It's not deblurring, there's no post processing. It just selects where to autofocus, and commands the lens to focus to that point, that's all.

AI assisted autofocus and object tracking doesn't alter the image after capture. It just moves your focus point and tries to keep the object optically in focus during the half-press phase.

The most expensive equipment doesn't give you any advantage in composing, exposure, etc. If you're shooting birds, you need some tracking capabilities and fast focusing lenses. These are not expensive because they post process the image, but they have expensive glass, fast motors and powerful DSPs to track that bird in that frame. If you can't frame the bird and press the shutter the right moment, you're toast.

Nobody is using relighting tricks like Nikon D-Lighting in competitions, it'll disqualified anyway. I'm not sure my Sony has similar post processing options, even.

These are shot with a D70s: https://www.flickr.com/photos/zerocoder/39910477633/, https://www.flickr.com/photos/zerocoder/41901384135/in/photo..., https://www.flickr.com/photos/zerocoder/53363865806/

This is shot with an iPhone 5, at 4AM: https://www.flickr.com/photos/zerocoder/29340231528/in/photo...

None of them are post-processed with AI tools. Heck, AI is in today was not even a dream when I processed these. Pocket Tiger has been denoised using Profiled Denoise feature of Darktable if I remember correctly. It's taken at Maximum ISO of D70s, which made it a colorful mess, recovering that image in post-processing was a miracle of its own.

> into a materials sport where it's just the most expensive equipment winning.

It's easy to take bad photos with good cameras. Also it's easy to take good photos with bad cameras, as well. It's a squarely skill sport. Equipment can't help you beyond a certain point, and you need to be able to demand that from your camera first.

> AI photo editing is surely a competition-worthy art of its own.

We have photomanipulation competitions for that.