Saturday, July 30, 2016

Is Microsoft Pix Better Than the iPhone Camera App?

This is a wild claim to make. The camera is one of the most used apps on the iPhone, and most of the photos shared online are taken with one. So, why would this app beat the iPhone's camera app? According to the video, Microsoft Pix is a smart camera, and looking at the features, it seems like they might've developed something quite great. 

Purpose

It's a smartphone camera app. So, it's for taking pictures of your family and friends, and obviously not for professional work. The app is built around capturing people. Its pre-photo setting and post-photo enhancements adjust automatically so your crowd automatically look their best. It optimizes focus, color, and exposure and auto-enhances each shot so you can compare the difference.

How It Works

It takes bursts of shots before and after you take the shot and puts them together. It keeps the best photos and deletes the rest so you don't waste any memory. Artificial intelligence? Yes. It uses it to adjust the camera settings to best fit the scene. You are left with no settings to set according to your taste, so it takes a specific segment in the iPhoneography arena. And, I think it's pushing too far saying that it's like having a professional photographer in your phone. You don't have any exposure controls or HDR modes. You are left with only a shutter button; the app does the rest. Another feature is that if it identifies interesting motion, it stitches together all the images and creates a short looping video. It also does hyperlapse, cinemagraphs and super stable video: 

Taken with the ​iPhone 6S regular camera app

iPhone 6S, stabilized with Microsoft Pix

Conclusion

It has only been out in the wild since yesterday, and I will surely play around with it over the weekend. My default way of taking a photo with my phone is by sliding up, so it's going to take some discipline for me to actually browse to the app and open it to take a picture, but let's give it a shot. Download it here. Let us know what you think about it in the comments.


Source: Is Microsoft Pix Better Than the iPhone Camera App?

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