Apparently Apple has it’s eye on HDR Photography and new version of iOS will allow for the creation of HDR photographs. Apple says that the new version of iOS 4.1 will allow iPhone and iPod Touch to shoot 3 photographs at high speed – something many people won’t be used to unless they’ve purchased a DSLR with AEB Continuous High Modes or Burst Modes.   You’ll then be able to merge the photos to become the one HDR Image right on one of the devices.

It will be interesting to see the quality of these photographs and how they may deal with ghosting & alignment – frequent issues in HDR photography. HDR photography refers to High Dynamic Range photography and is used by many photographers now.  It’s a technique that allows photographers to take multiple exposures of the same shot to capture the levels of light and detail within the light. The images are then merged to form an HDR image, however that HDR image needs to be tone mapped to produce a photograph that we’re able to properly see and connect with.  With this in mind, that’s why it will be so interesting to see how the iOS 4.1 devices will handle the merge and display of the final HDR photo.

Here’s the thing: Quality or garbage, the capability is on the way very very soon. I’ve been playing with the idea that my iPhone camera is my new toy camera.  By toy camera, I mean the movement in Lomography using a Holga, L-CA, Diana, etc.   I”ll be writing more on that but the continuous shots feature that will be possible in iOS 4.1 will become another tool for devices with a camera.

What could this functionality mean for camera app developers? Not being a developer, I wonder if there is something about the new iOS that will be great for development of powerful applications.  I would love to see Camera+ back in the appstore with some way to utilize this ability better than the native camera app.

I’ll be interested to see what other blogs discuss this feature and update. High Dynamic Range Photography on the iPhone is taking this technique all out mainstream.

I can’t wait to see what some new professional cameras may be able to accomplish in the near future too.

Related Reading on Wired: Apple Announces New Version of iOs