One of the key features of the new iOS 4.1 software for me was the new HDR (High Dynamic Range) camera mode. Mobile phone cameras are notoriously crappy and the iPhone is still just a phone. The iPhone’s camera is pretty good for what it is but it still really struggles with exposure.
HDR is a process of taking several identical shots (in the case of the iPhone, it is three) except with different exposure levels and then combining them to even out the detail levels across the whole shot. Example: you take a shot of a friend on the street on a bright sunny day, your friend is nicely exposed but the sky is completely blown out and white when to your naked eye it was lovely and blue. To create the HDR image you would have a photo that has the sky nicely exposed, another with your friend nicely exposed and then a third with the shadows nicely exposed. When combined you get all the detail across the three exposures combined into one shot.
Up until recently, HDR photos were created using software. You would take a bracketed photo (several shots fired of automatically by the camera at scaled exposure levels) and then combine them on the computer. Now many cameras have an HDR feature built in and it does the work for you. I think (I could be wrong), the iPhone is one of the first mobile phones to feature HDR in the camera.
I, like a lot of people, took a look at the samples on Apple’s website and thought the results were impressive. But I wondered (I’m sure like a lot of people) how ‘real’ the photos were. I mean it would have been easy to throw the photos in Photoshop and just boost the colours a little or clean them up just a bit, so I thought for a little experiment I would take a couple of shots myself and see how good the iPhone HDR was. Here are the results, the standard photo is first and then the HDR image.
I have not doctored these photos in anyway, they are shot around my neighbourhood and dragged straight off the phone and posted here, I haven’t even resized or renamed them. Pretty impressive results. I think I will find myself using the HDR feature a lot. Just one note though, don’t expect to be able to take action shots as the process slows the camera down and if the subject is moving too fast you will get ghosting as the camera can’t get the information fast enough.
What do you think? Impressive for a phone or not? Comment below.
