Voting opens for Auto Focus People’s Choice Awards

Just over 5 months ago, the Toyota Hilux and Alphard were officially proclaimed as the major winners of the 2020-2021 Auto Focus People’s Choice Awards (AFPCA) last December 17, 2020. The Toyota pickup and luxury van models bagged the coveted Auto Focus Automobile of the Year Award in the Standard and Premium/Luxury classifications respectively.

And now, the 17th annual edition of the AFPCA is off and running with the opening of the online public poll beginning June 1, 2021.

Organized by Sunshine Television (STV) and led by its Chairman/CEO and motoring media personality, Ray Butch Gamboa, the AFPCA is STV’s premier motoring industry merit program that seeks to determine the Philippines’ most popular automobile brands and models via an annual public poll.

The awards program features Model and Automobile of the Year honors for sedans, SUV/Crossovers, sports cars, vans/MPV’s, and pickups in separate Standard and Premium/Luxury classes. 2021 marked the 17th annual undertaking of this unique poll, the only one of its kind in the country.

“Thankfully, this year’s edition of the AFPCA has launched without the uncertainties and challenges that faced us in March last year with the onset of the present COVID pandemic and strict lockdown conditions about to be imposed throughout the Philippines.” STV’s Gamboa says. He continues by saying that the group saw a “positive light and went for the green light.”

Over the past 16 years, the AFPCA has traditionally launched its public poll beginning April 1. More recent years featured a 6-month voting period that ended on September 30. However, the limitations on public movement and business operations severely curtailed the motoring industry’s efforts at generating reasonable unit sales under a strict lockdown environment.

Limitations eased somewhat when GCQ came around mid-2020, but car dealers and distributors continued to struggle despite unprecedented promotional offers and delayed new model introductions.

Another new development pertinent to the AFPCA Rules and Guidelines will come into play this year. Gerry Aquino, Chairman of the AFPCA Awards Committee, and Gamboa reviewed in more depth the essence and value of being enshrined in the AFPCA Hall of Fame.

As Aquino pointed out: “Under the present Rules and Guidelines, 5-time Model and 3-time Automobile of the Year awardees are accorded the distinct honor of being entered into the Hall of Fame.”

Over the past 16 years, only a handful of models have gained such elite status. Among the chosen few are the Isuzu Crosswind; Hyundai Grand Starex; Toyota Camry; Toyota Innova; Mitsubishi Montero Sport; Toyota HiAce; Toyota Fortuner; Toyota Hilux; Nissan Navara; Lexus IS350; Lexus RS350; and Toyota Alphard in the Model of the Year Hall of Fame. The Automobile of the Year Hall of Fame counts two honorees: the Toyota Vios and the Toyota Fortuner.

Aquino further mentioned: “The rules imply that this rare, hard-to-attain award of excellence has elevated winners to the pinnacle of their respective model categories, and therefore, further recognition is no longer unnecessary. Well and good, perhaps, but several factors now require us to re-think this particular rule.”

The key considerations were: One, most of the Hall of Fame models are still concurrent, which is testimony to their continuing popularity. Two, the AFPCA is based on people’s choices and votes, and therefore, why will a model the public still prefers be excluded from the Official Entry List simply by virtue of its Hall of Fame status? Three, if a model truly deserves to win, why deprive it of this privilege when it’s still out there in the market competing with other contenders? And lastly, the more complete the Official AFPCA Entry List is, the more credible the voting results and scores will become.

With these in mind, the organizers opted to return all Hall of Fame models into voting circulation and again become eligible for Model and Automobile of the Year awards. “I believe that this will in no way diminish the prestige of the elite status these models have already earned, and that lofty position can only be embellished by further honors that may they may attain,” Gamboa said.

The public may participate in the online poll of the 2021-2022 Auto Focus People’s Choice Awards by visiting here.  Participants may vote every day and can register as many as 5 daily choices each in the separate Standard and Premium/Luxury categories from June 1 – November 30, 2021.

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Exploring ‘nightography’ with the Samsung Galaxy S22+

02/25/2022

One of my main considerations in choosing a phone for myself is camera quality. I love taking photos, whether for social media or just for me, and I value having a pocketable alternative to our mirrorless camera.

And yes, smartphones can provide high-quality captures, especially flagships, but the challenge remains on how good these are in low-light.

That’s why I got excited when Samsung sent us over the Galaxy S22+ to try out.

