I can draw with light.
A couple of days after receiving the OnePlus 10 Pro 5G, a solid if not entirely exciting Android smartphone that offers Pro-level features at a flagship price, I started digging into the camera app’s features.
I’ve long been a OnePlus fan and its big camera swings. It was the first smartphone I ever used, for instance, to offer macro photography. I loved taking close-up photos of the inside of flowers, bugs, and drops of water. Not everyone loved it, though and the OnePlus 10 Pro does not include a macro camera. It does, however, have Long Exposure.
Most smartphones now offer some form of night photography or long exposure settings after Google launched the trend in 2018 with Night Sight on its Pixel 3. Today’s wide variety of long-exposure, night-shooting options includes presets and, sometimes, some level of control to extend the exposure (more if you put the phone on a tripod).
Previous OnePlus phones would let you create long exposure shots by adjusting the manual camera settings (shutter speed, ISO). The OnePlus 10 Pro 5G makes the shot style a preset (slightly hidden under the Camera app’s More menu).
While I’m happy to use manual settings to try and capture stars (I do a lot of DSLR photography), I do love when smartphone makers combine the best they can offer in lens and sensors with software and algorithms to make what would normally be complicated simple.
And, if I’m being honest, I’ve been trying to capture certain types of long-exposure shots on every single smartphone I’ve tested for the last few years, with varying degrees of success.
Here’s what I want: streets with nothing but car lights whizzing by. People blurred as they walk past me while the rest of the world is still. Light art.
With the OnePlus 10 Pro Long Exposure setting, I accomplished all three.
As I mentioned, the setting is easy enough to find, but what’s more impressive is that it’s dead simple to use (and also limited for that same reason).
You don’t get to choose the lens or magnification. The default is the 48MP main camera, which as far as I’m concerned, is fine.
You also can’t choose the length of the exposure. It defaults to 5 seconds. I know, that doesn’t sound like a lot, and I had no illusions about capturing the stars rotating overhead at night. That said, a lot can happen in five seconds and I hoped I could capture it all in images.
I could think of no better place to test this theory than on the busy streets of Manhattan at night.
Five seconds isn’t much time but it is enough for your hands and body to shake or move. To capture the action, I had to stop, plant my feet and hold steady. I don’t recall if I held my breath or exhaled slowly.
I started by pointing the camera at other nighttime commuters rushing toward me. In the unedited shot above, they’ve all turned into ethereal ghost-like blurs barely people. Still, the effect is mesmerizing.
Next, I aimed the OnePlus 10 Pro at traffic. For these shots, I stood on the sidewalk near the street and, in one instance, leaned on a pole to steady myself further. Looking for more traffic, I headed to an intersection. Five years ago, I couldn’t imagine capturing these kinds of images with a smartphone camera.
I tried some other experimentation. At a party with a lot of wall and party lights, I tried sweeping the phone by them and up from partygoers to the lights. I would say the results are intriguing and arty, though not entirely useful.
As I mentioned, you don’t need a tripod to capture these images, but using one introduces another cool photographic possibility.
The next morning, I grabbed a tripod, another smartphone, and the OnePlus 10 Pro and headed to my dark basement. I placed the OnePlus 10 Pro on the tripod and turned on the flashlight on my iPhone 13 Pro.
I set the timer on the OnePlus to 10 seconds and then ran to stand in front of the camera. I could hear the OnePlus10 Pro counting down 10 seconds, but unlike an iPhone, it doesn’t flash the rear LED light to show you it’s counting down. That was a bit annoying.
My goal was to move the iPhone as quickly as possible, with the hope that the OnePlus’s Long Exposure would capture the full-light trail.
I figured out how to write “hello” backward and when the countdown ended, I quickly scripted it out. The results are not bad at all (I did crop the image a bit).
Next, I made a spiral. That was lovely, too. Next time, I’ll use a different colored light.
If I have one broad criticism of OnePlus Pro 10 5G’s Long Exposure preset, it’s that the image processing appears to be doing multiple long exposures and compiling them into one image. You can see this in how the light breaks at regular intervals in the spiral or in how the car lights appear to almost stutter their way through. I hope future software updates smooth this out a bit.
I can, of course, dive into Pro mode and open the shutter for up to 32 seconds. That also means adjusting the ISO and focus, however. For consumers, this Long Exposure preset is just enough and they should be able to create their own wild images with a minimum of fuss.
