[jychang]

> There are certain things you can't replicate with just a single tiny camera

MOST DoF and bokeh effects in photography can't be replicated with a single small camera.

As a photographer, bokeh is surprisingly difficult to fake, and looks glaringly bad when you notice. The blur effect is due to focal distance ratio differences, and it's very difficult to determine the distance in software. Hell, it's hard to determine it with 2 lenses, as the HTC implementation does.

If you want to compare what "fake bokeh" looks like compared to real stuff, you can look at http://www.trustedreviews.com/opinions/htc-one-m8-camera-vs-... for a review of the HTC One M8, which has a 2-lens setup.

Look at this picture, for example: http://static.trustedreviews.com/94/00002b836/8517/blue-htc-... For most software, it's extremely difficult, even with distance data, to separate the bush in the back from the blue toy. As a result... messy looking blur.

[thezilch]

Unfortunately, as a non-professional photographer, I think this article very disingenuous. Most of the shots aren't taken from the same distance, angle, nor lighting. "Here we are, closer to the subject and from a different angle; notice that we don't have to deal with distinguishing our focused subject from subjects that no longer exist!" "Sure these look the same, but this one is done with optics and is definitely better!"

[taeric]

While it is unfortunate that they did not do the exact angle in all shots, it is still possible to see the difference in the simulated and real effects.

I can say that, as a non-professional photographer, picking up a prime lens and using that for the family shots has been an extremely eye opening experience. To the point that I actually dislike most photos from point and shoots.

There is definitely a bit of "quit caring about aperture." And I can't argue against progress in making the phone cameras better. I'm just not seeing compelling evidence to ditch my DSLR.

[e12e]

They're clearly taken with the same lightning (outdoors and around the same time), but with different iso/aperture/exposure -- as they would have to be. The dedicated camera will let in much more light than the phone camera.

I do agree the zoom/distancing on the "foliage" photos are unfortunate for comparison -- but the fluffy animals more than make up for it IMNHO.

[joshuak]

Very true. We do this kind of work in VFX all the time to reduce CG rendering costs for blurs that are expensive in 3d but cheap in 2d. Even with access to sub pixel (4x, 8x etc.) depth maps there are always lots of issues to deal with around edges.

But given that jpeg is good enough for most people I'm sure these types of tools are too.

[samclearman]

According to the article, and my own experience with google's version, it's good enough for simple portraits. Since most photos, and close to 100% of photos anybody actually cares about, are portraits that makes it a pretty useful feature.

[kbrower]

I look forward to a review of this software vs HTC vs dSLR. My first instinct is this is much less artificial.