In the realm of mobile photography, achieving sharp images across all depths of field is a significant challenge, particularly when dealing with intricate scenes.
What is Focus-Stacking?
The concept of focus-stacking — a method used by photographers to increase depth of field by combining multiple images taken at different focus distances — is usually restricted to desktop software and camera setups.
Focus-stacking involves taking several photos of the same scene, each with a different focus point, and then blending these images together to create one image with greater depth of field than any of the individual source images. This technique is especially popular in macro, close-up photography and landscape photography.
Automatic Focus-Stacking on Android smartphones
Incorporating automatic focus-stacking into a smartphone platform introduces significant obstacles. Primarily, dedicated camera setups typically yield higher quality images compared to the lenses found in smartphones. This technique is inherently complex and demands substantial computational resources, including processing power and memory, which are often constrained on mobile devices. Additionally, the application demands careful fine-tuning to accommodate the diverse sensors and lenses of smartphones, to ensure minimal sacrifice of quality in the final picture.
The Multifocus Camera App
Multifocus camera app for Android devices tackles these challenges head-on. As of May 2024, it’s the only photography app on the Google Play Store to integrate focus stacking post-processing. After taking consecutive pictures at varying focus points, the app integrates focus-stacking algorithms directly on the smartphone, merging these images into a single final photo with enhanced focus depth.
The App provides an opportunity for both amateur and professional photographers to experiment with new creative possibilities with their smartphones, by leveraging processing algorithms and the increasing power and camera capabilities of modern smartphones.
This app makes experimenting with this photographic technique more accessible to a broader audience.