A Calgary woman who abused her sick, 77-year-old father was “overwhelmed” at the task of caring for him, a judge heard Wednesday at a sentencing hearing.
In January, Tara Picard, 52, pleaded guilty to charges of assault and failing to provide the necessaries of life after her father (whom CBC News is not naming) was found injured on a basement floor, where he’d been lying for two days.
On Wednesday, prosecutor Donna Spaner and defence lawyer Shaun Leochko asked the judge to allow Picard to serve her sentence in the community under conditions as part of a conditional sentence order.
Justice Indra Maharaj agreed to a two-year conditional sentence for Picard followed by a year of probation.
“There is no doubt she became overwhelmed,” said Spaner in her submissions. “There is no question Ms. Picard has remorse.”
Leochko told the judge that caring for her father “was really more than [Picard] could handle.”
Maharaj heard that Picard is Indigenous and was the victim of abuse growing up. She lives in a sober dorm-style facility and is working with a mental health and addictions navigator, according to Leochko.
As part of the sentence, Picard must complete 300 hours of community service.
Justice Maharaj commended Picard for “taking that on.”
“That shows me Ms. Picard sincerely does recognize what has happened here,” said the judge.
“What I interpret from that is Ms. Picard’s willingness to give back to her community.”
During Picard’s plea, court heard that in November 2021, Picard and her father fought over his drinking.
The victim suffers from a number of medical issues, including diabetes, heart disease, dementia and alcoholism.
At the time, home-care registered nurses were assigned to help provide supplementary care.
Nurses found the victim wearing a soiled adult diaper and suffering from two black eyes with blood on his head.
He told the nurses who discovered him that he’d been there for two days.
Picard admitted she knew her father had fallen and she had “administered a number of physical blows.”
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Leaving her elderly father on a basement floor for two days in a soiled adult diaper won’t mean jail for a Calgary woman.
Justice Indra Maharaj accepted a joint Crown and defence submission on Wednesday for a two-year-less-a-day conditional sentence order for Tara Picard to be followed by 12 months of probation.
Prosecutor Donna Spaner and defence counsel Shaun Leochko proposed a community-based term which will include eight months of 24-hour house arrest followed by a nightly curfew for the second eight months.
Maharaj also agreed with the lawyers to order Picard to commit 300 hours of community service over the length of the three-year sentence.
The Calgary Court of Justice noted that amount of community-service hours was “a lot” to commit to.
But Maharaj said it showed Picard, 52, was truly remorseful for her conduct towards her father, whom Postmedia is not identifying because of the embarrassing nature of the facts of the case.
“What that shows me is Ms. Picard does sincerely recognize what has happened here,” the judge said of her willingness to complete community service.
“What I interpret from that is Ms. Picard’s willingness to give back to the community.”
Picard pleaded guilty in January to charges of assault and failing to provide the necessaries of life to her 77-year-old father.
Court heard caregivers found the elderly Calgary man on the basement floor of his daughter’s southeast home wearing a soiled adult diaper.
At the time, Picard was responsible for her father’s day-to-day care after he was moved to her residence, Spaner, reading from a statement of agreed facts, told court at the time.
“He had a number of medical ailments, including non-insulin dependent diabetes, coronary artery disease, some early onset dementia-like symptoms and chronic alcoholism,” Spaner said.
“(He) had been living independently in a Calgary apartment building. Family members became concerned that he was not caring for himself safely.”
With the help of Alberta Health Services he was moved to a home where Picard resided.
A registered nurse assigned to his care attended the 38 Street S.E. home on Nov. 15, 2021, to drop off food bank supplies for him and was told he was sleeping downstairs.
When the nurse called about an hour and a half later and spoke to the man on the phone he said he was lying on the floor, had fallen and was unable to get up.
When she returned to the home with a co-worker she found the victim lying on his back on the floor.
“(He) said that he had been lying on the floor for two days,” Spaner said.
Leochko said Picard was overwhelmed by the situation she was thrust into.
“It really was more than she could handle,” he said.
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@juanhall: I gotta say, this was the most interesting bike in this post….love that Intense is experimenting with gearboxes…I can see it have a huge effect on DH bikes….thank god there’s still people pushing things. Now, they need to make an Enduro bike with the Pinion MGU!
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