>So yes, the camera can see in the dark, see 20 stops of dynamic range, add fake depth of field, but it looks like shit because they fundamentally don't know what makes a good image.
Or it looks that way to faux-artistic purist sensibility, but actual users have managed to create awesome pictures with it just fine for over a decade...
You can take good picture with a toy camera from 1990
These crazy HDR, face smoothing and fake background blur are objectively ugly, but sure you can take good pictures with them, the pictures would be better with proper tools though
>are objectively ugly
Not if subjects disagree...
E.g. fake blur most would find bad only when it's badly done - when it exposes edges and so on. If it's done right in a image, they'd have no issue with it, nor find it "objectively ugly".
That's what you get when not a single artistic soul is present during the development, they maximise everything for pure raw """performance""". "see in the dark", "maximum amount of dynamic range HDR", "improve faces", "improve colors" &c.
So yes, the camera can see in the dark, see 20 stops of dynamic range, add fake depth of field, but it looks like shit because they fundamentally don't know what makes a good image.
You have the same thing with photographers:
- the "technicians" who have the most expensive and advanced gear and often produce lacking results
- the "artists" with limited funds taking breathtaking pictures on prehistoric hardware