Google Glass photo update brings HDR, better low-light shots and captions

At Google I/O, the Glass team promised monthly updates for the head-mounted computer. Today, a new version of the software (XE6) is being shipped out to the few who have them so far and it contains a bunch of updates that center on images.

First, you can now shoot HDR images on Glass, which will help in high contrast situations. This involves taking a brighter, darker and mid-range image and combining them together to reproduce a fuller range of tones. It’s very common now on smartphones and other cameras, so it’s nice to see it come to Glass.

This means that Glass will now shoot a burst of images every time you snap the shutter, and then combine those images together to get you a better final result. Google says that this feature will also automatically detect low light situations and try to get you a brighter, sharper image. Google also says that the new feature should even work with moving subjects.

Google also provided some ‘before and after’ sample shots to show off the new feature’s capabilities:

You can view more samples in the post here. There are some low light examples that seem to be fairly improved as well, which would be good, as Glass has some pretty hefty issues with dark shots.

In our testing, it definitely did seem to have some improvement in low light areas, and the dynamic range in bright areas appeared to be boosted as well:

There’s also a new option to add a photo caption via voice as you share your photo out. Just tap and talk and a caption will appear with your social sharing to Google+. This does not appear to work with Twitter at the moment. Google says that there are also some other improvements in this release.