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by saiya-jin 2396 days ago
As a full frame DSLR shooter (Nikon D750 + 20mm F1.8), this is wild considering those crappy tiny sensors on phones. To get similar (albeit much, much sharper) results, I have to lug around 2kg of camera and lens plus bulky tripod.

Even with this, to get those dark dust clouds and stark colors some heavy postprocessing is required (which I mostly don't do because I consider it too much an alteration of original image, but it creates more interesting image). Don't think for a second that those superb images you can see everywhere are not literally over-painted in Photoshop (look at online tutorials on how to do it if you don't believe me).

I guess to make things impressive, google guys went to some proper remote desert far from any artificial light. And unless I missed something, they still used some tripod. In european alps, this kind of result is practically impossible - there is always some tiny village in every valley, and even if not light pollution seeps from far. One night panorama I have has quite strong glow coming from village of Chamonix some 15km far, that is on the other side of massive Mont Blanc range [1]. Anything can be achieved if you start playing a lot with Photoshop brushes, layers etc. but for me its one step too far.

Imagine what results can be had when such algorithms are paired to a full frame (or bigger) sensor!

[1] https://www.flickr.com/photos/99251154@N04/22790364795/in/al...

1 comments

> To get similar (albeit much, much sharper) results

Tbh it's not that hard to get sharper results, this was shot on a 40 years old camera, with a 50+ years old lens using a cheapo carbon fiber tripod ( 25+mph wind that probably rocked my camera quite a bit)

https://i.imgur.com/sdxyyEw.jpg

> And unless I missed something, they still used some tripod.

They did: "Clearly, this cannot work with a handheld camera; the phone would have to be placed on a tripod, a rock, or whatever else might be available to hold the camera steady."