Back in October, along with unveiling the Lumia 1520 at the Nokia World 2013, Nokia also announced that the phablet will come with a new camera app called Refocus Lens. What this app essentially does is bring Lytro-like features that let users to choose the point of focus in a photograph after it has been clicked. Nokia had promised that other Lumias would soon get the app, and moments ago it delivered on that promise.
This release is right on line with what BGR India had exclusively revealed back in May. In an interview, Nokia’s Jo Harlow had talked about how Nokia plans on using computational imaging. She had said, “If you look at where imaging is going computational imaging is an area of exploration. Being able to capture even more data — data you cannot even see with the human eye that you can only see by actually going back to the picture and being able to do things with them,” she said.
When using the app, one has to first focus on an object closest to the camera and click the photo. The app will take a couple of seconds to capture the image, while performing a focus sweep and creating a depth map.
The final result merges around six to eight images with different focus into one image. This is also why one can click on various parts of a photo later on to change the focus of the image. Nokia uses algorithms instead of complex hardware to achieve this and also offers a feature called ‘Color Pop’, which highlights or lets one add colors to that photo.
Once you have clicked a photo, the app lets users upload them onto SkyDrive on a specially created page called refocus.nokia.com. Another unique feature lets their friends have fun with the photos once they are posted on Facebook. Users will be able to play around with the focus of the photo right there on the News Feed.
The Refocus Lens app is compatible with Nokia’s Lumia PureView smartphones that include the likes of the Lumia 920, Lumia 925, Lumia 928 and Lumia 1020 (with Amber installed).
