Canon patent application takes in-camera HDR to the pixel level

There’s certainly cameras out there that offer in-camera HDR (or High Dynamic Range), but none that go quite as far as what Canon has detailed in a recently published patent application. The short of it is that Canon’s proposed method would alter exposure values at the individual pixel level, which should effectively emulate what’s now possible but stitching together multiple photographs taken at different exposure settings — and, for that matter, even open up some new possibilities since those single-pixel exposure values could be tweaked at will. Of course, there’s no indication as to what type of camera the method would be used in, or any evidence that Canon has actually taken it beyond the patent application stage, so we wouldn’t recommend getting too excited about the possibilities just yet.