The company’s latest flagship devices are riding on a Nightography campaign that highlights the low-light capabilities of the cameras on these phones.

Boasting both hardware and software upgrades, what Samsung aims to offer is an easy and fuss-free way to take night shots without worrying too much about lighting.

So, of course, we decided to test this out.

Handling low light

So what does Samsung claim?

Well, the new Galaxy S-series devices are now equipped with a Big Pixel sensor that’s 23% larger this time around. Captured images then go through low noise processing to get rid of undesirable artifacts to produce cleaner, sharper, images even in low light.

Of course, the natural thing to do now is to test that. So Kevin and I went out late one night for a quick photo walk.

We were both happy with how the photos turned out.  Shadows and highlights were balanced even in difficult lighting situations and colors were well saturated as well. One thing we noticed, though, is that there are moments that the Portrait or Photo mode tends to over brighten — at least to our liking.

Understandably, this is the software working to lift the dark areas. The fix is simple, at least. You just have to remember to slide down that exposure just a tad before you take your shot.

The enhancement, which works for both day and night, isn’t always unwanted, though. I find that I appreciate the adjustments more for candid shots and selfies as photos come out bright and more detailed.

The sharpening can get a little too much at times but that’s just me being nit-picky. Bottom-line, the images are impressive.

And speaking of selfies, the front camera keeps up too. While I didn’t use it as much in my time with this device, the selfies that I did take were easily photos I would post on my socials with no hesitation.

Now since we’re trying to push the device a little further, I also decided to dive deeper into Pro mode. I set up a tiny shoot with just one light source.

Samsung’s Pro mode is one of my favorites, so far. It’s easy to use and gives flexible controls over essential parameters like ISO, white balance, and more.

It also allows you to choose the lens you want to use and switch to manual focus. There’s even a focus assist that works in real-time so you can always make sure your subject is sharp.

Opt to shoot in RAW and you’ll just how hard Samsung’s software works to give you a nice, clean image without doing any work. The RAW images showed a good amount of noise but a quick noise-reduction pass in Lightroom cleans it up.

And speaking of Lightroom, I also tried to quickly color grade the RAW photos and found they responded well to different adjustments. Shadows are quicker to lose detail but overall I’m pleased with the amount of information the device is able to retain.

Wrapping things up here, both Kevin and I agree that our night photography experience with the Galaxy S22+ was an enjoyable one.

Casual snappers will enjoy post-worthy shots straight out of the camera but the system also offers a good amount of flexibility and controls if you want to go manual.

The super clear glass found on the rear cameras also works to reduce lens flares, making them look more pleasant in photos rather than a harsh ball of light.

What about video?

Now let’s quickly talk about video performance. Here are the things you may want/need to know: The rear cameras of the Samsung Galaxy S22+ can record up to 8K at 24fps with HDR10+ support. The front camera, on the other hand, supports up to 4K at 60fps well.

Here’s a sample video we shot at 4K slow motion, downscaled to 1080p.

Shooting at a high frame rate obviously caused some quality loss as its able to take in less light. Still, I’m happy to see details are still visible for the most part.

Noise and grain are also evident but acceptable considering that, again, we were shooting at 60fps. Samsung’s Super Night Solution did have a hand in helping to reduce noise and the results aren’t bad at all.

The stabilization works well, too, but doesn’t totally eliminate the typical ghosting or warping you see when trying to stabilize low-light footage.

Still, videos come out nice and smooth and we were able to achieve slow motion shots even at night.

Final thoughts

It’s no surprise that a tech giant like Samsung is able to produce a device that works incredibly well in low light. The large sensor combined with the super clear glass is able to capture detailed and pleasing images and, in the background, the software works to make things instantly post-worthy.

But I also love the flexibility the manual mode offers. Whether for photo or video, the tools onboard make it easy to be creative and achieve the look you want.

And since I personally like post-processing my photos, I’m happy that the RAW images are easy to work with as well.

So is it the best phone for low-light photography then?

Well, what makes these phones great in low light is that you won’t have to think much about camera settings to get a great-looking low-light photo. But at the same time it also allows you to take full control should you want to be a little more creative.

It is still early in the year, though. More phones are expected to release as the months go by and who knows how many of those are built to be low-light shooters as well.

But if you need one right now and have the cash for it, you probably can’t go wrong with any of the members of the Samsung Galaxy S22-series.

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