That is - any time you are shooting digital, you don't every look at what the camera saw, but at what some computer interpreted it to be.
I'd be interesting in knowing what that picture of the moon looked like right out of the raw capture.
I shoot both, RAW and JPG fine. The latter for quick sharing, with in-camera processing except for action shoots at 9 fps. JPG fine never runs into buffer limits, RAW or JPGs using processing does so. And for birds in flight or sports or similar I don't care that mich about RAW anyway.
Too many people think of raw files as analogous to slides shot in film cameras. In reality they are digital representations of the analog voltages made by sensors. In order to “see” a raw file it has to be processed which usually means demosaicing and assigning color to values based on what the camera manufacturer has provided. Oh and of course different displays will reproduce colors and brightness levels differently as well.
In reality there isn’t any such thing as an unmediated digital photograph. What is being done by smartphone cameras is a little further down the processing curve but is on the same continuum of “regular” digital photography IMO. This second test shows to me that Samsung is trying to give the photographer as sharp a picture of what they took a picture of.
And analog photographers shouldn’t get but so smug about capturing the “actual” image. Even if you shoot transparency film or collodion wet plate the resultant image is still mediated by the materials. Color reproduction, contrast, and of course the translation from 3d world/object to 2d are still enormous manipulations. Taking a picture will always be transformative compared to the original subject.
So what is considered an “accurate” photograph will always be a philosophical question. IMO I wouldn’t what Samsung has done to be “fake.” A lot of these arguments really sound like DSLR owners being upset that decent pictures can be made with pocket cameras.
As far as accurate representation goes, digital photos are court admissable as proof. And forensic ones goes through a deliberate processing pipeline, the original as taken in camera is never discarded while doing so. Which is close enough for me to be a representation of reality.
Personally, my opinion about those over-processed pictures you see on social media is the same as it is about Ssung faking the moon. I don't like neither, regardless if they are smartphone or "real" camera photos.
Presumably the camera does this directly now?