[HN Gopher] Halide for iPad
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Halide for iPad
Author : uptown
Score : 178 points
Date : 2021-05-18 16:04 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (lux.camera)
(TXT) w3m dump (lux.camera)
| t0mbstone wrote:
| How is this not a product advertisement?
| nvrspyx wrote:
| Product announcements are posted here all the time.
| CharlesW wrote:
| I've enjoyed using Halide for iPhone. It was interesting to get a
| tour of the thinking and design challenges around making a tablet
| version.
| jonplackett wrote:
| The map is brilliant
| W0lf wrote:
| Every time this term comes up here, I have to think this is about
| Halide [1].
|
| [1] https://halide-lang.org/
| [deleted]
| andrewmunsell wrote:
| I find this interesting:
|
| > We did prototype a machine learning-based Concert Mode that
| detects when you are taking shots at a show and disables the
| camera automatically, but we decided that was perhaps a bit too
| much.
|
| As much as I hate that person at a concert holding their iPad up
| to take photos, I respect the decision to let their users make
| the choice for themselves and to not become a gatekeeper (and,
| almost certainly, block use of the app in legitimate situations
| due to false positives).
| jrockway wrote:
| Digital Restrictions Management. Still a thing in 2021, sadly.
| jkingsman wrote:
| I interpreted this as a cheeky joke, not as an actually
| considered feature :)
| andrewmunsell wrote:
| That's totally possible as well and it may have just gone
| over my head :)
| crazygringo wrote:
| I just don't understand the hate around concert photos/videos.
|
| I always have a bunch of friends who wanted to see the show but
| couldn't make it. Being able to send them a few photos and a
| couple 30s clips lets us all enjoy it a bit and have a good
| message back and forth.
|
| If it's a 2h show, I'm still completely "present" for 99% of
| it. It's not detracting from my enjoyment.
|
| And I actually think it's pretty cool when there are moments
| when everyone is sticking up their phone to record -- it's this
| shared experience where everyone is expressing _yes, this is
| the moment_. You see it 's not just important to you but to
| others. And all the glowing screens is aesthetically similar to
| the way people used to hold up their lit lighters when people
| smoked.
|
| If I'm on stage and everyone's pulling out their phones to
| record at a certain moment, that's when I know I'm making magic
| and we're all sharing it. People are appreciating it so much
| it's worth saving.
| andrewmunsell wrote:
| It's not so much the taking photos/videos that's the problem,
| I do that on occassion to.
|
| This is the problem that Halide was either trying to or
| joking about trying to fix:
|
| https://i.imgur.com/QA0hX.jpg
|
| Phones are small, tablets are not. If you're behind this
| person, your experience is beyond just inconvenienced.
| deejorama wrote:
| Quick snap? No problem. Holding up an _iPad_ for a whole
| song? Go fuck yourself, respectfully.
| crazygringo wrote:
| I've been to more shows than I can count in Brooklyn and
| never in my life have I seen someone with a tablet/iPad.
|
| I'm sure someone has done it somewhere... but it's not a
| problem that exists at any meaningful scale, as far as I'm
| aware.
|
| I was referring to the people who criticize the recording
| people do from their phones.
| tomduncalf wrote:
| I saw someone hold up an iPad for an entire Bjork show on
| the row in front of me, live-streaming the gig to their
| friends on Facebook. Didn't totally block my view but was
| definitely annoying and I thought especially rude as
| there were notes saying Bjork had specifically requested
| no cameras be used (it was a gig with just an orchestra
| so she wanted people to focus on the music). My friend
| had a word with them at the interval and they did move it
| out of our line of sight at least, lol
| egeozcan wrote:
| That'd be better solved by human interaction, not machine
| learning.
| kergonath wrote:
| Or not so respectfully. I don't pay EUR50 to see someone's
| iPad for 2 hours.
| jrockway wrote:
| You kind of do, right? If you had EUR50,000,000, you
| could have a private concert. You don't, so the general
| public is there, doing general public things.
| lethologica wrote:
| Not being able to afford a private concert doesn't mean
| that common decency should go out of the window too
| though.
| kstrauser wrote:
| Do you want someone to throw a beer at your iPad? Because
| this is how you get someone to throw a beer at your iPad.
| smukherjee19 wrote:
| Just to give you a different perspective: in Japan, and
| before COVID hit of course, I've attended quite a few
| concerts, and _none_ of them had _any_ person holding up
| their phones or iPads to record anything, ever. It 's
| completely banned in all the concerts I went to and is
| illegal: you'll have your phone confiscated and the recorded
| material deleted by the event staff. Not that I've seen
| anyone trying to break it. Maybe the ones done by amateurs at
| small stages don't have that rule, but even then, I've never
| seen any.
