Recently, the hottest video in the technology circle should be the "flash shooting" function of the Huawei Pura 70 series.
On the Huawei Pura 70 series, which was released last week, Huawei brought a new high-speed capture feature, Flash Shot. The official said that with the blessing of the algorithm, while ensuring the capture rate, the Pura 70 can greatly restore the details, and can capture moving objects with a maximum speed of 300km/h. This speed means that speeding cars, fast-running pets, and even high-speed trains in operation can capture high-resolution photos.
So these days, users who have just gotten the new Huawei Pura 70 series have begun to work hard, shooting bicycles, high-speed rail, and lightning...... The most widely circulated video should be this video of the CD player. As you can see, using the Huawei Pura 70 Ultra to shoot a CD at high speed still ensures that the contents on the CD are clearly visible. If you change to other mobile phones, there is a high probability that all you will shoot is a mass of afterimages.
When everyone used Huawei Pura 70 to do all kinds of high-speed capture work, some netizens raised questions.
Some netizens posted a video of shooting fans with old Nokia mobile phones. The video shows someone filming a high-speed rotating fan with a Nokia N8 phone released 14 years ago, and the fan blades are clearly visible. Someone even took out an old Nokia feature phone and found that it could also shoot the blades clearly. On the contrary, today's smartphones can only shoot afterimages when they shoot directly at the fan.
Some people questioned: Nokia more than ten years ago, what is there to brag about beating the current flagship?
Before answering this question, let's figure it out: how can you get a good picture of a fan blade spinning at high speed?
The biggest factor in capturing high-speed moving objects is the camera's shutter speed. Shutter speed refers to the time it takes for a camera's shutter to open and close, and the shorter this time, the more images can be captured in a very short split second, thus "freezing" fast-moving objects such as fan blades. In general, to clearly photograph high-speed moving objects, shutter speeds may need to reach a few hundredths of a second, or even thousandths of a second.
You can do an experiment yourself: turn on the camera's Pro mode, adjust the shutter speed to 1/2000, and then point your phone at the open fan to shoot. You'll find that your phone will also be able to take pictures of the fan blades.
In other words, today's mobile phones can achieve the same "fan patting" effect by increasing the shutter speed.
Then the question arises again: if it can achieve high-speed shooting, why do mobile phone manufacturers "hide" this function? The reason is still the shutter.
The shutter is actually similar to a faucet, where the light passes through the faucet. The shorter the time the faucet is on, the less water will naturally come out. In the same way, the shutter speed has increased, and although it is possible to accurately capture high-speed moving images, the amount of light entering is greatly reduced. In this case, there will be a lot of noise in the photo, and there will be a large loss of detail and color in the picture, resulting in a very poor photo appearance.
In the early years, mobile phone photography was limited by algorithms and hardware, and the first thing to solve was the problem of "whether it can be photographed", rather than "whether it can be taken well". Moreover, there is no anti-shake mode and supporting various algorithm compensation, in order to ensure that the photos taken by the camera are clear and not blurry, a relatively high shutter value will be set in the default mode.
Nowadays, smartphones have been very complete in terms of optical image stabilization solutions and supporting image stabilization algorithms, and mobile phones no longer need to solve the problem of "shooting false" by simply increasing the shutter speed by force. At the same time, thanks to the significant increase in the size of the sensor and the popularity of large-aperture lenses, the amount of light entering per unit time is also incomparable to previous mobile phones.
As a result, in the default camera mode, the shutter speed of the phone is much lower than that of the models of more than a decade ago (usually about one hundredth of a second). With such a low shutter speed, it is natural that it cannot catch up with the "high-speed rotation" of the fan blades.
The third question that arises is: Since everyone can shoot objects moving at high speed, why is Huawei's flash shooting function popular this time?
Because the flash shooting function of Huawei Pura70 is really different.
Bruce Lee, CTO of Huawei terminal BG, publicly responded: We did not simply rely on increasing the shutter speed to avoid the problem of motion blur this time.
The most important core of the flash shooting function of the Huawei Pura70 series is actually the first-of-its-kind XD Motion motion engine.
As mentioned earlier, the biggest problem with high-speed shutter speeds is that they generate a lot of image noise, and at the same time, the background detail and dynamic range of the image are lost. In other words, the height shutter still solves the problem of whether the high-speed moving object itself can be "photographed", but it cannot solve the quality and beauty of the photo itself.
You can also try shooting at high shutter speed, and even if you capture moving footage, the photos are still miserable in many scenes. Especially in some complex or low-light environments, the picture is accompanied by a large number of loss of details and noise.
Huawei's solution is very clever: when shooting high-speed moving objects, the sensor of the Huawei Pura70 series is actually working in real time with dual exposure. At the moment of taking a photo, the short exposure freezes the details of the object, and the long exposure retains rich background information. Then, through AI motion vector calculation, the images captured by long and short exposures are matched with local features, and the local motion blur is restored, and finally a high-quality clear photo is generated.
In other words, when taking photos with the flash shooting function of the Huawei Pura 70 series, the camera is actually exposed twice the moment the shutter is pressed. The short exposure of the high-speed shutter captures high-speed moving objects, while the long exposure addresses the environmental information of the surrounding environment. Then, through AI calculation, the two photos are combined into one photo with clear image quality while retaining high-speed moving images.
Compared with the single-frame output solution or dual-frame fusion solution that simply adjusts the shutter speed, the advantage of the Huawei Pura70 series is that users can not only shoot, but also shoot well. In our actual experience, the detail and look and feel of the high-speed graphics displayed by this feature are quite good.
To achieve such a function, sensors and image processors are required to process and compute large amounts of complex data in a short period of time, while at the same time integrating with AI capabilities, which is not easy. The fact that the Huawei Pura70 series can do this shows that it has made a lot of progress at the relevant technical level. Huawei's flash shooting ability this time is several orders of magnitude better than the previous Nokia, both in terms of shooting experience and technical difficulty. Say that Nokia seconds Huawei Pura70 more than ten years ago, don't be kidding.
It is almost certain that after the Huawei Pura70 series brings the high-speed capture function, other mobile phone manufacturers will definitely follow suit. By the second half of this year at the latest, the main flagship phones should be equipped with this function. Even the possibility that older mobile phones can upgrade their high-speed capture capabilities through OTA is not ruled out. If you are interested in this feature, you should not be able to wait too long to use it.