Patent ID: 8804029

Claim:
A method comprising: accessing a sensor value provided by a light sensor associated with a mobile computing device; determining a first control value for a variable flash associated with the mobile computing device as a function of the sensor value, where the first control value is configured to control the mobile computing device to operate the variable flash at a desired illumination level when acquiring a subsequent frame; selectively controlling the variable flash based, at least in part, on the first control value; accessing a current frame acquired by a camera associated with the mobile computing device; and repeating, until a termination condition is met: { determining one or more imaging metrics for the current frame; determining a second control value for the variable flash as a function of the one or more imaging metrics; selectively controlling the variable flash based, at least in part, on the second control value; accessing a subsequent frame acquired by the camera; and treating the subsequent frame as the current frame }.