
Huawei Caught Faking Smartphone Photo with a DSLR - nafizh
https://petapixel.com/2018/08/20/huawei-caught-faking-smartphone-photos-with-a-dslr-again/
======
GFischer
Not the first time Huawei fakes something, they were cheating on benchmarks:

[https://www.phonearena.com/news/Huawei-Ascend-P7-found-to-
be...](https://www.phonearena.com/news/Huawei-Ascend-P7-found-to-be-cheating--
Futuremark-disqualifies-it_id60037)

[https://www.anandtech.com/show/8403/examining-huaweis-
benchm...](https://www.anandtech.com/show/8403/examining-huaweis-benchmark-
optimizations-in-the-ascend-p7)

Samsung and others also did it:

[https://www.anandtech.com/show/7384/state-of-cheating-in-
and...](https://www.anandtech.com/show/7384/state-of-cheating-in-android-
benchmarks)

I own the Ascend P7, and my GF is also a Huawei user, and they're good
devices. But they feel the need to cheat.

~~~
LoSboccacc
Looks like xiaomi is adding some pressure on the low end market, where people
are a little more feature conscious.

The p20 lite was brilliant my mother owns one and for what it cost it’s a
great little device, but the tech content pales compared to the last xiaomi
round

~~~
gumby
I think the low end pressure is applying to xiaomi as well, from Oppo, Ding-
Ding, etc...it's really hard to keep up with the cheap phone providers these
days!

------
rangibaby
This reminded me of one of my favorite neologisms, used to describe faked
screenshots that make video games look better than they are: bullshots

------
fulyscentedking
Photos aside, can you trust Huawei in the first place in general?

~~~
lancewiggs
Would you trust Google more or less than Huawei?

~~~
gruturo
While I'd be absolutely certain they both spy on me (for various degrees of
"spying"), I trust Google to better safeguard the data it collects about me.

Huawei is more likely to do a poor job of keeping said data to itself, either
intentionally (selling it outright) or by getting hacked.

I'm convinced Google wouldn't sell my data - it is immensely more valuable to
them if they're the only ones with it. That said, they'd still _use it_ \- to
target and profile me, and of course I expect them both to share it with the
respective governments.

Moreover, if I use Google services through a Huawei phone, they both end up
with my data, while if I use a google device at least it's just Google. I'm
not enthusiastic about either, but, hey, lesser of two evils.

(For the record I have an iPhone and try to avoid giving Google too much data
about me)

------
foobar1962
Why aren't the actors/models refusing to participate in such deceptive
practices? Surely they'd be thinking "Why are we pretending to take a selfie?"

~~~
carlmr
They're probably happy they can put food on the table. Actors for ads are not
really at the top of the food pyramid.

~~~
NullPrefix
While the Nigerian prince is? It's all just a scam.

------
ggambetta
This is an outrage! Next you're going to tell me that the pictures of happy
creatives and handsome businesspersons in every service or product website are
not actual users who are just so damn happy that they can't stop smiling, but
actors/models or even ( _gasp_ ) stock photos!

~~~
wepple
Given that Apple set the standard by posting photos that are explicitly
labeled as being shot on iPhone, it think it’s totally fine to expect an image
with selfie-arm extending into the frame to have actually been shot on the
device.

~~~
21
Obviously you haven't read the article:

> _Photos from Apple 's "Shot on iPhone" ads are indeed taken with iPhones,
> albeit with additional equipment like special lenses attached to the phone,
> and they've been touched up with professional photo editing software._

Yep, just a standard iPhone here as any regular user would have:
[https://petapixel.com/assets/uploads/2017/06/shotoniphonefea...](https://petapixel.com/assets/uploads/2017/06/shotoniphonefeat.jpg)

~~~
wepple
Yeah, shot using an iPhone. Using the iPhone’s minuscule sized image sensor,
through its tiny lens, and built in image processoring engine. With an
attached lens.

Huawei used a large image sensor DSLR with dedicated processing chips and
lenses designed for the body. The product they’re trying to pass off as having
produced the image needed have been within 29 square miles.

------
usaphp
> Everything was fine until people took a closer look at the behind-the-scenes
> photos (which have since been deleted) from the ad shoot posted by Elshamy
> to her Instagram account.

I doubt it's an accident. It's probably just a PR stunt by huawei, otherwise
not many people would even talk about this phone. Unless whoever is runnigng
that actress's instagram account is incredibly stupid to not notice that
clearly controversial photo:
[[https://petapixel.com/assets/uploads/2018/08/bts0.jpg](https://petapixel.com/assets/uploads/2018/08/bts0.jpg)]

~~~
gnode
Or alternatively the controversy increases Elshamy's profile. Given that the
account is either controlled by her, or her agent, I'd say that's the more
likely explanation.

