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Tag Archive | "camera"

Editing HD Video with Movie Studio on Android 3.0 / Motorola Xoom [video]


xoom androidTablets increasingly seem to want to go from companion device to dedicated device, but there’s a lot of catching up to do in terms of productivity before that can actually happen. Today, most modern smartphones are capable of capturing 720p video, that means that if a tablet wants even a chance at being a standalone device, it’s going to need to at least be able to edit those files.

Android 3.0 (honeycomb) comes pre-baked with a Movie Studio application which wowed the press with what appeared to be full-fledged video editing on the tablet. But now that the Xoom [tracking page] is available to the public, we have to ask (and I can’t believe I haven’t seen people be more critical about this): Is the video editing really up to the task? You be the judge:

Incidentally, this video was shot, edited, and processed on an iPhone 4 (but not uploaded, damn YouTube file size limitations!).

Video Recorded Entirely with Nokia N8 Shows Off Its Camera Capabilities


n8 macro

Nokia has a long history of building quality cameras into it’s phones. Chippy swears by his trusty N82 as a pocket camera, and I was very impressed with the N900’s camera. Nokia’s latest phone, the N8 is certainly living up to the family name.

We’ve seen the N8 used to shoot the cover of a magazine, and now it’s been used to shoot a short but entertaining video with impressive quality. Using a macro lens and a telescope, the entire following video was recorded with the N8, check it out:

N8 dreams ["Night" dreams] from keirux on Vimeo.

N8 dreams [“Night” dreams] from keirux on Vimeo.

This makes me want a pocketable steady cam rig!

iPhone 4 Auto-HRD Comparison and Tips for Use


final shotMy apologies for not getting to this post sooner. Apple released a very cool HDR mode for the iPhone 4 with the iOS 4.1 update. As tempting as it was, HDR wasn’t enough to get me to jump on the upgrade right away and I instead decided to wait for 4.1 to be jailbroken. But now that iOS 4.1 has been freed of Apple’s restrictions and I’ve had some time to play with the iPhone 4’s HDR mode, I’d like to share with you some comparison photos and tips on get the most out of the feature.

First up, let’s talk about what HDR does and how it works on the iPhone.

HDR stands for High Dynamic Range. HDR photos fuse together shots of multiple exposures to get the most exposure detail out of a given scene. The idea is that in one shot, a static exposure could lead to a particular area of the photo being under-exposed (too dark), or over-exposed (too bright). By capturing multiple exposures and selectively combining them into a final photo, you can achieve a photo that is more realistic to what is being seen by the human eye as each part of the photo is exposed properly.

How does it work on the iPhone? I don’t have access to it’s inner workings, but from my testing, I have happily concluded that this is actual HDR, not simulated. I say “actual inch in the sense that the iPhone 4 is fusing multiple photographs into one, rather than taking a baseline shot and doing some post-effects to simulate HDR. The selection of the various exposures of each photo and the fusing/alignment of the photos together is all handled automatically; the algorithms that power this process are very good. Unless you are trying to capture moving subjects, you’ll probably never find a poorly fused or aligned photo.

Snapping a photo with the HDR mode takes barely longer than taking a regular photo which is very impressive. The aligning/fusing process takes just a few seconds after the shots are captured. There is a very high rate of return when it comes to quality shots because of how quickly each of the individual photos are captured. With a slower capture process, the HDR mode would be subject to any slight movements during the duration of the capture process. If Apple wasn’t able to make HDR photo capture this quick and have such a high return of properly aligned/fused photos, they wouldn’t have implemented the feature.

So what does it actually accomplish? Let’s take a look:

1010 (2)

6 6 (2)

1 1 (2)

44 (2)

9 (2)9

It’s important for me to note that most of the above examples are some of the more drastic ones that I’ve seen. You should be able to see how the improperly exposed areas are removed and replaced with properly exposed regions from other shots. The overall effect tends to be more natural looking photos with more accurate lighting and more detail revealed compared to under/over-exposed photos.

Apple isn’t usually one for options, but you can actually toggle to keep the original photo and the HDR shot in your photo roll if you’d like (you’ll find this options in the Settings app). This is handy because you can compare the two afterword and decided which you like best. I tend to leave HDR mode on all the time. The process is that quick and simple that it’s worth it to keep it turned on for every shot.

Knowing how to utilize HDR on the iPhone 4 can help you capture the most properly exposed photos. Here’s how I do it:

With HDR mode enabled, I use tap-to-focus (which focuses and adjusts exposure) to select the darkest park of the scene. This blows out anything that’s lighter than the darkest part, but the HDR mode seems to compensate better by decreasing exposure on the blown out portions of the scene (as opposed to increasing exposure on the darker/under-exposed parts). I used this technique on the first photo, which combined very dark and very light areas, in order to dramatically demonstrate HDR capabilities.

By recognizing this and using it to our advantage, it’s possible to take shots that capture photos that are exposed properly across all parts of the scene, and recreate a scene with much more detail and depth than is possible with a single photo. I hope to see similar implementations on upcoming competitor devices, but I’d be surprised if they were this good.

Four Galaxy S Phones and Four Cameras


galaxy s phonesTnkgrl mobile couldn’t have better timing. While I just finished up my Samsung Fascinate review, here comes tnkgrl with a great comparison of the four big carrier Galaxy S phones.

Tnkgrl puts the Fascinate [tracking page], Epic [tracking page], Captivate, and Vibrant side by side with photo and video comparisons and offers her usual experienced commentary on their performance. Head on over to her site to check it out the full range of photos and videos.

