Low Light and High Dynamic Range photography in the Google Camera App • Hacker News Board

Re: Low Light and High Dynamic Range photography in the Google Camera App

#101

Post by rcthompson » Tue, Oct 28, 2014, 12:05 AM UTC

higherpurpose wrote: post #81

ioedward wrote: post #75

I've been messing around with the Google Camera app and the new Camera API provided by Android 5. It turns out that you can actually obtain a lot higher quality images by using the DNG (digital negative) of the photo, instead of using the JPEG. By "HDRing" images yourself, you can actually outperform Google Camera's HDR+ functionality. Here's the JPEG, non HDR+ shot on a Nexus 5: http://i.imgur.com/So44muL.jpg Here's…

Could Google's HDR+ also use DNG instead of jpeg and combine those automatically? That would make it much slower, though, so they'd have to take 3 at most.

HDR+ does the processing immediately after taking the images. I would hope that the "HDR" step happens before any compression.

Re: Low Light and High Dynamic Range photography in the Google Camera App

#102

Post by higherpurpose » Tue, Oct 28, 2014, 12:55 AM UTC

ioedward wrote: post #93

tambourine_man wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't know it was possible to save real DNGs on Android (as opposed to JPEGs inside DNGs). I've been waiting for years to be able to shoot RAW on a phone camera. Do you mind posting a DNG file of this photo? I might switch from iOS if Apple doesn't provide this functionality soon enough.

Sure! I would _not_ advise getting the Nexus 5. As noted below in other comments, the image quality and autofocusing speed has much to be desired. The Camera2 API that supports DNG is only available on Android 5.0 phones. http://edward.io/raw_nexus_5.zip

In other words get a Nexus 6, or wait a phone that will get Android 5/Lollipop in the next few months and has a great camera sensor already (Xperia Z3/Z3 Compact, Galaxy Note 4) - or wait for Xperia Z4, Galaxy S6 or HTC M9 in spring.

Re: Low Light and High Dynamic Range photography in the Google Camera App

#103

Post by marclevoy » Tue, Oct 28, 2014, 1:14 AM UTC

FreakyT wrote: post #26

It's unfortunate that HDR mode in Google Camera remains unavailable for phones other than the Nexus 5 & 6 -- I have a Moto X, and the app is really only useful for photospheres, since normal photos tend look awful without HDR. Has Google discussed any technical reason for this restriction? Seems like lots of third party apps support HDR on a wider variety of phones...

HDR+ is available only on Nexus 5 and Nexus 6, because only those devices currently fully support the Camera2 API, which is required for HDR+. This will gradually change, and more devices will start offering it.

Re: Low Light and High Dynamic Range photography in the Google Camera App

#104

Post by judk » Tue, Oct 28, 2014, 2:27 AM UTC

jemfinch wrote: post #99

potatolicious wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Way to miss the point, which wasn't "a cell phone can do everything as well as a DSLR", which is objectively false, but rather that "what makes a great image has very little to do with technical ability". I was going to do a point-by-point rebuttal on how every picture you've brought up can be taken with a cell phone camera, but that seems a wee bit pointless. Instead look at those photographs and tell me what exactl…

No, I didn't miss the point. Your point is wrong. You even (unwittingly) argue against it in another post of yours. Cartier-Bresson's "Man Leaping" could not have been captured with a cell phone camera. The shutter lag is just too bad. As another poster pointed out, "Tank Man" was taken from a half mile away. > Instead look at those photographs and tell me what exactly makes them worthwhile. Is it the creamy smooth b…

"Light" is one of the reasons cheap SLR cameras are massively better than cell phones.

Re: Low Light and High Dynamic Range photography in the Google Camera App

#105

Post by judk » Tue, Oct 28, 2014, 2:39 AM UTC

batbomb wrote: post #52

joosters wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With a tripod to stabilise a camera, is it possible to get more detail through multiple shots? Just averaging the noise would smooth things out, but I wonder if there is any more intelligent processing that could improve things. More shots could (in theory) provide more data. A similar problem might be to try and improve the resolution of a single hand-held photo, shot in normal lighting conditions, by taking many pi…

No, you can only get cleaner data and maximize the pixels you have, not more effective pixels. The way you could get "more" data is to simulate, say, a 28mm equivalent lens with, say, multiple shots from an 135mm equivalent lens at different locations and stitch them together. Thats what they do when you see those 3GP+ shots you can zoom in on.

You an absolutely gwt subpixel detail by averaging multiple photos taken with the same setting with almost exactly the same frame. I had software in 2004 that did this, converting short video to high res photo

Re: Low Light and High Dynamic Range photography in the Google Camera App

#106

Post by no_news_is » Tue, Oct 28, 2014, 5:21 AM UTC

The blogger wrote SynthCam for iOS first: https://sites.google.com/site/marclevoy/

Some similar technology, my impression is less "automatic" I think but more control. Haven't seen either in action so I'm not sure how it compares.

