Samsung Caught (Again) Using DSLR Photo To Advertise Smartphone Camera (theverge.com) 60
An anonymous reader writes: Over at DIYPhotography (which we spotted via Daring Fireball), writer and photographer Dunja Djudjic says that she caught Samsung Malaysia using one of her photos to advertise the portrait mode capabilities of the Galaxy A8 Star, a midrange phone that came out over the summer. Djudjic suspects that Samsung licensed the picture from her through the photo site EyeEm, so payment isn't necessarily a problem. But Djudjic does say that the photo wasn't taken with an A8 Star. Instead, it was taken with an (unnamed) DSLR she owns.
Samsung doesn't state outright that the photo was taken on the A8 Star, but it's certainly implied by the page it's on, which is meant to illustrate the phone's capabilities. The page doesn't note that the images are simulated, and after showing Djudjic's photo, it proceeds to show the A8's dual rear cameras, implying a connection.
Samsung doesn't state outright that the photo was taken on the A8 Star, but it's certainly implied by the page it's on, which is meant to illustrate the phone's capabilities. The page doesn't note that the images are simulated, and after showing Djudjic's photo, it proceeds to show the A8's dual rear cameras, implying a connection.
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In this day and age? Actually, I'm sure people would expect to be able to get that quality. No phone will compare to a DSLR, but with a skilled photographer modern phones really can take impressive photos. The 80's ads were dishonest, but it's even worse now that the differences are more subtle and to many people it's no longer seemingly out of the realm of possibility for phone cameras to be that good. Still boggles my mind that a company as large as Samsung doesn't have a skilled photographer or can't wor
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"Better" is subjective. A good quality smartphone is just as good, if not better...DEPENDING ON CIRCUMSTANCES. For a pixel peeper or printing an 8 foot banner, the DSLR is certainly going to be sharper. But for normal size prints and online use, the phone is likely as good for most people. Now with the level of computational photography being done on Googles phone, you can actually get cases where it takes a heck of a lot of photoshop skill just to convert that DSLR image into something that looks as good a
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In this day and age? Actually, I'm sure people would expect to be able to get that quality.
So you believe that are becoming more gullible than they used to be? Maybe it comes in waves. When I was young it seemed like people were more trusting. As I got older it seemed that people became more skeptical/cynical. I know that my teenager is a lot more gullible than I was at any age after 9 or 10 years of age. So perhaps that is the case.
Granted, I think that we were all a lot happier back in the days when the government lied to us and we believed it. So maybe there's something to being overly trus
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Normally there is fine print that explains that the image isn't real. Watch any smartphone commercial and you'll see it at the bottom of the screen. Apparently Samsung didn't do that this time.
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Normally there is fine print that explains that the image isn't real. Watch any smartphone commercial and you'll see it at the bottom of the screen. Apparently Samsung didn't do that this time.
Curiously enough, iPhone ads always say the images are real at the bottom of the screen...
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Interesting!
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It's almost like Samsung regularly cheats on benchmarks, lies in their advertisements, participates in price-fixing and collusion in order to screw customers, bribery of government officials, and blatant proven theft of intellectual property.
Who would have figured that they would continue this behavior, as any fines or punishments have been far less than the profits of continuing to do so?
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My personal favourite was always the TV commercials for TVs.
With this new Shony Bullshit 9000, you can enjoy crisp images like the one we're displaying on your TV right now ... ummm, yeah, really?
I would argue that people blindly believe crap like this because they don't stop and think. They just think "wo
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Pictures of food used to advertise the food MUST be the actual product. Now, that does not mean that the burger in the picture was put together by some minimum-wage high schooler, it wan't. It was put together by a professional photographer and food stylist who will take hours getting everything just right. But it is the real food.
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I still quote a billboard I remember seeing back around Oklahoma City in the late 80s.
It was a very enlarged picture of some fancy expensive bottle of whiskey. The ad copy merely said, "Not actual size. (too bad)"
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Some other countries don't allow this level of deception in advertising.
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It goes beyond color accuracy and resolution. A true depth of field range can't be achieved with a lens that small. They were using real depth of field to show what fake simulated depth of field would look like. See the article for yourself - they're doing a lot more than using it as a placeholder image on a phone screen. They're advertising it as the actual capability.
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But, nevertheless, showing a picture that wasn't taken by the device they are advertising is deceptive and misleading and they should be called out for it if not sued.
