an end-all assumption. Of course the technology will make mistakes and may never be perfect, but how many humans make mistakes on a day-to-day basis since the beginning of time, some who can't even follow simple instructions to put extra BBQ sauce in the bag for your nuggets.

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Pretty funny, although the ubiquitousness of 911 pandering in its aftermath is probably a dated concept that few youngsters would get.

The point is that machines can make stupid fuckups. Just usually a different sort of stupid fuckup than a person would make. Because they think differently. And what's elementary for a machine might be difficult for a person and vice versa. Like how that self-driving tesla drifted into the median of a highway and crashed into a stationary barrier and killed its driver, a mistake so basic that probably no human would make it. (I went to look up the incident, but there are so many similar examples referenced online that I'm not sure which was the one I originally read about.)
 
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