产品启示录_这就是为什么您的手机无法捕捉加利福尼亚启示录天空的原因

If you live on the West Coast and woke up yesterday morning to our aggressively orange, smoke-tinged, apocalypse sky, you may have thought “Wow, this needs to be on Instagram.”

如果您居住在西海岸，并在昨天早晨醒来，到了我们那橘黄色，烟熏味，启示录的天空 ，您可能会想：“哇， 这需要在Instagram上发布。 ”

But when you stepped outside with your phone to capture some pics to scare your East Coast friends, you were probably disappointed. A sky that appeared horrifically Martian in reality looked washed out and white-ish on your phone.

但是，当您带着手机走到外面拍摄一些照片来吓your东海岸的朋友时，您可能会感到失望。 现实中可怕地出现火星的天空看上去在手机上被冲刷了，呈白色。

Why is that? The reason comes down to how your phone captures images. But even deeper than that, it comes down to something physical and fundamental: the color of white light.

这是为什么？ 原因归结于您的手机如何捕获图像。 但是，甚至比这更深的方面，还可以归结为某种物理和基本的东西：白光的颜色。

If I asked most people what color white light is, they’d probably look at me funny and say “white.” But in reality, white light is never just “white.” It has a color temperature, measured in degrees Kelvin, which dictates the light’s exact hue.

I F我问大多数人的白光是什么颜色，他们很可能看我好笑，说“白”。 但是实际上，白光永远不会只是“白光”。 它具有色温 ，以开尔文度数为单位，决定了灯光的确切色调。

According to camera maker Olympus, color temperature is defined as the “relationship between the temperature of a theoretical standardized material, called a black body radiator, and the energy distribution of its emitted light as the radiator is brought to increasingly higher temperatures, measured in Kelvin (K).”

根据相机制造商奥林巴斯(Olympus)的说法，色温被定义为“理论上标准化的材料(称为黑体辐射器)的温度与其辐射体随着辐射器达到越来越高的温度而发出的能量分布之间的关系，以开尔文测量” (K)。”

If that makes zero sense to you, don’t worry. What you need to know is that white light moves from looking more reddish at lower color temperatures, to more blueish at higher ones. A deep, reddish candle is 2000k, whereas light reflected off blinding white snow is 8000k.

如果这对您没有意义，请不要担心。 您需要知道的是，白光从色温较低时看起来偏红，而色温较高时偏蓝。 一支深红色蜡烛为2000k，而白雪蒙蒙反射的光线为8000k。

Color temperature is also why the light in a hospital looks different from the light in your living room. Bright, blueish lights used in commercial facilities are generally around 5000k. The warm, inviting yellow LED lightbulbs in your home (which are made to mimic the light of an old-school incandescent bulb) are around 2700k.

色温也是为什么医院的灯光与客厅的灯光不同的原因。 商业设施中使用的明亮的蓝光通常约为5000k。 温暖，引人入胜的黄色LED灯泡(模仿老式白炽灯泡的光)约为2700k。

Humans are pretty good at adjusting to changes in color temperature. The color of light impacts us emotionally (try buying a 5000k LED bulb and putting it in your bedroom, and you’ll see what I mean), but normally we barely notice that white light has different colors.

人类非常善于适应色温的变化。 光的颜色在情感上影响着我们(尝试购买一个5000k的LED灯泡并将其放在您的卧室里，您会明白我的意思)，但通常我们几乎不会注意到白光具有不同的颜色。

Cameras, though, are a different story. By default, they don’t know how a scene is supposed to look, so color temperature can affect photographs in dramatic ways . If a camera’s color temperature setting is out of sync with the color temperature of the scene, you can end up with weird hues and color casts that make photos look unnatural.

但是，相机则是另外一回事 。 默认情况下，他们不知道场景的外观，因此色温会以戏剧性的方式影响照片。 如果相机的色温设置与场景的色温不同步，则最终会出现怪异的色调和偏色，使照片看起来不自然。

“Here, let me fix that for you!” the software helpfully thinks.

“在这里，让我为您解决！” 该软件会有所帮助。

Traditional analog films are “balanced” for a specific color temperature. Popular portrait films like Kodak Portra, for instance, are usually balanced for “daylight,” or around 5500k. But a handful are “tungsten” balanced so they can be used indoors or at night. With analog film, the color balance doesn’t change — the photographer chooses a film based on what they plan to shoot.

传统的模拟胶片针对特定的色温是“平衡的”。 例如，像柯达波特拉(Kodak Portra)这样的流行肖像电影通常在“日光”或5500k左右达到平衡。 但是少数几个钨是平衡的，因此可以在室内或晚上使用。 使用模拟胶卷，色彩平衡不会改变-摄影师根据他们打算拍摄的影片来选择胶卷。

Digital cameras, on the other hand, can adjust their color temperature to match a variety of scenes. This process is called “white balance.” You’ve probably seen references to white balance if you’ve ever edited a photo in Photoshop, set up a webcam, or used a DSLR camera.

