Today was the last straw; Smart HDR ruined another photo that would have likely looked spectacular without it. The cat was being beautifully lit by the sunrise and I got two photos that looked like this; as I was going into settings frantically to disable Smart HDR and try again, the kitty wandered away.
I did some testing after I took this photo, and that weird "blown out highlights" effect does not happen without Smart HDR turned on, if you choose the right exposure by swiping up and down after tapping on the image. It feels like more than half the time the Smart HDR photo just makes highlights look strange or blown out without improving the rest of the photo much.
In photography it's always better to underexpose than to overexpose and blow out highlights. With Smart HDR on there's NO WAY to underexpose a bit to avoid blowing out the highlights! It's maddening.
I'm wondering if anyone else has come to this conclusion and turned off Smart HDR by default.
I did some testing after I took this photo, and that weird "blown out highlights" effect does not happen without Smart HDR turned on, if you choose the right exposure by swiping up and down after tapping on the image. It feels like more than half the time the Smart HDR photo just makes highlights look strange or blown out without improving the rest of the photo much.
In photography it's always better to underexpose than to overexpose and blow out highlights. With Smart HDR on there's NO WAY to underexpose a bit to avoid blowing out the highlights! It's maddening.
I'm wondering if anyone else has come to this conclusion and turned off Smart HDR by default.
