How would you like an app that transforms your regular 8-megapixel iPhone 6 camera into a 32-megapixel one?
Okay, so it’s not exactly as miraculous as it sounds, but photography app Hydra is a worthy tool to add to your virtual camera bag. It works by taking a series of up to 60 small images and then stitching them together to form one super high-resolution picture.
While it isn’t true 32-megapixel photography, it’s still an altogether impressive app that only serves to underline just why the iPhone camera has been so embraced by users.
High resolution images aren’t all Hydra does, either. It can also improve low-light photography, which is an area the iPhone has traditionally struggled with. The dedicated Lo-Light mode removes sensor noise for cleaner looking images by merging multiple pictures and amplifying light by a factor of 10.
There’s additionally a zoom mode, using a technique which recreates missing pixels from hand motion, producing 2x and 4x scale factors with more details than the standard digital zooming technique.
Hydra is currently available for $4.99, which includes an introductory 40% off its normal price. We’re seeing more and more uses for iPhone cameras in the real world (one of the biggest hits of the Sundance Film Festival was even shot with one), and this is a great reminder of just why they’re so versatile.
Luke Dormehl is a U.K.-based journalist and author, with a background working in documentary film for Channel 4 and the BBC. He is the author of The Apple Revolution and The Formula: How Algorithms Solve All Our Problems … and Create More, both published by Penguin/Random House. His tech writing has also appeared in Wired, Fast Company, Techmeme and other publications.
6 responses to “New app promises to give your iPhone a 32MP camera”
I’ve been using this app for the past couple minutes and the quality has really impressed me, I would’ve still liked to see more manual controls but I understand why those necessarily couldn’t have worked.
4 x 8 megapixel creates an image of a larger area, but not a more detailed picture like a 32 megapixel sensor would do.
It says it’s $2.99
This app is absolute garbage. If you don’t hold the subject and the phone absolutely still for a count of at least 10 the shot will be very blurry.
This app is not ready for launch…
Geo Tagging places me in China no less!
The iPhone 5, 6, and 6+ can already do PANORAMIC Photos up to 38 Megapixels with automatic stitching. To do better than this, Hydra will need to do tiling of photos not simply do panoramics.
This isn’t a new idea. Cortex Camera has being doing something very similar for awhile. It’s not great for moving objects (kids, waves) but landscapes come out well. I’ve used it to take an ultra-sharp picture that can be radically cropped (the end result is similar to a telephoto lens).
It would be useful if this article had compared the two apps, along with any others that might use this technique. One comment here says this doesn’t handle image stabilization well, which seems an important consideration as you have to hold the camera still for the time it takes to take the raw pictures.