另一方面，数码相机可以调整其色温以匹配各种场景。 此过程称为“白平衡”。 如果您曾经在Photoshop中编辑过照片，设置了网络摄像头或使用过DSLR相机，则可能已经看到了有关白平衡的参考。

Here’s the issue, though. Today’s smartphones make liberal use of automatic image processing to help you get the best image out of your iPhone or Android device. In part, this is to compensate for the limitations of a phone’s tiny lens and minuscule image sensors. Without you even knowing about it, the software on your phone is performing trickery like layering multiple exposures together to create an image that’s neither too dark nor too light, fixing issues with blurriness in low light, and more.

不过，这是问题。 当今的智能手机广泛使用自动图像处理功能，以帮助您从iPhone或Android设备获得最佳图像。 在某种程度上，这是为了补偿手机的小镜头和微小的图像传感器的局限性。 甚至在您不知道的情况下，手机上的软件就在执行欺骗操作，例如将多次曝光分层在一起以创建既不太暗也不不太亮的图像，解决了弱光下的模糊问题等等。

In most cases, your phone’s software is also automatically setting the white balance on your photos. The iOS camera, for example, defaults to choosing a white balance setting for you. Normally, that’s great. It means that the photos of your new baby that you took under harsh hospital lighting come out looking natural, as do your dark, moody shots of a friend walking through narrow, neon-lit city streets at night.

在大多数情况下，手机的软件还会自动设置照片的白平衡。 例如，iOS相机默认为您选择白平衡设置。 通常，那很棒。 这意味着您在恶劣的医院照明下拍摄的新生婴儿的照片看起来自然而然，晚上在黑暗狭窄的霓虹灯街道上行走的朋友的黑暗，喜怒无常的镜头也是如此。

But when conditions aren’t normal, these automatic settings can fail in a big way. When your iPhone sees the apocalyptic orange skies currently plaguing the Bay Area, for instance, it assumes you must be shooting indoors under a weird-colored incandescent light. “Here, let me fix that for you!” the software helpfully thinks, adjusting the white balance to even out the colors, removing the orange tinge from the sky, and making the scene look more normal.

但是，当条件不正常时，这些自动设置可能会大大失败。 例如，当您的iPhone看到世界末日的橙色天空困扰着海湾地区时，它假定您必须在室内在奇怪的白炽灯下拍摄。 “在这里，让我为您解决！” 该软件会进行有益的思考，调整白平衡以使颜色均匀，消除天空中的橙色调，并使场景看起来更正常。

The whole point, though, is that the scene is not normal. By trying to normalize it automatically, your phone ruins what would otherwise be a unique, compelling photo.

重点是，场景不正常。 通过尝试对其进行自动归一化，您的手机会破坏本来会是一张独特的，引人注目的照片。

How often are our phones “normalizing” our photos on a daily basis, but we’re just not seeing it because it’s not as obvious as turning an orange sky white?

我们的手机每天有多少次“规范化”我们的照片，但是我们看不到它，因为它不如将橙色的天空变白那么明显？

There are a few ways around this. One is to download a photo app that gives you manual control over the white balance of your phone’s camera, and set it to capture how the sky actually looks. In an article in SFGate, Maurice Ramirez, the official photographer for the town of Alameda, recommends Camera Plus or Procam.

有几种解决方法。 一种是下载照片应用程序，该应用程序可让您手动控制手机相机的白平衡，并将其设置为捕获天空的真实外观。 在SFGate中的一篇文章中 ，阿拉米达镇的官方摄影师莫里斯·拉米雷斯(Maurice Ramirez)建议使用Camera Plus或Procam。

You can also set your phone to take RAW photos, which capture all the details in a scene without making adjustments and then edit them later using an app like Adobe’s professional-grade Lightroom. Here, for instance, is a RAW photo from my Android phone taken today, with Auto white balance switched on. As you can see, the Auto setting makes the photo look nice and normal.

您还可以将手机设置为拍摄RAW照片，这些照片无需进行任何调整即可捕获场景中的所有细节，然后稍后使用Adobe专业级Lightroom之类的应用程序对其进行编辑。 例如，这是今天从我的Android手机拍摄的RAW照片，其中自动白平衡处于打开状态。 如您所见，“自动”设置使照片看起来不错且正常。

Switching this to “Cloudy” adjusts the white balance so that a cloudy sky would look normal. Since today’s cloudy sky does not look normal, what you end up with instead is a properly balanced photo that captures the way the sky really looks right now — not quite as horrifically orange as yesterday, but still a weird straw-yellow.

将其切换为“多云”可调节白平衡，以使多云的天空看起来正常。 由于今天的多云天空看起来不正常，因此最终得到的是一张适当平衡的照片，可以捕捉到现在天空的真实样子-不太像昨天的橙色，但仍然是奇怪的稻草黄色。

Of course, you could also just use a real camera. Professional cameras almost always capture RAW photos, so they’re not reading their own interpretations into a scene. And they have good enough optics that they don’t have to cheat by layering exposures, slowing down shutter speeds, or pulling other trickery to get a usable shot.

