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Astrophotography with Night Sight on Pixel Phones

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Re: Astrophotography with Night Sight on Pixel Phones

#31

Post by mrunseen »

jillesvangurp wrote: post #16
rbritton wrote: post #7

Zoomed out, those photos aren’t terrible, but if you click to view a higher resolution version, you can see the softness created by the noise removal algorithm. Based on my experience, the image quality is comparable to DSLRs of about ten years ago. Noise removal is a bandaid. In astrophotography, it will virtually always look softer than reality actually is, and it will also have removed actual stellar objects. Ther…

This not just simple noise removal but combining multiple photos with the noise appearing in different places (aside from the hot pixels). So, it's a strategy to get much of the same effects of a really long eposure with much less noise than you'd expect based on the tiny sensor because it averages out over multiple shots. In principle of course possible to do with a DSLR as well. E.g. Hugin might be able to do this.…

Yes you can do it with DSLR aswell, similar discussion back in HN[0]

[0]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18452717

Re: Astrophotography with Night Sight on Pixel Phones

#33

Post by mrunseen »

tigershark wrote: post #11
rbritton wrote: post #7

Zoomed out, those photos aren’t terrible, but if you click to view a higher resolution version, you can see the softness created by the noise removal algorithm. Based on my experience, the image quality is comparable to DSLRs of about ten years ago. Noise removal is a bandaid. In astrophotography, it will virtually always look softer than reality actually is, and it will also have removed actual stellar objects. Ther…

Not exactly, noise level is inversely correlated with the photosensitive element size. The smaller they are, the more noise you have. For example an 8MPX APC sensor should have less noise than a 40MPX full frame sensor.

This and sensor technology ie. MFT sized 12MP older sensors perform worse results than more recent 16MP MFT sensors which performs worse results than even more recent 20MP MFT sensors.

Re: Astrophotography with Night Sight on Pixel Phones

#35

Post by piyush_soni »

jeen02 wrote: post #20
ganitarashid wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All easy software implementations. This is not a hardware story.

If they're so easy, why haven't Apple implemented them?

Or at least someone would have come up with an app already, had it been that easy.

Re: Astrophotography with Night Sight on Pixel Phones

#36

Post by ygra »

jakecopp wrote: post #24

If all the advancements in smartphone photography is in software, why aren't DSLR/mirrorless manufactures doing it too? I don't want my camera to have a touchscreen/social media/wifi but it'd be cool if Adobe Camera Raw/some alternative could do this stuff!

IMHO they've basically missed an opportunity here for many years. They'd be in a perfect position to offer those things, combined with a much better/larger sensor, which enables even better images. On smartphones it's a matter of necessity, as the sensor is (fairly) crappy in comparison, but on a DSLR it could still be a benefit. Personally I'd be perfectly happy to get a pre-processed DNG from the camera instead of having to do this afterwards. And then give me the raw files to do it manually as well.

Perhaps they're trying not to cannibalize their lower market segments or think that professionals would never use those things (on which they might be correct). But I can definitely see that computational photography beyond raw->JPEG conversion with a color profile could have its place in a DSLR.

Re: Astrophotography with Night Sight on Pixel Phones

#37

Post by CarVac »

tigershark wrote: post #11
rbritton wrote: post #7

Zoomed out, those photos aren’t terrible, but if you click to view a higher resolution version, you can see the softness created by the noise removal algorithm. Based on my experience, the image quality is comparable to DSLRs of about ten years ago. Noise removal is a bandaid. In astrophotography, it will virtually always look softer than reality actually is, and it will also have removed actual stellar objects. Ther…

Not exactly, noise level is inversely correlated with the photosensitive element size. The smaller they are, the more noise you have. For example an 8MPX APC sensor should have less noise than a 40MPX full frame sensor.

This is an oft-repeated myth.

Per-pixel noise depends indeed on the pixel size, but image-scale noise is almost completely independent of the pixel size.

That's because while a large pixel has less noise, it appears larger in the output and so the noise is correspondingly more visible. A small pixel is noisier, but smaller, so the net noise is the same for the same sensor size.

Re: Astrophotography with Night Sight on Pixel Phones

#38

Post by anovikov »

emptybits wrote: post #5

This is amazing. Now just FYI, for those curious, some recent "old guard" innovations by pro camera makers for astrophotography include: 1. Leveraging the multi-axis image-stabilizing movement available to an in-camera DSLR sensor with GPS for the purpose of tracking the sky during a long-ish exposure to reduce star trails. Ricoh-Pentax Astrotracer. http://www.ricoh-imaging.co.jp/english/photo-life/astro/ 2. Removing…

(2) is about 15 years old, but can you explain how actually does (1) work?

Re: Astrophotography with Night Sight on Pixel Phones

#39

Post by cageface »

I'd prefer to see Google focus on just making the Pixel line better everyday phones than working on exotic stuff like this or the motion sensor they added in the Pixel 4. Right now there's not much reason to choose a Pixel unless stock Android is your top priority.

Re: Astrophotography with Night Sight on Pixel Phones

#40

Post by bla3 »

dr_zoidberg wrote: post #28
emptybits wrote: post #5

This is amazing. Now just FYI, for those curious, some recent "old guard" innovations by pro camera makers for astrophotography include: 1. Leveraging the multi-axis image-stabilizing movement available to an in-camera DSLR sensor with GPS for the purpose of tracking the sky during a long-ish exposure to reduce star trails. Ricoh-Pentax Astrotracer. http://www.ricoh-imaging.co.jp/english/photo-life/astro/ 2. Removing…

I didn't quite like the article. At the begining it shows a good picture of the Milky Way and it says: > The image has not been retouched or post-processed in any way. Then the whole article describes how they've automated a full astroprocessing pipeline inside the phone, that makes heavy postprocessing...

I think what "has not been retouched or post-processed in any way" is supposed to convey is that no work is needed by the user of the camera app to get pictures of this quality. There's lots of in-camera processing of course. That's always been the case for digital cameras: sensors don't produce jpeg files.
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