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

googleresearch.blogspot.com

1–10 of 113 posts

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

#4
> However, bracketing is not actually necessary; one can use the same exposure time in every shot. By using a short exposure HDR+ avoids blowing out highlights, and by combining enough shots it reduces noise in the shadows.

Does this mean they're using ISO bracketing instead of exposure bracketing?

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

#5

> However, bracketing is not actually necessary; one can use the same exposure time in every shot. By using a short exposure HDR+ avoids blowing out highlights, and by combining enough shots it reduces noise in the shadows. Does this mean they're using ISO bracketing instead of exposure bracketing?

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!

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

#6
post #3

Not really interesting since other OEMs have had this for years. Good to see Google trying to keep up with their low cost alternative offerings, however.

I have had HDR+ for over a year. This post is an overview of the technology and not a product launch.

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

#7
post #5

> However, bracketing is not actually necessary; one can use the same exposure time in every shot. By using a short exposure HDR+ avoids blowing out highlights, and by combining enough shots it reduces noise in the shadows. Does this mean they're using ISO bracketing instead of exposure bracketing?

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 pictures in rapid succession and then processing them. Each picture would be in a very slightly different position and so (again, in theory) might provide more data?

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

#9
Meh. The camera software on Android is so bad that a default-setting picture from an iPhone looks as good or better than an HDR picture on Android. People have demonstrated the quality you can get from the sensor on a Nexus 5 if you capture raw and process offline[1]. I realize that these Google[x] researchers are probably not responsible for the mainline camera application, but the organizational details of Android management don't interest me. What would interest me would be an Android camera app that captures decent pictures, has usable auto-exposure and auto-focus algorithms, and doesn't take tens of seconds to start.

1: http://imgur.com/a/qQkkR#0

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

#10
post #8

I posted this 2 hours ago [1] and both the posts are in home; the URLs differ just by a trailing question mark. How come the duplicate detector didn't trigger? [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8515417

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