Vivo’s AI-Powered ‘Super HDR’ Blends 12 Separate Exposures

The Chinese smartphone manufacturer Vivo is trying to beat Google at the HDR game. It has unveiled a new AI-powered feature called “Super HDR,” which claims to produce better high dynamic range photos with more natural results.

GSMArena reports that Vivo’s technology captures 12 separate exposures of the scene in rapid succession and intelligently blends them together for a single composite photo.

By comparison, Google’s highly acclaimed HDR+ technology captures and combines up to 10 exposures.

Vivo’s smartphone then uses scene detection to identify different elements in the photo (e.g. people, clouds, trees) to determine how to expose each of them separately using the data from the 12 exposures.

This strategy purportedly produces wide dynamic range while avoiding the unnatural, over-processed look that HDR photos are known for. Here are some sample photos shot using Vivo’s “Super HDR”:

No word yet on when this “Super HDR” feature will appear in a Vivo smartphone, or if/when that phone will be available in the United States.

(via GSMArena via DPReview)

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