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Lens Blur in the new Google Camera app

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Re: Lens Blur in the new Google Camera app

#91

Post by zippergz »

JTon wrote: post #47
zippergz wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't give me a headache, but to my eyes it isn't remotely convincing. There's no way I'd look at any of those example pictures and not realize the blurring was done with postprocessing.

I'm a photography layman and I really can't tell it was done with postprocessing. What gives it away for you?

I agree with bronson about the uniformity of the blur. Also, the amount of blurring doesn't change enough as the distance changes. It's better than previous techniques that have just blurred the entire background the same amount, but it still doesn't feel right. That's understandable; it's an incredibly hard problem to figure out how far away everything in the image is, and blur it the appropriate amount. I'm impressed by how well they've done so far. But there's definitely still work to be done.

Re: Lens Blur in the new Google Camera app

#92

Post by dimatura »

themgt wrote: post #10

Is looking at the examples giving anyone else a headache? It's like the software blur falls into some kind of uncanny valley for reality.

It doesn't look that realistic, but it's way better than the awful tilt-shift effect (or whatever it's called) on instagram. Which, as far as I can tell from my facebook feed, is used 99% of the time as a poor man's bokeh.

Re: Lens Blur in the new Google Camera app

#93

Post by spyder »

avaku wrote: post #55
kingnight wrote: post #30

I'd like to see an example of a evening/night shot using this. I can't imagine the results are anything like the examples here, but would love to be surprised. Are there more samples somewhere?

Next they should introduce an infrared laser for measuring depth like in Xbox, then is will totally work in the dark :)

Google Project Tango: https://www.google.com/atap/projecttango/

Re: Lens Blur in the new Google Camera app

#94

Post by darkmighty »

alanh wrote: post #68
aray wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd love to see some test images with that (just get a side-by-side with the app and a larger aperture camera). As I understand what you're proposing, I'm not sure it would actually be closer to what a large-aperture camera would capture. The light field from the farther depth field should be convolving with the light field from the near depth field. Still, side-by-side would be the best way to view these :) I'll do…

What do you mean, "the light field from the farther depth should be convolving with the … near"? Intuitively, grandparent post is right, the hair should be sharp.

Nope, in the left example the hair should be blurred even in the edges. But the blur should be such that the details in the background are preserved (it seems sightly off). The math behind this afaik is a variant convolution with depth dependent kernel + occlusion. So in the right the hair is sharp because the blurred background is occluded by the sharp hair, but in the left the frontier isn't sharp because the sharp background isn't occluding the blurry foreground.

Re: Lens Blur in the new Google Camera app

#96

Post by DocG »

nostromo wrote: post #48

I sure wish you could buy a DSLR that just plugs into your iPhone. I don't want any of that terrible DSLR software -- just the hardware. I think many devices should become BYOD (bring your own device) soon, including big things like cars. edit: I don't just want my pictures to be saved on my phone. I'd like the phone to have full control of the camera's features -- so I can use apps (like timelapse, hdr, etc.) direct…

There is something similar like this available already!

Although, I use it on android. DSLR Controller(BETA) with OTG supported Android phone and almost all of the digital DSLR cameras.

I use it with my 600D to take timelapse (it does not have it built in).

You can use it with tablet to have bigger screen for example. And it supports almost every setting.

EDIT: Free "does it work with your device" version: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=us.zig.dslr

Full version: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=eu.chainfire.d...

Re: Lens Blur in the new Google Camera app

#98

Post by grecy »

jawns wrote: post #41
grecy wrote: post #12

We had an interesting discussion about this a few nights ago at a Photojournalism talk. In that field, digital edits are seriously banned, to the point multiple very well known photo journalists have been fired for one little use of the clone tool [1] and other minor edits. It's interesting to think I can throw an f/1.8 lens on my DSLR and take a very shallow depth of field photo, which is OK, even though it's not ve…

When you say "digital edits are seriously banned," I think that's overreaching. I'm a former newspaper editor, and "digital edits" in the form of adjusting levels, color correction, etc., are performed on every single photo. What's not allowed, as you allude to, is retouching a photo. So does introducing blur after the photo was taken count as retouching, or does it fall into the same category as color correction? It…

> I think that's overreaching. I'm a former newspaper editor, and "digital edits" in the form of adjusting levels, color correction, etc., are performed on every single photo.

Yep, sorry. I was a bit rushed when I wrote my comment. I should have said "digital edits beyond basic color correction".

Re: Lens Blur in the new Google Camera app

#100

Post by goatslacker »

On iOS you can customize your DoF with an app called Big Lens.

Normally apps like Instagram and Fotor let you pick one point in the picture or a vertical/horizontal segment and apply focus there while blurring the background. Big Lens is more advanced since it lets you draw with your finger what you'd like to be in focus.

They also include various apertures you can set (as low as f/1.8) as well as some filters -- although I personally find the filters to be overdone but others might find them tasteful.

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