"Auto Horizon Leveling" The Next Big Thing?

I was thinking about the advances made to P&S cameras over the past five years or so. Image Stabilization, Face Detection ... Smile Detection now...

What about a system that would automatically correct photos for tilted horizons? It could either use an orientation sensor to shift an optical element or apply the change digitally to the shot after it was taken using data from the orientation sensor. It would greatly cut down on PP time. Any word if this is being studied?

That's what cameras with grid lines in the viewfinder are for.

Good idea, I suppose you would need some kind of override for those tilted artistic shots though.

you forgot flip screens

Nikon has a virtual horizon meter in the D3.

Horizon leveling would be a good thing if it would save the original "crooked" shot along with the "fixed" shot, the same way the "my colours" option does. Without the original shot, part of the shot would be cropped out by the camera never to be seen again (what if there was a UFO on the corner of your picture of grandma sunbathing topless on the beach LOL) As for leveling the horizon before taking the shot, it would only be good if the camera didn't constantly show you a straightened result, but only when it detects a pre-programmed "template" in it's memory that looks like a typical landscape. Also, obviously it would have to be something you can turn off in your settings because it could be annoying for some users, especially if you're hand holding the camera.

I'm not sure if this already exists, but I was thinking of an in-camera gps that would save the info in the exif. It would be useful for geocaching, for use in google earth, or handheld and in-car gps devices.

Rob

There are both cameras that can be coupled with GPS receivers to embed coordinates at the time of shooting and post-processing solutions that will let you sync your GPS track with your photos, assuming the camera's time is set correctly. I don't recall any consumer cameras that have a built-in GPS, but some photogrammetric cameras do.

This would be a nice option; even pros occasinally skew a horizon by a degree or two.