This is what i got with Moto G Google Camera App http://i.imgur.com/a6AxO4e.jpg
Your pic looks better than the ones on Google's blog.
Lens Blur in the new Google Camera app
211–220 of 249 posts
Re: Lens Blur in the new Google Camera app
#212Isn't this just a copy of Nokia's Refocus? https://refocus.nokia.com/ edit - better link: http://www.engadget.com/2014/03/14/nokia-refocus-camera-app-...
Yes, I'm sure they just saw this on Nokia a couple of months back and were like "OH SHIT! We gotta do this NAO!". And then just 2 months later, behold - a perfect clone of Nokia's software (with stolen code from Nokia, too, no doubt, since Google is so used to "stealing" other people's tech).
These sort of things are usually worked on for years before release...And yes that was sarcasm, which I thought was deserving for such a silly comment.
Re: Lens Blur in the new Google Camera app
#213I may be wrong because I don't know much about image based algorithms, but this seems to be a pretty successful new approach to achieving this effect. Are there any other existing "lens blur" or depth of field tricks that phone makers or apps are using? I'd love to see their code open sourced.
The novelty I see here, is the combination and integration into an app. Creating blurred images from a photograph and its depth map can be achieved with a GIMP plugin since at least 2008 [1]. Combining a series of photos to create a 3D model is also widely implemented, e.g. in the Photosynth application developed at U Washington/Microsoft which according to Wikipedia exists as a tech preview since 2006. [1] http://re…
Super, this is exactly what I was wondering - whether they really had done something brand new or just put it into an app that lets you choose the blur point yourself after.
Re: Lens Blur in the new Google Camera app
#214Wow.. this is missing the entire point on why lens blur occurs. Lens blur in normal photographs is the price you pay because you want to focus sharply on a subject. The reason photos with blur looks "cool" is not because the blur itself but its because the subject is so sharply focused that its details are order of magnitude better. If you take a random photo, calculate depth map somehow, blur our everything but the…
> Subtracting details from background without adding details to subject ...
Not sure what you mean by this. Blur is only due to focus distances and aperture sizes. Making the depth of field narrower (making the OOF regions more blurry) does not add detail to the areas that are in focus. Usually, it's even the other way around.
Example:
Say we shoot a portrait of a person at 5m with a forest 30m away in the background, at 3 different apertures: f/1.4, f./11 and f/20
At the largest aperture (f/1.4) the background will be completely out of focus and the face of the subject will have sharpness at "80%" of what my lens/sensor combo can do in terms of resolution. The less-than-excellent subject sharpness is because lenses aren't perfect and using the largest aperture will reveal this. Even if you use an expensive professional lens, it will have it's maximum sharpness at some aperture that is smaller than the largest. What does happen in the shallow DOF shot is that we have a form of perceived sharpness (usually referred to as "pop") which is an effect that is simply due to the fact that the subject is so distinct from the background.
At f/11 the subject sharpness is better than at f/4. It is now probably near 100% of the maximum resolution the sensor/lens combination can deliver. The background is significantly more discernible/focused now. If it was a green blur in the f/1.4 shot is now a forest of very slightly blurred trees.
At f/20 the subject's sharpness is again less (e.g. 90%), this time due to the physical limitation known as diffraction that occurs for very small apertures compared to the wavelength. This shot has completely focused trees in the background.
To put it another way: when you take the f/11 portrait and go to f/1.4 you take away almost ALL of the background information, and SOME of the foreground information, while adding NO new information. The entire shot will be less focused when you do.
Re: Lens Blur in the new Google Camera app
#215Is the app taking more than one photo? It wasn't clear in the blog post. AFAIU to have any depth perception you need to take more than one photo. Calculate the pupil distance (the distance the phone moved) then match image features between the two or more images. Calculate the amount of movement between the matching features to then calculate the depth. As described you then map the depth into an alpha transparency a…
>AFAIU to have any depth perception you need to take more than one photo
no you dont, its very tricky, but doable with one:
Re: Lens Blur in the new Google Camera app
#216I 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 are custom firmwares for many DSLRs: http://www.diyphotography.net/the-ultimate-custom-firmware-f...
But the scenario you seem to lust for (a combination of high quality DSLR hardware and a competitive app market) will never manifest because the hardware is too fragmented. There never will be standard interfaces, and you won't get enough competition to develop the greatest possible camera app for a specific hardware model.
Re: Lens Blur in the new Google Camera app
#217Earlier quoted context omitted.
The method at least is very different. The Google app is doing structure from motion, which essentially uses parallax to get the 3D shape of the scene. From there, you can blur/deblur according to depth. The Nokia app uses focal sweep, i.e. it just takes lots of pictures of the same scene focussed at different depths. I'm not sure what the pros and cons of each approach are.
The Nokia app requires a longer exposure time, encompassing multiple shots, which basically means that anything moving is a no-go. The quality of its pictures is theoretically superior, though, because the depth effect comes from the photos themselves, and not a simulation. Google's version, on the other hand, works with only a single photo, so it's more versatile. It may suffer issues with quality, though (arising f…
That is not true, Google version requires you to take a photo for several seconds while slowly moving phone upwards. Both methods take probably same amount of time.
Re: Lens Blur in the new Google Camera app
#218Isn't this just a copy of Nokia's Refocus? https://refocus.nokia.com/ edit - better link: http://www.engadget.com/2014/03/14/nokia-refocus-camera-app-...
The method at least is very different. The Google app is doing structure from motion, which essentially uses parallax to get the 3D shape of the scene. From there, you can blur/deblur according to depth. The Nokia app uses focal sweep, i.e. it just takes lots of pictures of the same scene focussed at different depths. I'm not sure what the pros and cons of each approach are.
I only used Google version but I would guess that:
Nokia: - Nokia approach requires better lens with low aperture, because shallow DOF is done physically not using algorithm - Refocus on Nokia seems to be super fast, because they just change the picture which is used
Google - can use any lens, as bokeh is just calculated - you can change parameters of bokeh (very shallow DOF or not so much) - it requires a lot of computational power, so it take a lot of time to modify the photo
Re: Lens Blur in the new Google Camera app
#219A couple of other really cool depth-map implementations:
1) The Seene app (iOS app store, free), which creates a depth map and a pseudo-3d model of an environment from a "sweep" of images similar to the image acquisition in the article
2) Google Maps Photo Tours feature (available in areas where lots of touristy photos are taken). This does basically the same as the above but using crowdsourced images from the public.
IMO the latter is the most impressive depth-mapping feat I've seen: the source images are amateur photography from the general public, so they are randomly oriented (and without any gyroscope orientation data!), and uncalibrated for things like exposure, white balance, etc. Seems pretty amazing that Google have managed to make depth maps from that image set.
Re: Lens Blur in the new Google Camera app
#220Earlier quoted context omitted.
They did hire Marc Levoy. I have been hoping for this for awhile. Can't wait for the next iteration. There are certain things you can't replicate with just a single tiny camera, but they are doing a great job! https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6483182
> There are certain things you can't replicate with just a single tiny camera MOST DoF and bokeh effects in photography can't be replicated with a single small camera. As a photographer, bokeh is surprisingly difficult to fake, and looks glaringly bad when you notice. The blur effect is due to focal distance ratio differences, and it's very difficult to determine the distance in software. Hell, it's hard to determine…
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