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Samsung 'Fake' Moon Shots Controversy Puts Computational Photography in the Spotlight

Mousse said:
Each full moon looks different because...wait for it...the moon rotates. There is also the color change do to atmospheric conditions--everything from yellow to red to purple to grey.
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Changes due to atmospheric conditions, sure. But, as the moon is tidal locked to the earth, there’s only one side that can be seen from earth.

moon.nasa.gov

Tidal Locking - NASA Science

The same side of the Moon always faces Earth, because the Moon rotates exactly once each time it orbits our planet. This is called synchronous rotation.
moon.nasa.gov moon.nasa.gov
 
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Picture of the Pillars of Creation, taken with the new 1,000x zoom update on my Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra:

1678762016427.png
 
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0lf said:
>snip<
A major difference is that in astrophoto, you stack to reverse the negative impact of the atmoshere. Because it is not still, each frame have a different piece of information, and selecting the better ones and stack them can dramatically improve the results. Here, the source material is blurred, so stacking won’t help.
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Deconvolution operates whether the source material (image) has been stacked or not. (see my link below)

Xian Zhu Xuande said:
>snip<

And if you’re experienced with lunar/planetary photography (lucky imaging and the usual suspects like PIPP, RegiStax, AutoStakkert!) you should also have a passable understanding of data integrity and what is possible to extrapolate through conventional means so you should at least know that this if falling well outside those realms of consideration.
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I am familiar with various astrophotography software, in particular this one...

Lunar and solar deconvolution | Astro-photo

Lunar and solar deconvolution | Astro-photo | by André van der Hoeven

www.astro-photo.nl www.astro-photo.nl

...and it works as demonstrated at that link...well within the, cough, "realms of consideration".

The point of my posting is to educate the readers of this thread who are either maybe not familiar with or maybe not even aware of what is possible with deconvolution (or, in another word, well, math).
 
Adreitz said:
Also, they could have done the same procedure with a photo of the far side of the moon (presumably not trained in the AI) to see if it wound still result in more detail or not.
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My, that would be a pretty expensive experiment! They could have also photograph Jupiter through a telescope and see if the picture is that of the Moon. In my opinion, the AI should handle both cases.
 
Unregistered 4U said:
Changes due to atmospheric conditions, sure. But, as the moon is tidal locked to the earth, there’s only one side that can be seen from earth.

moon.nasa.gov

Tidal Locking - NASA Science

The same side of the Moon always faces Earth, because the Moon rotates exactly once each time it orbits our planet. This is called synchronous rotation.
moon.nasa.gov moon.nasa.gov
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Mousse says they’ve taken hundreds of pictures of the full moon, though. What is going on!

Mousse said:
Sounds like someone who has never taken a picture of the moon before. I've taken hundreds of full moon pictures and guess what? Each full moon looks different because...wait for it...the moon rotates.
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well, this is kinda weird to think about..
the moon is an object anyone can take a photo of,
so if you had a special looking moon tonight at your location and try to picture it with the Samsung,
it might miss the whole point of that certain moon and "develop" a different looking moon.
so you might as well take a random google moon photo from the thousands available,
and claim you made it.
totally illogical.
the only prepose of YOUR personal picture is the type of moon you wanted to picture at that certain night.
you cannot allow Samsung to produce a generic moon picture instead of what you wanted.
stupid.
 
I just look at any photo and think, "that's a nice photo/that's blurry/that's boring/etc" I don't give a second thought as to how the photo ended up looking how it looked. I'm no book editor or gallery owner so I just look at the photo.

All camera phone manufacturers will have this feature in their phones at some stage, it's a race to see who gets the longest zoom, no matter how it is achieved. When Apple do it, one can guarantee that there will be a thread started of "Post your Moon shots here" and all submissions will get a barrage of critical acclaim. Wonder what Apple will call the feature? Super solar retina perhaps.

Truthfully, I have only ever took a couple of "moon shots" the moon looked big and full with the naked eye, the resulting photo looked like a pin prick of light on a dark background. I took one the other night with my Galaxy S23 Ultra using the x100 zoom standing in my doorway freezing cold in a dressing gown with my shaky arms outstretched and wife shouting at me to close the door. The resulting photo was quite blurred but the best I have ever managed, with a little more time and care, it would be better. Will I ever take another photo of the moon? Probably not.

20230307_230652.jpg
 
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Are you all serious!? Not a single photo from ANY device shows an ACTUAL REPRESENTATION of you own faces but the moon bothers you?
 
0lf said:
I am not saying the contrary. I am saying that staking has no purpose here and all the gain has to come from deconvolution.
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My apologies for not being clearer, I agree with your original comments back in post #78. I was only trying to clarify and emphasize for the readers that applying deconvolution mathematics was indifferent to whether an image was stacked or, as you noted in that post, not. Mea culpa, for whatever confusion I might have injected here regarding the information you provided.
 
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mcfrazieriv said:
And?

The iPhone's boca is entirely fake. Was there an article that ripped Apple for this? A number of the camera's features are done entirely by software.
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The iPhone's boca[sic] is a gaussian blur based on estimated distances. It's also a feature that's entirely opt-in. It's very explicitly a mode. And the result is still your picture, just with a filter applied. But yes, it's "fake" in the sense that it isn't an artifact of how a lens behaves.

This, on the other hand? This is taking a blurry picture of something that looks vaguely like the moon and swapping it for a sharp pre-made picture of the moon. Your camera didn't take anything close to that.
 
This is nonsense LOL. I have an S23U and take pictures of the moon all the time. When I zoom in it's nice and clear. So are the millions of others who have this same exact device & share the same exact experience.

What's happening here is user error. The bloke is zooming in to the moon with jittery hands. You have to stay still. You having jittery hands trying to take a picture in outer space? Of course the phone is going to give you a crutch and do some software wizardry.

Not that difficult to spot what's happening here.

The S23U has a better camera than an iPhone. Any iPhone. No, Apple is not going to catch up. It's time people come to terms with that.
 
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mjschabow said:
No one has been caught doing anything though. That's why this whole conversation is ridiculous.
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Are you sure? The clipped out (ie entirely white) detail was restored via AI so doesn’t that make the photo fake? Also, Samsung claim they are using multiple frames but this was a still, artificially blurred frame, so how would that have helped.
 
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jacg said:
Are you sure? The clipped out (ie entirely white) detail was restored via AI so doesn’t that make the photo fake? Also, Samsung claim they are using multiple frames but this was a still, artificially blurred frame, so how would that have helped.
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The word "fake" is the problem with this whole thing. Shock reporting as usual. If the reporting said "AI Enhanced", then it wouldn't be a big deal.

I will give credit here though. MR could have used this as an opportunity to try to Alan Samsung, but they were aware enough to know that Apple does the same thing.
 
mcfrazieriv said:
And?

The iPhone's boca is entirely fake. Was there an article that ripped Apple for this? A number of the camera's features are done entirely by software.
Click to expand...
Is removing information by adding blur the same as adding stock texture to blank space the same?
 
mjschabow said:
The word "fake" is the problem with this whole thing. Shock reporting as usual. If the reporting said "AI Enhanced", then it wouldn't be a big deal.

I will give credit here though. MR could have used this as an opportunity to try to Alan Samsung, but they were aware enough to know that Apple does the same thing.
Click to expand...
You didn’t really address my point
 
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Of course it’s fake…. Does anyone think a camera lens the size of a pinky nail can get the same image as a thousand dollar telescope? 😂
 
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