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Alexander.Of.Oz

macrumors 68040
Original poster
Oct 29, 2013
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UPDATE (22/09/2017)

It turns out you actually can turn off the HDR feature that ships turned on by default on the iPhone 8 plus! Thank goodness for that!

James Martin, the senior photographer for CNET obviously didn't go into the settings to verify his claim that it couldn't be turned off. The guy set off some major panic for me, believing what he had written as the truth and dreading the resulting ghosting issues if I used the inbuilt camera app.

I'll provide a screenshot verifying this.

IMG_0001.jpg


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So what, you say! Well, read on to find out why this is not actually a good scenario.

According to CNET's senior photographer, James Martin.
With the new sensor, HDR delivered better details in highlights and shadows. HDR is always on, signaling Apple's deeper commitment to computational photography with the iPhone 8 Plus. That's different than the iPhone 7 Plus, which gave you the option to set HDR to auto, off or on.

James had 72 hours to play with the 8 plus iPhone and shared many images that he took with it in that time, then gushed about it in his column piece.

Problem is, that the images he posted with it showed some chronic ghosting, which is an effect that happens when three separate exposures are attempted to be reassembled together, but something/s have moved between the time it takes for the frames to be captured. In HDR software, at the point of reassembly, you have the option to define the areas where ghosting is appearing and the software then calculates which other frame to take that section from. Apples inbuilt HDR software doesn't offer you this as an option, so ghosting is going to become commonplace for everyone using these cameras, as there is no option to turn the HDR off anymore! :eek:

Here's three of James Martin's images that highlight the ghosting at work.

Check out the wires up top of the bridge, where there is severe ghosting and also check out the vertical wires with buildings behind them, where the buildings have bled through the wires!
img-0052-2-2.jpg


Check out the US flag and the severe ghosting from where the flag was positioned differently in one of the other exposures and the blending hasn't been able to discern that there's ghosting there to be removed.
file-000-vivid-warm.jpg


Another flag, this time showing the ghosting to a lesser extent, but still quite noticeable.
img-0984.jpg


Makes me glad that I use an app called PureShot for my photography on the iPhone! It allows me to spot meter wherever I want to in the image and choose whatever point I want to be in focus. It also shows a live histogram, and allows me to almost shoot in full manual mode, adjusting the ISO, the shutter speed, and white balance. The only thing that can't be adjusted is the aperture, as it's fixed. It also allows me to save my image files in RAW format, for the older iPhones that can't save in RAW format, you can save in TIFF format, which is exponentially better than jpeg.
 
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Yes you can keep the non-hdr picture as well. Another non-issue.

Wouldn't call it a non issue. Generally you turn a feature on when you want to use it. If you end up with a double for every picture you take can you not see how some would find that annoying.
 
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Wouldn't call it a non issue. Generally you turn a feature on when you want to use it. If you end up with a double for every picture you take can you not see how some would find that annoying.

I guess the kinda people who this will worry are the kinda people that are already used to taking several shots and only keeping the best. So you take a shot and decide if you bin off the HDR or non-HDR version
 
Wouldn't call it a non issue. Generally you turn a feature on when you want to use it. If you end up with a double for every picture you take can you not see how some would find that annoying.

Does this show up on the non-HDR file? It’s something that will be investigated by everyone soon enough. I also couldn’t see the ghosting until I zoomed in all the way, at that point it looked like a compression artifact. I don’t know about you, but I don’t zoom super far into my pictures since they always look like crap when you get that close.
 
But whenever you take a picture with hdr on, it takes a standard picture and an hdr picture. Wouldn’t it continue to do that?
Yes you can keep the non-hdr picture as well. Another non-issue.
Why should we be forced to have to go through the images and toss out the HDR versions all the time, what a stupid inconvenience!

I'll just continue not using the built in camera app.
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Does this show up on the non-HDR file?
No.
[doublepost=1505905774][/doublepost]
I also couldn’t see the ghosting until I zoomed in all the way, at that point it looked like a compression artifact. I don’t know about you, but I don’t zoom super far into my pictures since they always look like crap when you get that close.
When at home, I'm using a 27" monitor, so I don't have to zoom in to have these effects be blatantly obvious, they are plain to see.
 
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i'm pretty sure these are compression artifacts and not ghosting from HDR.

one picture is only like 84KB, which is a very small filesize...

really annoying, that they don't upload the original file.
 
i'm pretty sure these are compression artifacts and not ghosting from HDR.

one picture is only like 84KB, which is a very small filesize...

That’s what I was thinking as well. Unless they have the original pictures for download, any comparison of quality is kind of pointless.
 
Sounds like you have a solution, use a different app that gives you more control.

For 99% of people the default option will give them more pleasing results.
 
i'm pretty sure these are compression artifacts and not ghosting from HDR.

one picture is only like 84KB, which is a very small filesize...

really annoying, that they don't upload the original file.
Compression artefacts do not explain the obvious ghosting of that first image of the bridge! That, my friend, is ghosting! As is the flag, where you can actually see the stripes of the US flag in the ghosted exposure.
 
I don't have the 8 but have experienced the ghosting in HDR photos.

Unless you and your subject are holding pretty still the HDR mode produces a ghosting effect, which looks particularly bad if you have people in your shot.

I wouldn't want it to be on by default.
 
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Yea i swore i read that too.

Hope its true. I dont want to be taking 2 pictures for every shot i take.

Between that and 4K, 60FPS, my 64GB phone will fill right up.
Agreed. I highly doubt they took away the option to turn it off. That wouldn't make any sense.
Fingers crossed Engadget have it correct, I'll find out in about 24 hours, I guess!
well I just came across another article that said you can't turn it off but have the option to save the non hdr image as well Which would take up a crazy amount of space on your phone saving doubles all the time
 
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Agreed. I highly doubt they took away the option to turn it off. That wouldn't make any sense.

well I just came across another article that said you can't turn it off but have the option to save the non hdr image as well Which would take up a crazy amount of space on your phone saving doubles all the time
Well im going to believe the one that said you can turn it off. Because if not then they are just straight up lying. The ones who says you can't may not be lying, they are just ignorant to the fact on how to turn it off.
 
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Someone can correct me if I’m wrong, but I swore I read in one of the reviews that the HEIF format allows for holding both the original exposure and the HDR assembled photo in a single photo file, so in theory you can just switch HDR effects off even after the photo is in your roll. No more two photos for each HDR shot.
 
Someone can correct me if I’m wrong, but I swore I read in one of the reviews that the HEIF format allows for holding both the original exposure and the HDR assembled photo in a single photo file, so in theory you can just switch HDR effects off even after the photo is in your roll. No more two photos for each HDR shot.
I sure hope so!
 
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Someone can correct me if I’m wrong, but I swore I read in one of the reviews that the HEIF format allows for holding both the original exposure and the HDR assembled photo in a single photo file, so in theory you can just switch HDR effects off even after the photo is in your roll. No more two photos for each HDR shot.
That would be a pretty phenomenal advancement if it's correct!
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Found an article on CNET, which discusses HEIF, and in it they say:
HEIF also can bundle multiple photos of the same scene, for example shots taken at different brightness levels that you might later want to combine into a single image through a technology called high-dynamic range (HDR) photography. Apple doesn't take advantage of this particular ability -- iPhones generate HDR images before they're saved into a file -- but HEIF opens the door for several computational photography technologies like HDR. Another use of stacks of photos is to package shots with different focus points that can later be combined for different photographic effects.
 
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