Sometimes camera phones really surprise me

Published August 24, 2025

My wife, our 9 year old daughter, and I were taking an after dinner walk, as we are wont to do. At some point I took off my glasses to clean them and held them up towards the sun to get a better look at the lenses. My wife wondered for a second why I was taking a picture into the sun, knowing that the the bright sun (even somewhat obscured by clouds) would blow out all the color in the picture.

Our daughter was confused because she didn't understand why that would happen. So I took out my phone and snapped a very quick picture with the sun centered. I expected the picture to be a bright blob in the middle surrounded by some barely identifiable black shapes. I was very surprised by the result.

Yes, the sun was bright, yes the shapes were darker and you could see the result of shooting into a light source. But the shapes were identifiable and there was some color. So I opened up the phone's photo editor and clicked the "Dynamic" button. The picture below is the result.

A landscape with the sun partially obscured by clouds. The lower left hand corner shows an asphalt path there is a wooden fence separating the path from a grassy area. In the grassy area are some trees, partially obscuring a pond. The top third of the picture is some clouds with a mostly clear sky between the clouds and treetops. The grass and trees are a vivid green; the path is gray; the fence is a brownish gray.

I am simply amazed by the the quality and ability of the cameras we all carry in our pockets.

(For the record, this is an iPhone 14 Pro Max and the editing was done in the Google Photos app. The edititing consisted of pressing the "Dynamic" suggestion.)

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