Top all-time · #1143
Lux
Company blog · lux.cameradesignhardware
Lux is the company blog at lux.camera, writing about design and hardware. Since 2021, 59 different Hacker News readers have linked it 79 times, most often “Physicality: The New Age of UI”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-10-26, and you can follow it by feed.
Deep dives into iPhone and iPad cameras and building exceptional apps.
Most-linked posts?
- Physicality: The New Age of UI10 people · 10 mentions · first linked 2025-06-03
- Process Zero: The Anti-Intelligent Camera6 people · 7 mentions · first linked 2024-08-15
- Orion – From idea to launch in 45 days6 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2023-10-17
- /understanding-proraw/6 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2022-01-03
- iPhone Macro: A Big Day for Small Things4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2021-10-06
- Halide Mark III3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2026-05-27
- Halide 2.12: All the Latest iOS 17 Photography Features3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2023-09-19
- iPhone 15 Pro Max Camera Review: Depth and Reach3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2023-10-04
- iPhone 16e camera review: The Essentials2 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2025-03-12
- iPhone 13 Pro: The Edge of Intelligent Photography2 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2022-02-06
What Hacker News says?
I tried that but they don't seem to make much difference for whatever reason, you still can't get a crisp shot such as this [0] where the foreground and background details are all preserved (linked shot was taken with an iPhone which doesn't seem to do shallow depth of field unless you use their portrait mode). [0] https://www.lux.camera/content/images/size/w1600/2024/09/IMG...
Comment linking /content/images/size/w1600/2024/09/IMG_2486.jpg
on “Nano Banana can be prompt engineered for nuanced AI image generation”Submitted Kino: Pro Video Camera as a story · 866 points
HN discussionI don't know much about the company and never used their products, but this article is such a delicious read: https://www.lux.camera/orion-from-idea-to-launch-in-45-days/ Really tells how much they care about their craft
Comment linking /orion-from-idea-to-launch-in-45-days/
on “Kino: Pro Video Camera”Submitted What is HDR, anyway? as a story · 806 points
HN discussionI love that we're getting some texture back. UI has been so boring since iOS 7. Sebastiaan de With of Halide fame did a writeup about this recently, and I think he makes some great points. https://www.lux.camera/physicality-the-new-age-of-ui/
Comment linking /physicality-the-new-age-of-ui/
on “Apple announces Foundation Models and Containerization frameworks, etc”Submitted iPhone 14 Pro camera review: A small step, a huge leap as a story · 353 points
HN discussionFor the Halide's updated Image Lab demo about 2/3rd of the way down the page ( https://www.lux.camera/content/media/2025/05/skyline-edit-tr... ), you made the demo so tall desktop users can't both see the sky & the controls at the same time A lot of these design flaws are fixed by Firefox's picture in picture option but for some reason, with the way you coded it, the prompt to pop it out as PIP doesn't show up
Comment linking /content/media/2025/05/skyline-edit-trimmed.mp4
on “What is HDR, anyway?”Submitted iPhone Macro: A Big Day for Small Things as a story · 225 points
HN discussionI figured out why I don't like the icons https://www.lux.camera/content/images/size/w2400/2025/05/Mai... zoomed out they look blurry and unrefined, but when viewed zoomed in and large (like how a designer probably created them) they look kinda nice. Too bad they will all be small on iphone.
Comment linking /content/images/size/w2400/2025/05/Mail-Sheets.jpg
on “Apple introduces a universal design across platforms”Submitted Halide for iPad as a story · 218 points
HN discussionhttps://www.lux.camera/physicality-the-new-age-of-ui/ This blog's prediction got remarkably close. I've been a sucker for glass UI since the first Longhorn (later Vista) screenshots.