Samsung Galaxy Tab Sample Videos, Specifications, Original Download


I messed up! Many Tab owners will end up doing the same too because of the position of the built-in mic. When taking videos in a classic ‘mirrored looser’ hand shape you need to be careful. Here’s the effect in my first video uploaded direct from the Galaxy Tab.

Note the muffled video then watch this one. Much better! The quality is actually quite good. It’s H.264 at 720×480 with a 64kbps AAC soundtrack for a total 4.2mbps bitrate. That’s why you don’t see any ripping or wobbly effects. The original file is even better. Bear in mind this one was taken in difficult conditions. I could make a much better video in sunlight! The LED lamp helps though. File analysis from KMPlayer included below.

The question remains though – why not 720p? Continuous auto-focus would have been nice too.

File details. (Download original here) Can someone explain why this is marked as NTSC? I thought that was for analogue format, not digital.
Format : MPEG-4
Format profile : 3GPP Media Release 4
Codec ID : 3gp4
File size : 40.6 MiB
Duration : 1mn 20s
Overall bit rate : 4 239 Kbps
Video #2
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : Baseline@L3.0
Format settings, CABAC : No
Format settings, ReFrames : 1 frame
Muxing mode : Container profile=Unknown@12.3
Codec ID : avc1
Codec ID/Info : Advanced Video Coding
Duration : 1mn 20s
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 4 173 Kbps
Width : 720 pixels
Height : 480 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 1.500
Frame rate mode : Variable
Frame rate : 29.804 fps
Minimum frame rate : 6.211 fps
Maximum frame rate : 1 000.000 fps
Standard : NTSC
Resolution : 24 bits
Colorimetry : 4:2:0
Scan type : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.405
Stream size : 40.0 MiB (98%)
Audio #1
Format : AAC
Format/Info : Advanced Audio Codec
Format version : Version 4
Format profile : LC
Format settings, SBR : No
Codec ID : 40
Duration : 1mn 20s
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 62.4 Kbps
Maximum bit rate : 67.4 Kbps
Channel(s) : 1 channel
Channel positions : C
Sampling rate : 16.0 KHz
Resolution : 16 bits
Stream size : 609 KiB (1%)

Never Judge a Camera By Its Megapixels


As nearly every smartphone is expected to have a camera these days, there is an important lesson that people must heed. Cameras are more complex than a simple megapixel rating. It’s a common belief that when it comes to megapixels, bigger is better. But I’m here to tell you that you need to look deeper if you are basing your smartphone decision on which has the best camera. Megapixels have their use. A pixel dense picture is great if you want to crop it down and still retain good quality, but beyond that there is more to be considered.

Case-in-point, the Droid 2 [portal page] and the iPhone 4 [portal page]. Both phones have 5MP sensors. This means that they capture 5 million pixels in a given image. Both phones might capture the same number of pixels, but the quality and size of the sensor dictates how accurately each pixel is sampled and how much light it can capture. Another important factor is focus. Without a good focus algorithm (and no ability to manually focus), you’ll end up with a blurry shot no matter how many megapixels your camera can capture.

To demonstrate this, have a quick look at the two photos below. One is taken with the iPhone 4 and the other with the Droid 2. Both were taken under the same lighting conditions and were focused as accurately as possible (click for full size):

2010-10-12_12-37-44_59

photo (1)

You may have to click for the full-sized images to see, but the image taken with the Droid 2 is blurry and has inaccurate colors.

This is a result of the Droid 2’s camera not being able to capture as much light as the iPhone 4, as well as the inability to focus as accurately. This is all despite the fact that both phones have the same megapixel rating.

But what can you do if you don’t have the phones to try before you buy? A bit of research may go a long way if a camera is important to you. I’d recommend checking Flickr’s camera page. Find your desired smartphone and then browse the photos to get an idea of the photos that the phone is capable of taking. And of course we’ll always do our best to give you camera comparisons and tips right here at Carrypad.

How to Search Flickr for your photos taken with a particular camera


As I look to organise and tag my Flickr images more orderly i’ve been looking for a way to search for photos I shot using different cameras. Using advanced search doesnt give a camera option but I found a way.

Via this post I found that you can search for images from certain cameras so I yanked the search term from the URL and applied it to a search URL that included my user id. It worked so I need to write this down for reference.

Examples:

Searching for all photos of orchids taken with an N82 yields this search URL.

http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=orchid&cm=nokia%2Fn82

You can see the section “&cm=nokia%2Fn82” take note of that.

Now a search for orchids from my photos. Note: The 12345678 is not my user ID. I’ve changed it. You’ll see yours when you do your own search.

http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=orchid&w=12345678%40N00

Now you have your user id, put it together with the camera fieldĀ  in a new URL so:

http://www.flickr.com/search/?w=12345678%40N00&cm=nokia%2Fn82

Trala! You’ll find all images taken with an N82. Obviously you’ll need to replace the camera ID. All camera IDs are listed here.

http://www.flickr.com/cameras/

Have fun.

Detailed iPhone 4 vs. Droid X Camera Comparison


2010-08-09_19-29-18_983 IMG_1899

While I dropped some test images and videos comparing the iPhone 4 and Droid X myself, I wanted to highlight and article over at tnkgrl Mobile which has more comparison info and a detailed write-up of the strengths and weaknesses in the cameras of each phone. If you are looking for a phone with a good camera, you are definitely looking in the right direction with the Droid X and iPhone 4, but between those two, finding which one fits you might just depend on which type of user you are.

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