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And you can't blame them, there's no way to fairly represent a screen image via other media (in that case print, in this case as part of an ad, squished, stretched, and color adjusted, intended for viewing in a web browser), so why bother?
Back when Sylvania made consumer TV sets, they had a TV commercial that, even as a kid, I thought was extremely clever. The V.O. announcer said something like this:
"Have you ever noticed that commercials for TV sets always show you how good the picture is, by displaying that picture on your CURRENT TV?
We at Sylvania think that is silly. So we invite you to visit your local Sylvania dealer and see for yourself just bright and clear the picture on the new Sylvania ColorBrite TVs are."
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I would guess that people who are not serious about photography are more interested in having a good camera on their phone, not less. Because that is their only camera.
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Even people who are serious about photography care about their phone camera, because that's the camera they have on them at all times. Inevitably even the keenest photographer will find himself wanting to shoot something when he doesn't have his DSLR to hand, and in that situation will want the best result possible with his phone.
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It depends on what you're photographing.
Standard, everyday simple portrait, street photography, gee whiz type stuff perhaps.
I certainly don't whip out my smartphone when a hawk flies over, a long exposure with a tripod or even a macro shot.
Thus my disagreement about the " camera you have with you " argument.
For many situations a smartphone camera will suffice. For many others, it will not.
Don Draper Called.... (Score:3, Informative)
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Or the graphics on a shiny new PC game from the 80's and 90's right?
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In theory, there is nothing extra there not in a real Big Mac assembled according to corporate design.
But they do pull extra lettuce and "melty" cheese to have it sticking out.
And what's up with "melty" cheese? Per food advertising laws every noun is required to have an adjective, so cheese is...melted? Well no, not quite? It's cheesy? No...
How about "greasy flavor blast, lubricating effect to the dry burger, and salt blast to increase flavor"-ey cheese?
I'm shocked, SHOCKED!!! (Score:2)
An advertiser would NEVER EVER create a misleading ad!!!!!
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I'm waiting for the first honest advertisement. "An adequate product for adequate people."
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Sounds like a Dudley Moore movie dealing with extreme truth in advertising I seem to recall from the late 80s or early 90s. Can't be arsed to go look it up right now; so don't remember the name.
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Volvo, they're boxy. But safe!
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And now that I have read up on it, I understand why I never heard anything about it after the one time I ever saw the trailer. Looks like it was in the same league as Arthur II: On the Rocks, aka we speak not of it.
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I think this [youtube.com] might be the last one.
You don’t understand (Score:5, Funny)
This phone camera is so advanced, its reflection looks like a Nikon D850!!
Cool pitcture (Score:2)
Simulated (Score:2)
The page doesn't note that the images are simulated, and after showing Djudjic's photo, it proceeds to show the A8's dual rear cameras, implying a connection.
Actually, it does (at least now):
* All specifications and descriptions provided herein may be different from the actual specifications and descriptions for the product. Samsung reserves the right to make changes to this web page and the product described herein, at anytime, without obligation on Samsung to provide notification of such change. All functionality, features, specifications, GUI and other product information provided in this web page including, but not limited to, the benefits, design, pricing, components, performance, availability, and capabilities of the product are subject to change without notice or obligation. The contents within the screen are simulated images and are for demonstration purposes only.
* All images simulated for illustrative purposes.
But does it really matter? Even if they were real images, they'll have been made under ideal lighting conditions and hand picked from hundreds if not thousands of images so don't reflect real-world conditions. And this ad campaign was likely put together before the phone was available to take any photos let alone to go out and do enough photo shoots to find suitable images.
If you want to see how it does in real-world conditions, wait for the independent review sites to revie
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But does it really matter? Even if they were real images, they'll have been made under ideal lighting conditions and hand picked from hundreds if not thousands of images so don't reflect real-world conditions.
This. This hits the nail on the head and ends all further discussion. It *really* doesn't matter here. Nit-picking over disclaimers when you already know perfectly well that they're going to produce better looking pictures than you'll ever be able to regardless of whether they actually use the phone camera or not is kinda silly.
Lens? (Score:3)
The image in TFA is meant to illustrate samsung's supposed shallow depth of field. Which lens did she use? what focal distance is the subject? what is the aperture setting?
In this situation the lens parameters are more informative than the name/model of a DSLR.