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

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

#51

Post by cema »

piyush_soni wrote: post #50
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…

Really, I don't see anything good in his photos. All these post-processed photos lack a lot of detail, even from a smartphone standards.

Detail is not necessarily what one should be looking for in a photo.

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

#52

Post by batbomb »

joosters wrote: post #7
sp332 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it takes multiple photos with the same settings and just averages out the noise in the shadows. That wouldn't keep the shadows from lacking detail though. You'd just get a smoother black!

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.

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

#53

Post by gchokov »

acomjean wrote: post #46
ChuckMcM wrote: post #33

Seems like two people come into this experience and walk away with completely different expectations. One group are people, for whom camera phones have been their only "camera" and they are amazed at how great the pictures are now. 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 make…

As someone who has both a DSLR and a smartphone. The smartphones are pretty good and "the camera you have with you" is always better than the camera at your home. Plus the wifi connectivity and abitliy to push photos real time is really nice. The DSLR pictures when I do get around to loading and editing are better. It just takes more time. As for focus points, I have this wierd camera the canon 70d. Every "pixel" on…

Use some Magic Lantern build of the firmware in this case.

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

#54

Post by vilhelm_s »

sp332 wrote: post #24
vilhelm_s wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it should work for shadows also? Adding together 10 photos taken at 1/100s should give the same amount of light as one photo taken at 1/10s.

But if each photo is just black because it's underexposed, then adding them together only gives you black.

If the pixels were literally black that would be the case, but even on very underexposed pictures I don't think that ever happens. There's still photons on the sensor, it's just that they are swamped by the noise. Like, most DSLRs nowadays capture 12-bit values, which suggests you would have to underexpose by something on the order of 12EV to truncate the output to zero.

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

#55

Post by personZ »

Someone1234 wrote: post #49
personZ wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Galaxy S5 and iPhone 6 both feature on sensor phase detection. Further it's worth nothing that the whole notion of "n points of autofocus" is a flaw of phase detection, not a feature -- contrast detection has millions of possible points of autofocus. And indeed, most high-end SLRs have contrast-detection modes (e.g. Canon LiveView) that brings benefits that often merit its regular use, and are mandated for things…

The primary benefit of a larger sensor is shooting in sub-optimal conditions. If all you do is take photos in perfect daylight then a smartphone can likely do as well. SLRs shine when there is more lighting range (e.g. strong shadows and light) in the shot and in particular when it is a lower-light situation. A smartphone has to start doing HDR (which has inherent downsides, like its inability to record motion) a lot…

Yes, of course. I'm not saying that SLRs don't have a place. If you're a wedding photographer, you probably shouldn't bring your iPhone to the job.

But the post I replied to took it to the point of absurdity, where people questioned whether these were really "cameras", and you either have the fools amazed by their crummy results, or the pros who see through that ruse. That is nonsense. I've owned a number of SLRs through the years, back to a 35MM Minolta 9xi with a number of lenses. I am amazed at what is possible with smartphones, and constantly surprised at the very good shots they yield.

Further, just to put this into perspective, an iPhone 6 or a recent Lumia, with its tiny little sensor and tiny little lens, has attributes that beat out God like SLRs from just a few years ago. Those cameras were pro quality, best of the best then, but now the devices that beat them aren't worth calling cameras?

http://connect.dpreview.com/post/5533410947/smartphones-vers...

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

#56

Post by piyush_soni »

cema wrote: post #51
piyush_soni wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really, I don't see anything good in his photos. All these post-processed photos lack a lot of detail, even from a smartphone standards.

Detail is not necessarily what one should be looking for in a photo.

Sure, that was just one of the things it lacked as compared to the DSLRs. I'm not sure what's so amazing in these photographs (as compared to DSLRs) - to my untrained eyes they don't look great.

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

#57

Post by higherpurpose »

davb wrote: post #17

It's worth noting that with HDR+ enabled on the Nexus 5, you can no longer enable the flash or timer. And the processing time can feel frustratingly long. So leaving it enabled all the time doesn't work for everyone.

Not sure if there will be a change in the processing itself (bar filling up afterwards), but with Lollipop taking the picture (circle loading) should be a lot faster. They also say it's 0.3-1 sec, which isn't too bad. Normal photos used to take that long on high-end phones a couple of years ago.

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

#58

Post by Someone1234 »

personZ wrote: post #55
Someone1234 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The primary benefit of a larger sensor is shooting in sub-optimal conditions. If all you do is take photos in perfect daylight then a smartphone can likely do as well. SLRs shine when there is more lighting range (e.g. strong shadows and light) in the shot and in particular when it is a lower-light situation. A smartphone has to start doing HDR (which has inherent downsides, like its inability to record motion) a lot…

Yes, of course. I'm not saying that SLRs don't have a place. If you're a wedding photographer, you probably shouldn't bring your iPhone to the job. But the post I replied to took it to the point of absurdity, where people questioned whether these were really "cameras", and you either have the fools amazed by their crummy results, or the pros who see through that ruse. That is nonsense. I've owned a number of SLRs thr…

That article doesn't support your conclusions. The graphs is totally worthless as the article admits:

> The graph is misleading at first glance because the phones and the cameras sit on different scales. So it’s not saying that the phones are better than current DSLRs, despite scoring higher.

So your conclusion:

> Further, just to put this into perspective, an iPhone 6 or a recent Lumia, with its tiny little sensor and tiny little lens, has attributes that beat out God like SLRs from just a few years ago.

Is not only not supported by contradicted by your link. Did you actually read it or just look at the graph and link?

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

#59

Post by boxcardavin »

One should remember that writing camera software that is agnostic to the hardware is technically hard, and nearly impossible if you want gorgeous photos (a la iPhone). When taking astronomy images we would characterize the CCD (mostly for noise) each night, and you need that kind of approach to tune your software to your hardware.

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

#60

Post by higherpurpose »

post_break wrote: post #38
magicalist wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The blogspot fails to discuss why Samsung Galaxy S4/S5 HDR results are much better than my Nexus 5's Well, $300 price difference can buy you a lot. Now I get it. Comments like this one must be why Google felt pressured into making the next Nexus phone so much more expensive :P

Galaxy S4 on stock rom photos look amazing. S4 on Google rom photos look like shit. It's in the software.

Indeed. The pre-Lollipop stock camera software was crap. Now it seems much better. Also Samsung's phones, even the S5, seem to be crap in the low-light/dark, too. They only excel in good to medium lighting.
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