At their press event yesterday, Apple announced version 4.1 of their iOS which included a bevy of impressive features. One particularly interesting addition is the ability for users of the iPhone and iPod touch to take HDR pictures. HDR, for those not familiar, stands for High Dynamic Range. Essentially, it involves taking several exposures of the same picture and combining them into one hyper-real image that is, ideally, exposed properly in every part of the image.
Apple, through a simple toggle in the Camera app, is integrating this feature into iOS 4.1. When taking a picture, your iDevice will actually take three: one at the normal exposure, one under-exposed, and one over-exposed. The three images will then be combined into one image that, in theory, should not have any washed out portions. Activating this feature will be as simple as tapping an icon on the screen in the Camera app. Both the HDR and the normal exposure image will be saved, so you can determine which you’d rather keep.
It remains to be seen how effective this feature is, but Apple deserves credit for adding yet another seemingly trivial feature that may end up being a huge convenience to photographers everywhere.
I used to carry a point and shoot camera around with me just about every where. But with the iPhone 4 in my pocket now – I am finding I need it less and less.