Patent ID: 8582001

Claim:
A method for producing a high dynamic range (HDR) image of a scene by a digital camera, the method comprising the acts of: determining an illumination range of the scene, by the digital camera, for at least one preview image captured by the digital camera, wherein the illumination range of the scene is based at least on a number of pixels in the at least one preview image that are measured to exceed a saturation threshold; determining a minimum number of exposures that are based on at least a minimal overlap in exposure values between two exposures; calculating a set of exposure parameters based on the illumination range of the scene, the exposure parameters indicating the minimum number of exposures to generate the high dynamic range image for the illumination range; capturing image data for one image of the scene based on the calculated set of exposure parameters, wherein the image data includes the minimum number of exposures; and generating the high dynamic range image, by the digital camera, for the scene based, at least in part, on the captured image data for the one image of the scene.