当然，您也可以只使用真实的相机。 专业相机几乎总是捕获RAW照片，因此他们不会将自己的解释读入场景。 而且它们具有足够好的光学器件，因此不必通过分层曝光，减慢快门速度或拉动其他技巧来获得可用的镜头来作弊。

It might seem crass to worry about something like color temperature in the middle of a major disaster. But to me as a photographer, it brings up important questions about veracity that extend well beyond the current moment.

在大灾难期间担心诸如色温之类的事情似乎有些烦恼。 但是对于我作为一名摄影师而言，它提出了有关真实性的重要问题，这些问题远远超出了目前。

Because they have to work so hard to create usable shots, phone cameras aren’t always the best tool to document the world as it really is.

由于必须付出巨大的努力才能创建可用的镜头，因此电话摄像头并不总是记录真实世界的最佳工具。

If we all go to document this disaster, and our phones literally won’t let us do so because the resulting photos look too “abnormal,” what does that say about the veracity of the photos we take on a daily basis? How often are our phones “normalizing” our photos on a daily basis, but we’re just not seeing it because the change is not as obvious as turning an orange sky white?

如果我们所有人都去记录这场灾难，而我们的手机从字面上就不允许我们这样做，因为生成的照片看起来太“异常”了，这对我们每天拍摄的照片的真实性有何看法？ 我们的手机每天有多少次“规范化”我们的照片，但我们只是没有看到它，因为这种变化不像将橙色的天空变成白色那样明显？

The inability to capture weird Martian skies is a passing annoyance right now, but it reveals something deeper and more important about phone cameras that’s normally invisible. Because they have to work so hard to create usable shots, phone cameras aren’t always the best tool to document the world as it really is. Without you even knowing it, they’re reading all kinds of things into the scene in front of you, and making all kinds of choices about how best to capture it.

目前无法捕捉火星怪异的天空，这是一时的烦恼，但它揭示了通常不可见的手机摄像头更深刻，更重要的内容。 由于必须付出巨大的努力才能创建可用的镜头，因此电话摄像头并不总是记录真实世界的最佳工具。 甚至您都不知道它，他们正在将各种各样的东西读到您面前的场景中，并对如何最好地捕获它做出各种选择。

For “normal” scenes, this can be fine. You don’t want to have to fiddle with a million settings when you’re snapping shots of your kid’s birthday party. But some of the best photos aren’t normal. By automatically normalizing everything you take, phone cameras can inadvertently push you toward a bland mediocrity in your photography, and away from that strange, unbalanced shot that might be the best one you’ve ever taken.

对于“正常”场景，这可能很好。 在为孩子的生日聚会拍摄快照时，您不需要摆弄一百万个设置。 但是一些最好的照片是不正常的。 通过自动归一化拍摄的所有内容，电话摄像头会无意间将您推向平庸的摄影领域，并远离可能是您拍摄过的最好的那种奇怪，不平衡的镜头。

As a photographer, I can recognize when my phone is accurately capturing a scene, and when it’s not. Yesterday, when I set out to document the Bay Area’s skies, I left my phone in my pocket and used a professional mirrorless camera instead, since I knew that my phone would read too much of its own perspective into my photos. I also know how not to get carried away — professional news photographers follow a strict set of standards to ensure that the choices we make about editing our photos are fair and accurate.

作为摄影师，我可以识别手机何时准确捕捉场景，以及何时不能准确捕捉场景。 昨天，当我开始记录湾区的天空时，我把手机放在口袋里，改用专业的无反光镜相机，因为我知道我的手机会过多地透视自己的照片。 我也知道如何不为所动-专业新闻摄影师遵循一套严格的标准，以确保我们在编辑照片方面所做的选择是公正和准确的 。

If you have the means, consider trying out a professional camera, so you can make these kinds of photographic decisions for yourself, instead of entrusting them to Google’s algorithms. But even if you don’t, try taking the simple step of switching your phone into RAW mode, downloading an editing app, and experimenting with how tweaking different settings allows you to make your own (probably more interesting) choices in capturing a scene.

如果有能力，请考虑尝试使用专业相机，这样您就可以自己做出这类摄影决定，而不必将其委托给Google的算法。 但是，即使您不这样做，也请尝试执行以下简单步骤：将手机切换为RAW模式，下载编辑应用程序，并尝试调整不同的设置，以便您在拍摄场景时做出自己的选择(可能更有趣)。

Today, you can likely get better, more accurate pictures for the ’gram. But once you see the limitations of your phone’s camera, you can also begin to move beyond them — both when the sky is on fire, and on days when things really are more “normal.”

今天，您可能会为“克”获得更好，更准确的图片。 但是，一旦您看到了手机摄像头的局限性，您就可以开始超越它们-无论是在天空起火还是在实际情况更为“正常”的日子。