Pictures from phone cameras look incredible, especially from the iPhone and high-end Android phones like Google’s Pixel.
Overall, they look better than with previous iPhones, and overall they look better with Smart HDR enabled.
To compensate, the phone will typically take several photos in very fast succession and combine the results.
Alina Fiene/Unsplash
The problem comes with the iPhone’s HDR mode.
Then comes the tricky part, called tone mapping.
This is where the software decides how to interpret all that data into a final image.
Eric Masur / Unsplash
Eric Masur / Unsplash
It hurts your eyes just to look at it.
But HDR isn’t necessarily this bad.
It can result in natural-looking images that approximate the scenes we see with our eyes and brain.
“It’s possible to take great, natural HDR pictures with an iPhone camera.
HD-R You Serious?
If I want photos to keep, I take them with a regular digital or even film camera.
Tech YouTuberMarques Brownlee, aka MKBHD, agrees.
In his recent video, he goes into detail on this subject.
“Look at how they completely removed the shadow from half of my face.
So what can you do?
Switch back to a regular camera?
The easiest way is to pick your battles.
Just like we’ve always done with photography, right back to its beginnings.
