How the Pixel 2 Phone Gets Background Separation

I'm not ready for either a Pixel 2 or dumping dedicated cameras, but this is still interesting.

" . . . . To recreate that (shallow DOF) look with Pixel 2’s rear camera, we use the new Dual Pixel sensor to look through the left and right sides of the camera’s tiny lens at the same time—effectively giving us two cameras for the price of one. Using these two views we compute a depth map: the distance from the camera to each point in the scene. Then we blur the image based on the combination of the depth map and the segmentation mask . . . "

https://www.blog.googl​e …pixel-2s-camera-features/

Now they just need to add the DOF slider, and the bokeh filter to the profile so you can control how that OOF area looks... Do you want specular highlights to generate footballs, donuts, or just do a gradual smooth out...

The digital algorithm does seem to have some issues, if you look at parts of the neon sign. Something is throwing off their equations...

The transition between the in focus and out of focus areas never looks right to me. It's very abrupt and you don't see the relationship between distance and degree of blur that you do with true fast aperture glass. It looks like a composite where the subject was masked and feathered slightly at some defined border...because that's what it is.

That said, only a photographer would scrutinize things that heavily. It's pretty impressive what these smartphones can do these days and I am interested to see what smartphone type devices will be able to do in the future, and what that means for our big expensive cameras.

Interesting. Looks appropriate for Instagram or Snapchat. I had heard of halos and artifacts from fake phone bokeh before but never checked it out in detail until today. I looked at some of the after shots enlarged some, and even at 1/2 monitor size, I could see the halos, blurred outlines on subjects etc.

So the technology definitely is iffy for 8x10 size photos. I could see maybe 5 x 7 shots, which puts it in le league with the Litro camera.

If I didn't own a good camera, I'd probably use the phone's technology for social sites.