Please stop apologizing for your "potato" pics

"TheRealBicycleBuck" (therealbicyclebuck) 02/16/2016 at 10:23 • Filed to: None

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I’ve seen a lot of apologies lately and frankly, they are unnecessary. We are on a shared blog on the web. The interface compresses imagery and presents it in a less-than-ideal format. If your pictures look so terrible that you feel you must apologize every time you post, then you need to face facts, it’s probably you, not your iPhone.

Smartphones today can take some amazing photographs. Don’t believe me? Check out a few of these:

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Many of the “apology” photos look fine in a browser. Those that are particularly bad usually aren’t bad because of the phone, they are bad because the photographer didn’t take the time to properly support the phone in low-light conditions.

If you are one of these apologizers, spend some time learning how to take better pictures with your phone. There are plenty of sites with advice.

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Of course, there’s always an exception. Some of you just have an unbelievably bad camera in your phone. We understand this and accept it because you are posting pictures of things we are interested in. Go out and get yourself a decent camera or a new phone so you don’t feel the need to apologize any more.

CounterTorqueSteer > TheRealBicycleBuck 02/16/2016 at 10:27

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Preach

TheOnelectronic > TheRealBicycleBuck 02/16/2016 at 10:28

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“Sorry for potato” is another way of saying “I didn’t feel like getting out a tripod and professional lighting setup to take this picture of a funny bumper sticker at night.”

TractorPillow > TheRealBicycleBuck 02/16/2016 at 10:28

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Yikes, too early in the morning for a lecture; I do agree it is not necessary to apologize, but it really doesn’t hurt.

Nibby > TheRealBicycleBuck 02/16/2016 at 10:29

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sorry for not posting potato pics

TheRealBicycleBuck > TheOnelectronic 02/16/2016 at 10:29

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Exactly. And there’s no need to apologize - we are happy because of the content of the bumper sticker and could care less about the quality of the photo.

TheRealBicycleBuck > TractorPillow 02/16/2016 at 10:31

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Ha. I’ve been awake for hours .

This one has been building for a while. Deep breaths. Let it go....

CalzoneGolem > TheRealBicycleBuck 02/16/2016 at 10:32

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Your attempt to avoid judgement only makes us judge you harder.

pauljones > TheRealBicycleBuck 02/16/2016 at 10:33

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Dude, there are lots behavioral foibles around here to get annoyed at. This is not one of them. Ease off on the cocoa puffs, gets yourself another cup of joe, and worry about more important things in life.

Birddog > TheRealBicycleBuck 02/16/2016 at 10:33

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I apologize for apologizing about Potatoing a shot with my Potatocam.

Potato!

Potatoe?!

No, Dan. Just Potato.

fhrblig > TheRealBicycleBuck 02/16/2016 at 10:37

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I don’t really have anything constructive to add, but this seemed like a good place to post a picture of a potato that I took with my phone.

Agrajag > fhrblig 02/16/2016 at 10:43

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Your potato reminds me of Admiral Ackbar.

TheRealBicycleBuck > fhrblig 02/16/2016 at 10:44

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Very meta. It would only be better if you apologized for it.

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > TheRealBicycleBuck 02/16/2016 at 10:46

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For those of us who have a fairly limited phone, I kind of wonder if trying a different camera app would help. For reasons I don’t fully understand, my Kyocera droid phone routinely takes worse photos than my ancient LG flip phone did. Same techniques, but with a delay in shutter response and what seems to be the world’s worst judgment of when to use flash, and with really hard-to-avoid motion blur, it potatos all the time, and it has a small enough screen that it’s often hard to tell just how badly. I’ve tried putting it in different picture modes and decreasing image resolution and other tricks, but with limited success. That, and I haven’t had time to experiment to find what works best.

I wouldn’t apologize for potato pics if the shots were simply poor to mediocre, because I’d like to be able to just point and shoot mediocre pics. That’s not what I get, though, at least in low light or indoors or anywhere near something reflective. What I get is less “mediocre”, more “utterly fucking awful”, and often looks like it belongs on a floppy-drive camera from the 90s.

TheHondaBro > Agrajag 02/16/2016 at 10:49

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^

NoahthePorscheGuy > fhrblig 02/16/2016 at 10:50

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That potato looks like admiral Akbar

Stapleface > fhrblig 02/16/2016 at 10:50

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That potato looks like Admiral Ackbar

yamahog > TheRealBicycleBuck 02/16/2016 at 11:01

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I actually appreciate that your criticism was constructive and you suggested some solutions to address the criticism.

fhrblig > TheRealBicycleBuck 02/16/2016 at 11:05

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I’m sorry, I forgot.

fhrblig > Agrajag 02/16/2016 at 11:06

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That’s why I took it.

Ackbar potato met an unfortunate demise. Turns out it WAS a trap.

Takuro Spirit > TheRealBicycleBuck 02/16/2016 at 11:07

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Can we go back to “56K warning” and “Dial up RIP” pic dumps?

Tohru > TheRealBicycleBuck 02/16/2016 at 11:11

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I know I need a better camera. I can take great pictures but I have to focus on it.

Example:

^ Didn’t take my time.

^ Took my time.

TheRealBicycleBuck > RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht 02/16/2016 at 11:12

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A different app can help. I used several “professional” apps to get more control over the settings on my old phone (iPhone 4) which seemed to help. The photo above was taken on an iPhone 6 using the standard Camera app. The photo below was a time-lapse taken on the same phone held by my daughter. The app we used is LightBomber.

StingrayJake > TheRealBicycleBuck 02/16/2016 at 11:15

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#TeamPizza

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > TheRealBicycleBuck 02/16/2016 at 11:16

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You can see how it’s kind of a quandary, though. The automatic settings on the current app produce utter shit, and while moving to manual settings on that app might fix the problem, so might going to a different app - which would mostly be an advantage in offering more manual settings of the kind I’ve been trying to avoid. And yet most of the dummy-enhancement and non-professional picture apps are mostly eaten up by adding filters and other nonsense, which, if being a memory hog and horribly coded is a contributor to my current pic fails will be the opposite of helping.

I guess I just don’t have any way out of this other than tinkering with it with different apps in all kinds of light conditions. Hiss.

TheRealBicycleBuck > RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht 02/16/2016 at 11:26

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I think the results from the automatic settings in the third-party apps were better than the automatic settings in the Camera app from Apple.

It’s worth the effort to find out given that many of the “professional” apps are free.

Manwich - now Keto-Friendly > TheRealBicycleBuck 02/16/2016 at 11:43

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Sorry...

Jonathan Harper > TheRealBicycleBuck 02/16/2016 at 12:16

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touring the brook - now with ZHP! > TheRealBicycleBuck 02/16/2016 at 19:17

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I’ve never understood the apologizing thing. All the pictures that I’ve taken for Oppo were on my phone. I don’t think any of them are bad , but if I wanted to take better ones I’d get a camera.