|
| But what we did carry were penlights/cyalium lights. And each
| song has a set of calls people do at specific parts of the
| song. And for the rest of it? We set our penlights to the
| color matching the artist on stage, and we wave them, and
| sing along and make the screaming calls when it's
| appropriate. I would feel this crazy emptiness in my hands
| with one penlight so I'd bring two for both hands. The making
| of magic moment happens when few thousand fans scream
| "Encore" at the end, and when we do this penlight waving and
| all the stuff together. Phones don't even come to the
| picture. They are in vibrate mode. Can't have it ringing when
| the MC is speaking and everyone else is quiet, that'd be rude
| as hell.
|
| I guess it's totally different elsewhere, but I'd be in for a
| culture shock if I saw that many people trying to "capture
| the moment" on a device screen, instead of in their hearts
| and minds. For me, those are memories I treasure.
|
| I do understand that I cannot share the experience with my
| family/friends, but I get to share the experience with the
| guy sitting/standing next to me, and maybe the guy I
| exchanged Twitter details with so we could talk about it
| afterwards. Met quite a few great people during those
| concerts, and some I talk with time to time on Twitter even
| now. :)
| crazygringo wrote:
| That's interesting it's different in Japan.
|
| But I'm precisely pushing back on the dichotomy you're
| presenting -- it's not an _either /or choice_ about a
| screen vs hearts and minds, or sharing with friends vs.
| with the person next to you.
|
| You can have _both_ -- you can have _all of it_. Record a
| couple of minutes, share with friends, _and_ make friends
| next to you as well the entire _rest_ of the concert and
| have _those_ memories. Plus, you can multitask. Even if I
| 'm filming a quick bit of a song, I'm sure as heck enjoying
| the music and experience too! It's not like I stop
| listening or looking. :)
| paxswill wrote:
| I feel the issue in this case is more a tablet being used to
| record a show versus a phone. The larger tablet blocks more
| of the view of people behind you. This does kind of fall
| apart with the blurred distinction between large phones and
| small tablets though, so in this case I feel like their
| decision was the right way to go (in addition to the other
| issues like false positives, complexity, etc).
| notyourwork wrote:
| False positives would be a really poor user experience. In
| fact, I'd likely uninstall and never look back if I encountered
| that type of issue.
| thekid314 wrote:
| I love Halide but never remembered to open it. Luckily iOS 14
| shortcuts made it possible to trigger open Halide whenever the
| Camera app is opened. It now acts like the default camera app.
|
| Specific instructions: https://www.daviddegner.com/blog/change-
| default-camera-app-o...
| hellomyguys wrote:
| I'm pretty into photography and love to shoot manual on my
| mirrorless and film cameras, so was naturally very intrigued by
| Halide. Unless I need to take a photo at a fast shutter speed,
| most photos look better taken through the stock camera with all
| the AI/ML processing Apple does. I guess I could also use
| Halide to shoot in RAW and edit later, but I don't really care
| to do that with iPhone photos.
|
| Curious what you're shooting where you feel you need the fine
| tune control Halide provides and if you actually fine the
| results better than the stock camera app?
| mortenjorck wrote:
| This matches with my experience. I love shooting full manual
| on my mirrorless, even dialing in manual focus on a fast
| prime with some assistance from focus peaking, but when it
| comes to iPhone photography, I prefer shooting hands-off. It
| feels like the ML engine just knows the limitations of the
| sensor better than I do and can give me the most to work with
| in Photos' streamlined develop mode.
| feifan wrote:
| For me, Halide lets me shoot regular RAWs, whereas the stock
| camera doesn't -- I don't like working with ProRAW because it
| renders buggily in Photos and Lightroom and I don't find it
| worth the file size.
| perardi wrote:
| I have no specific comment besides: bless your heart, I had no
| idea you could do this. Thanks for pointing out that shortcut.
| lethologica wrote:
| Thank you! I didn't know this was possible. I was in the exact
| same boat. Bought the app, never use it because I keep
| forgetting about it.
| tomduncalf wrote:
| That's a pretty neat trick to get around the lack of changing
| default apps!
| rasz wrote:
| >We set out to build something much more than a large iPhone app
| on a bigger screen. We had to completely rethink our design to
| for the big, bigger and biggest portable screen.
|
| >The best UI is usually as little as you can get away with, so
| just like on Halide for iPad, our exposure dials only appear
| while adjusting exposure. They fade away into the background
| after a few moments.
|
| we had to think what to do with all of this extra screen space,
| so we decided to hide even more of the UI
| sandofsky wrote:
| As mentioned in the post, when the viewfinder fills the screen,
| controls have to overlap the viewfinder. This makes it harder
| to judge your composition. That's why it still makes sense to
| keep your UI from looking like an airplane cockpit.
| AmVess wrote:
| Exactly this. Hiding a UI behind a UI behind a UI is nothing
| but painful and slow.
|
| I downloaded the app and was met with two subscription options
| and a purchase option. You cannot try the app free without
| choosing one of two subscription options or a rather silly
| purchase price of $40 USD.
