Light has issued a firmware update to its L16 camera, introducing a new Dynamic AF feature that introduces face detection and motion sensitivity.
The new AF-D mode is the L16’s default focus mode, and it’s designed to automatically detect a face within the frame and focus on it. If there are multiple faces, it will prioritise the most prominent, or closest to the camera.
If it’s prioritised the wrong face, simply tap the screen or half-press the shutter button to change the focus point.
Light’s new Motion Sensitivity feature enables the L16 to automatically refocus your scene when you shift the angle of your composition from left to right.
What’s more, Light says AF speed has improved by 20% with the update.
Another new feature is Focus Lock. To enable this you can tap and hold your finger over the subject on the LCD screen. The focus then remains locked on this point until you tap to focus elsewhere within the scene.
Light says the first thing photographers using the L16 will notice after the update, though, is that a yellow focusing square now replaces the old blue focus circle.
Light says that once the square turns yellow, this indicates the camera has achieved focus on your subject. If it disappears, you’ll then need to re-focus the L16.
Light says it has also taken steps in the firmware update to boost the L16’s dynamic range. The company says in its blog announcement:
Our latest software release also brings the camera another step closer to single-shot HDR. In most traditional cameras, a greater dynamic range requires the camera to take multiple shots sequentially, under-exposing one while over-exposing the other. The L16, however, can achieve a similar effect by using different modules to capture different exposures—all at the same time.
That’s exactly what we did to create a wider dynamic range in this software update: We underexposed one of L16’s central camera modules. This slight adjustment helps the L16 retain more accurate highlights, preserving more details in sunny areas of your scene. A wider dynamic range comes in handy when shooting sunny skies, which will now appear a truer blue tone, rather than white…
You can probably guess what comes next—different exposures for multiple camera modules. In the next few months, we encourage you to pay close attention to how your L16’s dynamic range changes with each new software update. Of course, you’ll probably notice a slew of other refinements to the camera’s sharpness and fusion as well. We plan to focus on a big new feature—or set of features—every month, from low-light performance to iOS transferring and more. Make sure you’re keeping up with our release notes to stay on top of how your camera is changing.
Light has also published its roadmap for future firmware updates so you can track what new features are to come.