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Photos: Apple iPhone update iOS 4.1 tested (1)

Photos: Apple iPhone update iOS 4.1 tested (1)

Hands-on with new features including Game Center and HDR photo option

Apple’s iOS 4.1 update offers new features and bug fixes for the iPhone and iPod Touch and also activates the long-awaited Game Center feature. Here, silicon.com sister site CNET puts the iOS 4.1 update through its paces.

In the camera viewfinder, you’ll now see an option for taking high dynamic range (HDR) photos at the top of the display between the controls for the flash and switching between the front and back lenses.

The default setting is for HDR photos to be on, but you can turn the feature off. The HDR feature is available only on the iPhone 4.

When you take an HDR photo, the camera will take three shots in rapid succession. One image with normal exposure, another will be underexposed, and the third will be overexposed. You’ll hear only one shutter sound during the process.

To finish the process, the device will combine the shots into a single HDR photo. As it works, the screen will darken and a progress wheel will appear.

The camera will save the image with normal exposure as well as the HDR image to your gallery. Here is the image shot with normal exposure.

And here’s the HDR image.

Here are both images. Though many low-end camera photos can struggle with cloudy days - often their images are blown out - the iPhone does a relatively good job of handling it.

The HDR photo (bottom) is noticeably brighter than the normal image. It borders on too bright, but it’s a better representation of actual conditions than the normal image.

Both photos will save automatically to your photo gallery. You can see them in the bottom right corner.

If desired, you can choose to save only the HDR image to the gallery. You can access this option in the Photos section of the Settings menu.

[Thanks: http://www.silicon.com]

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