HDR photos not combined correctly

[Mic'sBook]

As you may know, when you take a photo with HDR enabled, the iPhone takes 3 photos in rapid succession. It takes one that's in normal exposure, one that's underexposed and one that's overexposed. The iPhone combines these 3 photos with its own algorithm to produce an HDR photo.



Now, when I take an HDR photo with my iPhone 4 running iOS 5.1.1, most of the time, there aren't any problems. However, the HDR photos sometimes aren't combined correctly, especially when taking photos of grids, straight lines, etc.

(The size of the photos below were reduced. Annotation was added and GPS information was removed. No other changes were made.)




Do you have this issue as well or do you think it's a software issue which will be fixed in iOS 6? Thanks in advance.

 

[pyroo]

You moved, you have to keep really still if you are taking photos that close using HDR

 

[Mic'sBook]

You moved, you have to keep really still if you are taking photos that close using HDR

Thanks for your reply and I know what you mean. But I didn't move when taking the above photos. I just can't figure out why this happens.

 

[pyroo]

Try taking a scenery picture and see if it still happens?

 

[Mic'sBook]

Try taking a scenery picture and see if it still happens?

Thanks for your reply. It won't happen when taking scenery photos. It happens only when taking photos with lots of grids, straight lines, etc.

 

[thomamon]

Thanks for your reply. It won't happen when taking scenery photos. It happens only when taking photos with lots of grids, straight lines, etc.

Good thing you don't take a lot of pictures of straight lines and grids...

 

[Mic'sBook]

Any thoughts on this? Thanks.

 

[dotme]

Any thoughts on this? Thanks.

Yes. You're asking the iPhone to decide between lining up the lines on the image, and the lines on your monitor

Psychic capabilities won't be included until iOS8.

Take a sheet of ruled notepaper, draw some lines that intersect the ruled lines, and take an HDR photo of it.

 

[Mic'sBook]

Yes. You're asking the iPhone to decide between lining up the lines on the image, and the lines on your monitor

Psychic capabilities won't be included until iOS8.

Take a sheet of ruled notepaper, draw some lines that intersect the ruled lines, and take an HDR photo of it.

The culprit is grids and straight lines. You may say it's the pixels on the display that confuse the iPhone 4's camera and its HDR algorithm. But take a look at these 2 photos (one normal; one HDR). They suffer from this issue either and they have nothing to do with pixels on the display as you said:

(The size of the photos below were reduced. Annotation was added and GPS information was removed. No other changes were made.)



I didn't move when I was taking this photo. I know the escalators were moving so don't count the people on the left and right. But do take a look at the sign in the middle, the metal lines of the moving stairs, the rubbish bins at the far end and the seams of the glass panes.

 

[Cynikal.Mindset]

personally I think this is a case of user error.

 

[CyBeRino]

See if this still happens while you aren't holding the camera at all. That is, the camera is laying down on a flat surface with the lens just over a ledge or something.

A coffee table with something under it to photograph would do.