> Edit: Example: I couldn't take a picture of the smoke on the West coast recently. The dark grey and orange skies would all come out looking blue or something. It's like the 'camera' is telling me I'm f'ing crazy for taking a picture of smoky skies, and surely I want to pretend the smoke isn't there at all! That's why I'm taking a picture right? So I can pretend that reality isn't real. I have no photos that match the smoke. I have only my memory and other people's photos. WTF.

That's automatic white balance adjustment. It's not used to an orange sky, so it can't figure out what color should be considered "white". If you want an example of why this is important, turn off automatic WB and take a photo under fluorescent light followed by a photo lit by candles.

I have no idea about Android phones, but iPhones do some amount of denoise, contrast adjustment, and a few other limited postprocessing steps automatically.

Who is downvoting this correct statement? Grow up.

> Maybe related: I've noticed on iPhones and Samsungs that I cannot get a picture to match reality.

I know I'll come across as pedantic, but you'll have trouble doing that even with DSLRs. Whether you're doing film or digital imagery, you're not capturing reality. With camera sensors, the raw data you capture (RGB brightness for each pixel, for example), needs to have some color/brightness/contrast curve applies to make it look realistic (i.e. linear will not look like reality at all). Each manufacturer picks their own curve, and then also has options (vivid, etc) - and some of them do pick less realistic options for defaults as customers think they make for better photos.

Not to mention tricks to fix overexposed pixels, etc. There's quite a bit of manipulation done before you get the JPG.

Cell phone cameras are akin to cheaper digital cameras that used to be (and perhaps still are) on the market - where you don't have much control on this. This is not new to smartphones - it's just that smartphones have more processing power to do more.

Long time photographers know this. It's not "capture reality", but "how much deviation from reality am I willing to accept", with 0 not being an option.

I think he is referring to machine-learning features adjusting local contrast and color, not simple white balance. In recent phones it happens even when HDR is off. I've had a few photos ruined by it too, with a strong halo around people's faces or a red-looking sun.

You can install an alternative photo app like Halide to take control of every variable, even aperture size, but it's a bit of a hassle when any 'dumb' camera would do the job.

> Edit: Example: I couldn't take a picture of the smoke on the West coast recently. The dark grey and orange skies would all come out looking blue or something. It's like the 'camera' is telling me I'm f'ing crazy for taking a picture of smoky skies, and surely I want to pretend the smoke isn't there at all! That's why I'm taking a picture right? So I can pretend that reality isn't real. I have no photos that match the smoke. I have only my memory and other people's photos. WTF.

That was due to automatic white balance, which is perhaps the most basic and low-tech automatic adjustment on your phone. We're talking deep AI tech from the 90s, if not earlier.

I ran into the same problem on that day, so I googled "iphone manual white balance", got an app that looked decent (Obscura), and took my pictures without issue. Try that next time. (But get another app, Obscura literally takes half a minute to load for some reason.)

You don't have to use a different app, actually. The standard Camera app lets you lock white balance. To capture orange skies, you just long-tap while pointing at a white source (another iPhone or iPad, for example) to lock the white balance. Then turn your camera to what you want to shoot, and it will keep the WB locked.

That's not how cameras work though. The raw output of a phone camera would be horribly off-color. It would NOT capture the image you are expecting. So the phone applies a number of filters to try to correct the flaws inherent in a camera with such small optics. You only notice when the external conditions (smoke-filled skies) don't match the assumptions that went into the filter design.

Aren't photos of extreme conditions some of the most important possible photos though? A camera that can't capture them is badly broken.

Cameras aren't gods. You have to give them a frame of reference (white point)

I'm aware of that. And yet, somehow we have many photos of the recent wildfires in California, captured by cameras, so setting a correct whitepoint is clearly possible.

It's called get a real camera and real optics and not a tiny one built into phones.

I haven't owned an android phone that didn't have a manual white balance function in the stock app.

Here’s a good example of a prediction: https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2014/04/david-fo...