|
| Requiring a subscription signup before using software is
| Scuzzware...they are betting you forget you downloaded it and
| signed up for the sub. I have an extremely dim view of this
| practice. Strike 1.
|
| They have UI hidden under UI. Strike 2.
|
| UI buttons unmarked with no clear indication as to function.
| Strike 3 and uninstalled.
| luke2m wrote:
| Do people really take photos on a tablet?
| minimaxir wrote:
| The cameras in the new iPad Pro (comparable to recent iPhones)
| may finally put an end to that meme.
| twobitshifter wrote:
| In photography you'll hear similar arguments about people using
| the camera display instead of the viewfinder. The viewfinder
| provides the best view of what the image will look like, but
| people would rather hold their camera out in front of them then
| stick their eye up to the viewfinder.
|
| I think the argument can be made that the pro-view offered by
| halide would be better for image composition than the iPhone,
| but as mentioned using the whole screen won't allow you to
| truly see everything.
| kenjackson wrote:
| For sporting events we use iPads for videos and photos. The
| reason is that the quality is "good enough" and the large
| screen makes it so much easier to actually follow the action on
| the screen. When we tried to use phones, people were much more
| likely to watch the action not using the screen, and then would
| miss the shot because they couldn't get the camera aligned with
| the shot fast enough.
| monkeynotes wrote:
| When you say "we" do you mean a professional outfit, or just
| as a group of consumers at a sports event? I thought pros
| were all about DSLRs and long lenses at sporting events. What
| kind of action can you actually detail with an iPad's lens?
| kenjackson wrote:
| Sorry. For "we" I mean parents at youth/school sports
| events. Not professionals.
| crooked-v wrote:
| In my experience it's extremely common at theme parks. I don't
| understand why people do it, but it happens.
| feifan wrote:
| For my mom, her iPad (Mini) is her only computer, including
| for taking photos. She much prefers the large screen (vs a
| phone or camera-sized screen) and wouldn't know how to
| transfer photos over from a traditional camera. I imagine my
| mom is pretty close to the average demographic that goes to
| theme parks in this way.
| pjmlp wrote:
| All the time, just look at any tourist group and you'll find a
| few doing it.
| dillondoyle wrote:
| Yes! And video.
|
| My coach uses it to film climbing and it's really helpful for
| instant feedback. There are also apps to do more in depth
| analysis to for instance draw geometry on your movement to
| understand and improve.
| nathancahill wrote:
| Wow, what kind of app is that? Sounds useful for climbing.
| Know ski coaches that use iPads for filming ski training for
| similar reasons.
| kccqzy wrote:
| Of course. Look at the 2012 London olympics. This is a use case
| that surprised Apple designers too.
|
| From https://www.iphoneincanada.ca/news/chaudri/
|
| > So I remember very clearly at the 2012 Olympics in London, if
| you looked around the stadium, you saw a lot of people using an
| iPad as a camera and generally that was people that just needed
| to have a bigger viewfinder for vision reasons, etc.
| [deleted]
| sandofsky wrote:
| I'm cofounder of Lux and one of the engineers. Happy to answer
| any questions.
| dadanda wrote:
| Could you please add a digital zoom option in Halide? I bought
| the app to have full manual control over the camera and I don't
| understand why it cuts out this standard feature. One of my use
| cases is that I often use my phone with one of those macro lens
| clip-ons and on pocket microscopes and there you just have to
| zoom in digitally. And even for everyday shooting I sometimes
| just want to zoom in slightly. Of course everything is possible
| in post, but since you are boasting full manual control, I also
| expect the app to have all features of the default iPhone
| camera.
| sandofsky wrote:
| Doing digital zoom "right" involves some serious thought.
|
| One issue is technical. The iPhone cannot capture a RAW photo
| with digital zoom enabled. It's restricted at an API level.
| The reasoning is that it wouldn't make sense to crop a RAW
| file, and there are privacy concerns around saving data in a
| photo that the user thought was cropped.
|
| Another issue is that digital zooming is awful. You're
| typically looking at simple interpolation, whereas cropping
| the photo afterwards in any half-decent editor offers better
| algorithms. Very smart software can apply super-resolution.
|
| Then there's added UI complexity. On hardware that supports
| optical zoom, you want to clearly surface to the user whether
| they're engaged digital zoom or optical. Many users are
| caught by surprise with how the first-party camera app
| quietly switches between the telephoto lens and cropping the
| wide-angle lens when it needs to focus on macro shots; the
| wide-angle lens has a closer minimum focus distance.
|
| From talking to users, we found many folks use digital zoom
| as a focus aid. That's why MkII included a focus loupe, which
| solved that problem in a much more elegant way.
|
| We do have some ideas on how to do digital zoom well. Stay
| tuned.
| goldenkey wrote:
| Doesn't digital zoom lose information? It's equivalent to
| cropping and enlarging. Seems antithetical to a camera app
| meant for professionals.
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