My camera switches over to portrait-mode whenever it sees a painting or a drawing with a face in it. It stays in AUTO mode otherwise.
According to Popular Mechanics: “a chip inside the camera constantly scans the image in its viewfinder for two eyes, a nose, ears and a chin, making out up to 10 faces at a time before you’ve hit the shutter.”
I decided to test my camera—it’s a Canon Powershot SX120—to see what it decides to regard as a face.
Artist James Gurney tests out his point-and-shoot’s facial recognition chip against works of art and illustration. A mixed bag, but a good reminder that this technology is getting better and cheaper (and subtle) all the time.