Background Defocus, for me, is a new feature on the Xperia Z2. I think this may be available on previous Xperia phones such as the Xperia Z1, but being an old Xperia SP owner I had to settle for using my skill and hard work to get a decent picture out of my phone. The general idea of Background Defocus is pretty self explanatory, it focuses on one object and blurs the background. The idea from Sony is to simplify photography for everyone and make it less challenging to get a decent and professional picture out of a smartphone camera.
As you can see from these two pictures below, the touch capture was my best friend before the days of Background Defocus. Some decent results were always possible on the Xperia SP if you were willing to wait for the camera to understand what you were trying to do by moving the camera lens closer and further numerous times to get the image to focus right. Though even when it did work the image was often slightly, well, unfocused.
As you can see from these two pictures below, the touch capture was my best friend before the days of Background Defocus. Some decent results were always possible on the Xperia SP if you were willing to wait for the camera to understand what you were trying to do by moving the camera lens closer and further numerous times to get the image to focus right. Though even when it did work the image was often slightly, well, unfocused.
The closest penguin always annoyed me in this picture, everything else is perfect!
Poor George looking good, but a little unfocused.
That was the Xperia SP, several generations old now, and is only a mid ranged phone. This new high end edition of the Xperia range, the Xperia Z2, has a new weapon in our way against poor pictures, so lets see what it can do.
The Xperia Z2, like with everything else in its cocktail of new features, makes things just so easy now. Simply point your camera in Background Defocus mode, touch capture the image you want to focus on, then keep the camera as still as possible. The camera will take two shots, one of the focused image you selected and one of an out of focused background. The phone will then process the image and decide where to blur and where to focus, often with decent results.
It will then show you the finished result and give you a choice of being able to blur more or less of the background and even chose from a selection of types of blur.
Pretty simple stuff, right? Almost takes the fun and sport out of photography, right? Wrong!
Though not necessarily in a good way.
You need to be very careful with this application as it is incredible temperamental. Anything moving, like an animal, person, moving object or even a tree or plant which gets slightly blown in the wind will end up making Background Defocus fail and you will have to try again. Background Defocus seems to take a lot of processing power (Even for Bionz) so it will then take another 5-6 seconds for it to load up and try again. This may not sound like a lot of time but when you are trying to capture a moment, it really is!
You need to be very careful with this application as it is incredible temperamental. Anything moving, like an animal, person, moving object or even a tree or plant which gets slightly blown in the wind will end up making Background Defocus fail and you will have to try again. Background Defocus seems to take a lot of processing power (Even for Bionz) so it will then take another 5-6 seconds for it to load up and try again. This may not sound like a lot of time but when you are trying to capture a moment, it really is!
It is not impossible mind, this cat was moving a little bit while this picture was taken and the picture turned out ok. Though I personally felt like I had gotten lucky.
My 3 year old, famous for never keeping still, yet it still worked after much trying. So do not lose faith, but I do expect you to lose patients!
A light touch of BD.
BD working well with HDR through Snapseed.
A lovely shot of BD on a statue. If you have an inanimate object then this is a dream feature to use.
Perfect shot.
Ely cathedral.
Don't get me wrong though, Background Defocus is a great feature to use with photography, though it can be slightly infuriating at times being so temperamental. I think it still have a long way to go before it can be considered a complete replacement in photography as the artificial intelligence does not always put the blurring on the correct places, and the blurring will sometimes creep on to the image you want focused like a hazy mist.
Sadly this is the best example I have since I often end up deleting the images which do not turn out right. You can see how the AI struggles to tell where the front and background image is, so it adds defocus over lapping the central image you want focused.
Conclusion:
I think Background Defocus is a prime example of how useful technology is getting now days. With apps like Snapseed, a cocktail of award winning hardware in the Xperia Z2 and decent features from Sony like Augmented Reality, HDR and Background Defocus crammed in to their latest phones, a decent picture can be taken by absolutely anyone. Give Background Defocus a year or two and this will really be a hot feature!
Heck, it already is really, as I use Background Defocus more than most of the other photography features on the Z2's camera.
Give it a try, you cant argue with results!
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