Microsoft — yes, Microsoft — has demonstrated a technique consisting of a combination of inexpensive gyroscopes and accelerometer attached to a DSLR camera to estimate a blur function from the camera’s acceleration and angular velocity during an exposure and then deblur the resultant image.

The most common commercial approach for reducing image blur today is image stabilization (IS). They are mechanical methods that dampen camera motion by either offsetting lens elements or move the image sensor. Image Deblurring (ID) is similar to current IS methods in that it also uses inertial sensors but, while IS tries to dampen motion by assuming that the past motion predicts the future motion and reduces blur, ID records the actual camera motion and removes the blur from the image. ID can dampen 2D motion, camera roll, up to six degrees of motion.

The results are pretty convincing and amazing. See for yourself:

Read the article and view the images at: Microsoft.

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Sometimes one pictures can tell a whole story. At other times, a number of related pictures is necessary to tell the story with the poignancy and impact required. The Picture Story is still a mainstay of some prestigious photo competition but is not as frequent today in print magazines as before. And no, a gallery of loosely related pictures does not a Picture Story makes.

Jim Pickerell over at Black Star Rising has an interesting take on the Picture Story, one that not every photographer will welcome. It entails learning to use the video capability of their camera (increasingly available on DSLRs) to create the modern Picture Story. “With short-form video, photographers can become storytellers again.”

Read the article at: Black Star Rising.