Comments on: Are “Low Light” iPhone Camera Apps Bogus?

By: Stephen Matthews

Stephen Matthews — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 00:18:56 +0000

So long exposure shots would also be impossible with the 0.2 Second fixed exposure time?
I suppose the image would get too noisy as well due to the sensor being quite simple?

By: Guido Appenzeller

Guido Appenzeller — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 17:02:29 +0000

I believe you are correct that NightShot isn’t doing anything with the image, but simply wait for the right time to take a photo. My point is that at the very least the people developing NightShot don’t understand what they are doing. With a fixed length rolling shutter, the exposure time for a shot at bright daylight and at night is be identical. Let’s assume for a second NightShot improves picture quality, it should improve it exactly the same in bright sunlight (as the exposure is 200ms) and in complete darkness (as the exposure time is still 200ms). NightShot though specifically claims on their web site that their application works best at night. Unless I am missing something that doesn’t make any sense.

Now in theory it could be that they just improve any image, whether day or night. At least the anecdotal evidence of people that ran comparisons seems to indicate that there is no tangible difference though.

By: Manu Kumar

Manu Kumar — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 15:25:14 +0000

If I recall correctly, an application like NightShot is not doing anything with the image. It’s NOT doing image stabilization. What it is doing is in software delaying the button press for the exposure to happen based on when the accelerometer reports that the phone is moving less. i.e. pressing the button doesn’t take the image, but it tells the app “please take an image, when the accelerometer reports the phone is mostly still” So the improvement comes from the delayed exposure (kind of like using a remote for a DSLR to overcome the vibrations from pressing the button) and not from any fancy image processing.

By: Rob Adams

Rob Adams — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 00:05:52 +0000

I’d be shocked if the iPhone accelerometer has anywhere near the resolution you’d need to make IS work. Also, I would assume that the iPhone has no shutter at all but rather a sort of “soft shutter” that scans the sensor in a predefined rolling shutterish pattern.