Comment linking /physicality-the-new-age-of-ui/
on “Apple introduces a universal design across platforms”Submitted Orion – From idea to launch in 45 days as a story · 87 points
HN discussionhttps://www.lux.camera/introducing-process-zero-for-iphone/
Comment linking /introducing-process-zero-for-iphone/
on “iPhone 16 cameras vs. traditional digital cameras”Submitted iPhone 13 Pro: The Edge of Intelligent Photography as a story · 78 points
HN discussionReally appreciated this comment, written as if by a photographer who also happens to use a mobile phone camera for EDL or street. Adding some similar color... > An iPhone 16 Pro Max has three focal lengths, 12, 24 and 120 (35mm equivalent). The first two are much too short unless significantly cropped, and the last one is excessive and requires stepping way back and has the worst image sensor and likely worst compro…
Comment linking /introducing-process-zero-for-iphone/
on “iPhone 16 cameras vs. traditional digital cameras”Submitted The M1 iPad Pro Cameras as a story · 49 points
HN discussionOther commenters here are correct that the LIDAR is too low-resolution to be used as the primary source for the depth maps. In fact, iPhones use four-ish methods, that I know of, to capture depth data, depending on the model and camera used. Traditionally these depth maps were only captured for Portrait photos, but apparently recent iPhones capture them for standard photos as well. 1. The original method uses two ca…
Comment linking /iphone-se-the-one-eyed-king/
on “The iPhone 15 Pro’s Depth Maps”Submitted Orion – From idea to launch in 45 days as a story · 21 points
HN discussionI saw this article pop up the other day which goes fairly deep on the importance of RAW: https://lux.camera/understanding-proraw/ . This is focused on iPhone photography, but there's plenty of other detail in there, especially the first half or so.
Comment linking /understanding-proraw/
on “Technicolor Tokyo”Submitted Physicality: The New Age of UI as a story · 16 points
HN discussionProbably a combination of washed out colors, blown out highlights, and weird color grading. Keep in mind that cameras basically have their own tonemapping algorithms (see: https://lux.camera/understanding-proraw/ ) that presumably isn't magic, so you'd have the same problems that HDR -> SDR tonemapping has. Also if you search around there are also HDR -> SDR releases that purports to use some sort per-scene analysis…
Comment linking /understanding-proraw/
on “The Matrix looks dramatically different on Hulu versus on HBO Max”Submitted Physicality: The New Age of UI as a story · 9 points
HN discussionThe Halide people wrote a post on how they handled this for releasing Halide II while not leaving long-term supporters behind. https://lux.camera/pro-camera-action-introducing-halide-mark... Basically: it's a subscription, but you get to keep the last features you got on it if you cancel. Owners of the original Halide got a year of free updates. HN thread on it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24860043
Comment linking /pro-camera-action-introducing-halide-mark-ii/
on “Apple introduces Ask Apple for developers”Submitted iPhone Macro: A Big Day for Small Things as a story · 7 points
HN discussionYou are right that they are demosaiced raw files but that’s about it > Instead, ProRAW stores results of computational photography right inside the RAW. This is another reason they need to store demosaiced data, as these algorithms operate on color, not RAW data. Once you demosaic, there’s no going back. I mean, what would you even call that, remosaic? > Smart HDR does this in the least destructive way. Apple worked…
Comment linking /understanding-proraw/
on “iPhone 14 Pro Camera Review: Scotland”Submitted The iPhone 16 Pro Camera Review: Control as a story · 6 points
HN discussion>It's that they're making choices for us, and these are not the choices we would make for ourselves. Of course, you can always take off the training wheels and shoot raw. Apple even worked with Adobe to create ProRaw, which allows you to selectively turn on or off various parts of their image processing pipeline after you shoot the image. https://lux.camera/understanding-proraw/
Comment linking /understanding-proraw/
on “Have iPhone cameras become too smart?”Submitted Process Zero: The Anti-Intelligent Camera as a story · 5 points
HN discussionYeah, slightly odd decision I agree! If you scroll down to "The 75mm Telephoto Camera" section of https://lux.camera/iphone-13-pro-camera-app-intelligent-phot... , there are some images demonstrating the "painted" look you get from the noise reduction.
Comment linking /iphone-13-pro-camera-app-intelligent-photography/
on “Have iPhone cameras become too smart?”Submitted Requiem for the Rangefinder: An iPhone Air Review as a story · 4 points
HN discussion
