I've been taking photos for more than a decade and have tried all kinds of cameras and cell phones. There's no denying how impressive the cameras in our mobile companions have become - and they owe a lot of that to computational photography and AI.
And yet I believe that we are heading in the wrong direction with the new AI features. AI should be a tool for better photos - not the photo itself.
The problem with cell phone AI capabilities
The biggest problem, in my opinion, is the focus on the result and not the actual process.
Now you're probably wondering:»But Linh! When taking photos, the only thing that counts is what you get in the end! Who cares about the process?”And that is of course a legitimate objection.
With AI functions, the photo can be adjusted and changed almost unlimitedly and as desired:
- Swap faces in group photos
- Remove or even add people
- Change the time of day
- Exchange the sky
- Generate additional objects (even the moon or other celestial objects)
- Enlarge and reduce motifs
That all sounds very useful, right? Yes, it is too.My problem with these AI features is not practical, but rather philosophical. I'm not a fan of changing a photo so much that it loses its identity.
I compare this to the “Ship of Theseus”– a philosophical paradox. If many or even all of a ship's individual parts have been replaced over the years, is it still the same ship?
Let's build a bridge to photography:If a photo has objects generated, locations changed, or people removed, is it still a photograph? To put it another way: About your own photography?
AI should be a tool – not the end result
In my opinion, cell phones should offer AI functions to help us especially with photography. These are exactly the types of features we find in today's system cameras.
Many system cameras, such as those in the Sony Alpha series or the Canon R cameras, have useful AI functions that, in my opinion, are practical and still leave a lot of room for creativity.
Here are a few five examples of AI features that I find particularly helpful:
Eye AF Tracking:The camera detects where the subject's eyes are and can constantly focus on them and track them with focus. Such a camera ensures that the eyes are always in focus when taking portraits.
- There are now cell phones like the Sony Xperia 1 VI with advanced autofocus systems like those found in system cameras. I would like something like that for other cell phones too.
Animal and object recognition:Thanks to AI, system cameras can reliably identify whether an animal, an airplane or another object is in front of the lens. Optimized settings can be selected, such as a fast shutter speed for animals. Some cameras can even reliably focus and track animals' eyes.
AI white balance:The cameras can recognize under what lighting conditions or at what time of day a photo is taken and select the correct white balance in advance.
- Similar technology is already used in cell phones. Pixel cell phones, for example, use “Real Tone” to display the skin tones of different people as naturally as possible.
KI-Upscaling:There are now system cameras, such as the Canon EOS R5 Mark 2, with which you can optionally upscale images internally to a higher resolution. The function is helpful if you want to print images in an even larger format.
AI noise reduction:Cameras like the Sony A7R 4 use AI to recognize which areas need to be sharpened and, if there is corresponding noise, reduced. This means you can take high-quality photos even in poor lighting conditions and high sensitivity settings.
Both worlds can coexist
My problem is that many AI tools, especially those that are widely promoted by Apple, Google and Co., are more in the post-production area. Finished photos are changed, improved and edited.
A few years ago you had to invest a lot of time in many of these processes. Not just for the actual editing, but also for learning the necessary skills. Now you can do this with just a few taps or even voice and text commands - and that's good too!
Still, I wish cell phone manufacturers would give us more AI tools to help us use actual photography.
The future of photography lies in the balance between technological innovation and the creative freedom of photographers -AI should be the invisible helper that supports our visions without dominating them.
