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CVPR
2010
IEEE

Noise-Optimal Capture for High Dynamic Range Photography

14 years 1 days ago
Noise-Optimal Capture for High Dynamic Range Photography
Taking multiple exposures is a well-established approach both for capturing high dynamic range (HDR) scenes and for noise reduction. But what is the optimal set of photos to capture? The typical approach to HDR capture uses a set of photos with geometrically-spaced exposure times, at a fixed ISO setting (typically ISO 100 or 200). By contrast, we show that the capture sequence with optimal worst-case performance, in general, uses much higher and variable ISO settings, and spends disproportionately longer capturing the dark parts of the scene. Based on a detailed model of noise, we show that optimal capture can be formulated as a mixed integer programming problem. Compared to typical HDR capture, our method lets us achieve higher worst-case SNR in the same capture time (for some cameras, up to 19 dB improvement in the darkest regions), or much faster capture for the same minimum acceptable SNR. Our experiments demonstrate this advantage for both real and synthetic scenes.
Samuel W. Hasinoff, Frédo Durand, and William T.
Added 31 Mar 2010
Updated 14 May 2010
Type Conference
Year 2010
Where CVPR
Authors Samuel W. Hasinoff, Frédo Durand, and William T. Freeman
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