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Markoff
to be fair it should be mentioned Nokia did this in 2012 as well, it's not
like Huawei doing it alone

[https://www.theverge.com/2012/9/5/3294545/nokias-pureview-
ad...](https://www.theverge.com/2012/9/5/3294545/nokias-pureview-ads-are-
fraudulent)

~~~
gst
For their N97 promo video Nokia faked the whole UI of the phone:
[https://youtu.be/vJpEuMidcSU](https://youtu.be/vJpEuMidcSU)

------
mehrdadn
Does anyone know of recent instances of such false advertisements in the US?
Or are there severe enough punishments to deter them?

~~~
linarism
The last time I remember something like this happening was from 2012[1].

[1] [https://www.cnet.com/news/nokia-forced-to-apologise-for-
fake...](https://www.cnet.com/news/nokia-forced-to-apologise-for-fake-
lumia-920-camera-video/)

------
novaleaf
fakes aside, my wife bought this phone (the pro) and I have to say it has the
best camera (+post processing) I've seen on a phone. My wife sucks at taking
photos but with that thing they look kinda nice. Their 3 lens composite photo
system seems like it actually, really helps. And their added post processing
of "portrait" mode gives a nice instagramish look, It's too much for my tastes
(I don't do instagram soo....) but it's interesting it does some depth-of-
field stuff too (probably with the help of the 3 lenses)

The only downside is I hate the $850 price tag (I refuse to pay more than $200
on a phone...) it'll be interesting when this sort of tech trickles down in
the next few years.

~~~
bcraven
I'm intrigued to know what "Instagramish portraits" look like!

~~~
rootw0rm
smoothed, like they're wearing more makeup then they really are. like a cheap
version of standard photo touch ups.

------
codemusings
I mean even the resulting DSLR photo is touched up so heavily. How would
anyone believe this is representative of the camera quality?

~~~
ComodoHacker
Because the phone camera does post-processing. That was the point of their ad
pitch.

------
modzu
if you believe ANY advertising, you lose.

------
signa11
iirc, nokia also tried that in the past...

~~~
epse
Correct

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vortico
The sensor and lens of phones are good enough today to look exactly like the
picture in the video (besides the shallow DoF that is only possible with large
lenses). The quality is primarily in the skill of lighting the room (in this
case with $1000 of softboxes), and secondarily how the image is developed from
RAW and retouched.

~~~
rimliu
DoF has little to do with how big the lens is (unless that’s your way to say
large aperture, but you can have 1.8 with small lenses too). But it has some
to do with how large the sensor is.

~~~
dboreham
Perhaps you should think about how f-number is defined?
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F-number](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F-number)

Then read up on depth of field :
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depth_of_field](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depth_of_field)

It should be clear that DOF has everything to do with the physical size of the
lens because aperture for a given focal length defines the front element
diameter. Your example very small f1.8 lens has to have a very small focal
length and therefore deep DOF.

Edit : found the math I was looking for :
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depth_of_field#Use_of_absolute...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depth_of_field#Use_of_absolute_aperture_diameter)

~~~
rimliu
Did you miss the part where I introduced F-number into discussion instead of
the lens size? What do you think will happen to DoF when I take my huge 70-200
and close it down to 22?

~~~
vortico
In that case the aperture diameter will decrease. f-number does not directly
affect depth of field, except through the aperture diameter.

~~~
rimliu
F-number describes the aperture diameter, it has no way to affect anything.
The same as meters do not affect the distance.

However, when you close the aperture on the large lens, the lens still stays
large. That was exactly my point: it is about aperture, not the lens size.

I get what you say about physically larger lenses having larger apertures in
absolute dimensions, not the ratio, however that does not help smartphones,
because of the distance of the focal plane and the sensor size. And this where
the limiting factor is.

~~~
vortico
This discussion is about shallow DoF. You cannot have shallow DoF with a lens
with a small aperture diameter. Both the aperture diameter and sensor must be
large.

------
ams6110
So what? Camera companies, television companies, have been using simulated
images in advertisements since forever. It's an ad. Of course it's fake. What
world are you living in?

~~~
coldtea
It's not about what world we're living in -- else we'd bend over and take any
other kind of stuff that happens as well.

It's about what world we want to live in, and that (among more important
things) doesn't include fake images passed as real.

