Nokia N900 captured a Jaguar in HDR

31st March 2011
Trivandrum

I have been carrying a Nokia N900 mobile phone for some time. I brought it so that I could do some programming stuffs and things like that. But lately I came across some sweet surprises. The N900 can take awesome pictures too.


Nokia N900 has 5 MP sensor with Carl Zeiss lens. The inbuilt camera takes average though decent pictures, I would rather say.
But a Maemo application 'BlessN900' turned my N900 into a something which most DSLR users can't even think of. N900 could take in-camera HDR pictures!! For people who don't know what an HDR or High dynamic range photography is, there is Google.

In-camera HDRs are different stuff. Most of the time an HDR picture is taken using several bracketed shots taken in 3-5 exposures and later combined and tone mapped using a computer. And that is one heck of a boring thing to do, it takes atleast 1/2 hrs to setup the PC, download photos and then the processing itself takes some time depending upon the number of pics and size. BlessN900 app does the bracketing, clicking, and processing, everything from the device itself . The result is, we will be taking more HDR pictures when the circumstances are right for an HDR.

Some of the conditions I have seen that produces awesome HDR photos are.
  1. High contrast areas, eg a bright sky and dark church with dark green moss on the walls.
  2. Metal (cars, bulldozers, train engine) in direct sunlight (Jaguar picture below)
  3. Old deserted alleys with cracked walls.
  4. Shiny glass buildings and bright sky with clouds.
  5. Inside of a room with windows allowing harsh light in.
Moving things are bad for HDR. Taking 3 shots in succession can create problem with moving things like moving cars, walking people, flying birds, trees in wind etc.
Similarly I have seen pitch black areas create too much noise in the dark places in pics, especially in a smaller sensor like in N900's.

Enjoy some of the photos I took using Nokia N900....

Jaguar in Trivandrum






Somelinks
http://maemo.org/downloads/product/Maemo5/blessn900/
http://www.stuckincustoms.com/hdr-tutorial