The delay after taking long exposures is caused by the camera taking a dark frame with the same exposure length as your actual image. When you take a long exposure, the sensor can exhibit noise caused by "hot pixels". The dark frame is taken with the shutter closed so that the camera can get an image of just the hot pixel noise, which it then subtracts from your actual long exposure.

You can turn this off in the settings, but I imagine it's way easier for the camera to correct for this specific kind of noise than for Lightroom to do so.

I believe it kicks in once the exposure length is >2" on my Sony A7ii.

On the one hand that's correct. On the other hand you could completely avoid that if you did long exposures the way a Google Pixel (2+ I think) does it (in software):

Take lots of short exposures and fuse them. If the device is handheld you get variability in positioning for free, if it's on a tripod, it will automatically wiggle the OIS slightly to achieve the same effect.

It seems like movement would be effective for averaging out random noise, but the described process isn’t for eliminating random noise, it’s for eliminating persistent hotter pixels on the sensor.

Indeed, and in fact the pixel does exactly the same dark frame trick to identify hot pixels. I don't know that it takes as long though - perhaps it's hidden by the fact you can keep doing other things while the photo is processing.

It cannot do the same thing as an a6000, as it lacks a physical shutter.

That's great information and makes me much less frustrated with my slow a6000.

You can also try turning off long exposure NR in the menus. I don't know if it makes enough of a difference on the a6000 to be worth leaving enabled and paying the extra cost in time, but that's a way to find out.

Oh thanks for letting me know! I have an A6000, so that makes sense!

> Portrait mode on my iPhone 7+ looks okay at a glance, but thinks like hair, wires, and twigs are TERRIBLE on closer inspection.

Portrait mode on any phone looks crap. I have not yet seen a picture where fake shallow DOF does not fail and look crap.

If you have solid edges (e.g. hair pulled back or bald), and a fairly smooth background already... it looks acceptable.

But it's not a substitute for a really nice lens and sensor combo. Maybe someday.

I just wish the DSLR/mirrorless manufactuers would invest more in making their RAW files more intelligent. I don't want 'portrait mode' but I do want to be able to focus stack in one image (with originals preserved), do true adjustable HDR (combining exposures), etc.

Sony and Nikon have a couple hint at these capabilities, but the software is not easy to use, and don't get me started on moving pictures between camera bodies and wherever they need to be to do things with them (laptop, iPad, phone).

These improvements to bokeh on the Pixel 4 and Pixel 4 XL show some pretty good results: https://ai.googleblog.com/2019/12/improvements-to-portrait-m...

Impossible to say because sample[1] is highly compressed and 800 pixels high (including a white border).

[1] https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3Sm2XHss0lA/XffZ95s_KjI/AAAAAAAAF...

Here’s the full size album: https://photos.app.goo.gl/cwaKemRDusTK5W6SA

Still not full-res and unfortunately the first two samples[1] I opened shows that it's still crap and can't handle fine detail/hair. Many people have hair.

[1] https://imgur.com/a/MXCeYaU

I mean, you are using an iPhone 7, iirc that’s the first iPhone to implement portrait mode. The processing time on my iPhone 11 that I just got is minimal. I upgraded from an iPhone 6S so I’m not sure what the processing time was like on iPhones with portrait mode prior to the 11 models though.

As well, who’s to say what Apple could do when given an image from a high end camera sensor instead of the tiny one in an iPhone?

And lastly, why not just enable power users to turn it off? Sure you can say manpower would be better directed at other problems, but who cares if post processing capabilities are on the camera if you can turn it off? Those who want it use it. Those who don’t don’t.

> who’s to say what Apple could do when given an image from a high end camera sensor instead of the tiny one in an iPhone?

Ruin it. But they wouldn't, because there'd be no need.

The thing about a big high-end camera sensor is that having one means you don't need to fake bokeh. You can put a good fast prime lens in front of it and get the real thing. Phone cameras have to post-process their way to it because the physics of their small sensors mean they simply aren't capable of capturing enough off-axis light to produce true bokeh.

My wife has iPhone 8, I can't find portrait mode on it (I'm coming from Pixel 3 so I was wondering how it looks on iPhones).

When I scroll the photo modes there is no such thing as "portrait".

Or maybe it is only for the Plus models with two cameras?

Yeah, it is on plus model including animoji

> I'd love for that processing time to be cut down.

yeah its called an iPhone 11 PRO

My understanding is that the processor on the eleven, eleven pro, and eleven pro max are identical?

https://www.gsmarena.com/apple_iphone_11-9848.php

https://www.gsmarena.com/apple_iphone_11_pro-9847.php

https://www.gsmarena.com/apple_iphone_11_pro_max-9846.php

faster than a 7+