Re: Low Light and High Dynamic Range photography in the Google Camera App

#107

Post by peteretep » Tue, Oct 28, 2014, 8:57 AM UTC

ot wrote: post #11

joosters wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the duplicate detector looks at exact URL matches. Things like a trailing / or ? will let a new story go through.

The duplicate detector is usually quite more clever than just exact URL match. Why the downvote? EDIT: In fact, I just tried to re-submit an existing link by adding a question mark and it didn't go through.

    > The duplicate detector is usually quite more clever than 
    > just exact URL match

This doesn't match my experience, but then I usually editorialize my titles if I'm resubmitting something I know is here already.

Re: Low Light and High Dynamic Range photography in the Google Camera App

#108

Post by vertex-four » Tue, Oct 28, 2014, 11:48 AM UTC

tripzilch wrote: post #80

potatolicious wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "All other things equal, better equipment will allow you to get better shots." This is the part we disagree. Better knowledge will allow you to get better shots - we've gone past the point long ago where improving technical capability made dramatic improvements to how well people can photograph. Ultimately what makes or breaks a photograph isn't sharpness, or even focus in particular, it's exposure and composition.…

I'm inclined to agree with you, but a bunch of common counterexamples immediately spring to mind. Very often, sorting through a huge amount of low quality phone camera pics from a party or something, I encounter a "happy accident" that would have made a great photo if only : it had been properly in focus, not blown out by light, less noisy (especially when you'd normally crop the pic, phone camera grain is way uglier…

Would you have got the details right and taken that particular photo at all if you were paying more attention to each shot? I don't think this has much to do with the camera - if the picture's blurry, you were likely taking it in a hurry, and you would've taken it in a hurry if you had a real camera.

Re: Low Light and High Dynamic Range photography in the Google Camera App

#109

Post by personZ » Tue, Oct 28, 2014, 1:21 PM UTC

jemfinch wrote: post #94

potatolicious wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "The other group are people who argue the details of a phase detection autofocus in the Canon DSLR and the 51 point field autofocus of the Nikon DSLR and can't believe that the handset makers are allowed to actually call these things 'cameras' in their advertisements." This demographic can be safely ignored. The people who get the most up in arms about the "purity" of photographic tools are also the ones producing…

Bullshit. Features like megapixels, 51 phase detection AF points, face detection metering and other goodies all allow real people to capture better, more memorable images than cell phone cameras. 1. https://www.flickr.com/photos/jemfinch/8594571664/in/set-721... could not have been captured with a cell phone camera. I was holding my DSLR in my offhand and pushing him on the swing with my other hand. 2. https://www.fl…

Your pictures hold importance to you for obvious reason, but your impression that they are the result of some sort of technical perfection of hardware is absurd. I see very similar photos, by the dozens if not hundreds, every day on Facebook. By people taking the photos with their iPhone, GS5, or whatever else they happen to have. Those "fleeting moments" when, exactly because they are fleeting moments, they grabbed what they have on their body 100% of the day.

I feel like this is a debate from 2008, discussing the camera on your new Blackberry.

Re: Low Light and High Dynamic Range photography in the Google Camera App

#110

Post by personZ » Tue, Oct 28, 2014, 2:05 PM UTC

jemfinch wrote: post #99

potatolicious wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Way to miss the point, which wasn't "a cell phone can do everything as well as a DSLR", which is objectively false, but rather that "what makes a great image has very little to do with technical ability". I was going to do a point-by-point rebuttal on how every picture you've brought up can be taken with a cell phone camera, but that seems a wee bit pointless. Instead look at those photographs and tell me what exactl…

No, I didn't miss the point. Your point is wrong. You even (unwittingly) argue against it in another post of yours. Cartier-Bresson's "Man Leaping" could not have been captured with a cell phone camera. The shutter lag is just too bad. As another poster pointed out, "Tank Man" was taken from a half mile away. > Instead look at those photographs and tell me what exactly makes them worthwhile. Is it the creamy smooth b…

Cartier-Bresson's "Man Leaping" could not have been captured with a cell phone camera. The shutter lag is just too bad.

Humorously, he didn't even see the man leaping, and wasn't timing for that. He took some shots, and it turned out to be a keeper. Such is exactly the nature of smartphone shots, as an aside -- people take countless shots, and among them some gems appear.

for millions upon millions of historic and sentimental potential pictures

This is where your argument falls apart. A modern smartphone has better image capture than SLRs -- top of the line SLRs --from just ten years ago. Despite your focus on shutter lag (where you can prefocus/expose on a smartphone just like an SLR, and then have a close to instant shutter), the shutter lag on current smartphones is, again, similar to top of the line SLRs of a few years ago.

With a large sensor and lenses, at any given time you'll always yield a better result (presuming you assume that such is always available when the moment arises). However at the core of photography, the technical side is far less important than it is held to be, and if we really need to bring up history, a modern smartphone was better than what the most committed photographer had in their arsenal not that long ago.