I’ve just watched the introduction of Windows 8 Lenses – part of the camera in Windows 8 phones. IN essence is allows an application (either built-in or 3rd party) to both integrate with the viewfinder (by adding functionality), control the camera and tag images with an application so that the application remains associated with the image. Combined with sharing in Windows 8 it looks like this takes WIndows 8 Phione forward as potentially (it depends 100% on developers) the most creative cameraphone platform out there. Very smart!
In the demonstration at the press event we saw a FotoFX application giving a live preview of four different processed versions of the viewfinder but there’s more to it than that. In the camera roll we see that the image is linked to the application so that an image can be directly opened with that application. The example shown here was a 360 degree image taken by Photosynth – something that the camera roll / gallery application can’t show.
It’s an impressive subsystem and exiting for photo-focused developers. The press conference is still continuing so we’ll bring you more information as and when we get it.
Update: Two new ‘lenses’ were announced. Smart shoot allows the user to remove objects or images from photo by using a series of photos. Cinemegraph is an app that takes a video and allows the user to add movement from the video to an image.
