Stress-Testing iPhone 7 Plus’ Portrait Mode

Brian L.W. Moore on iOS 10.1’s Portrait mode:

While a lot is super good, there are a couple areas where the Portrait Mode just ain’t gonna cut it. Complicated foreground and background combinations seemingly overwhelm it and the blur edges get confused throughout the photo.

Portrait Mode doesn’t even begin to successfully work with translucent or shiny objects. Though this is pretty understandable considering the hardware — attempting to detect depth on objects like these is probably difficult. Not sure if Apple will ever be able to get over this one unless their machine learning becomes near-perfect.

He concludes:

People have asked me what camera I used to take these photos, which is I’d call a good sign. I like how they look, and this is a camera I can keep in my pocket all day as I walk all over a beautiful country. That’s a win for me.

Check out his examples here and here. They’re not technically perfect, but I think they’re beautiful, and they were made on a portable computer. Impressive.

→ Source: medium.com