Face Recognition
Face recognition hit the big time in 2008. It sounds gimmicky, but it's actually a great feature.
Without face detection, a photo of two friends might wind up with only the background between them in focus; a flash photo might nuke your boss's face into a bleached blob.
But modern cameras try to recognize faces in the sceneâusually up to a dozen at onceâand then calculate focus and exposure accordingly. Now the two friends' faces are in focus, and the flash is throttled back to properly expose your boss's delicate skin tones.
You know the feature is at work when face-framing squares appear on the camera's screen. The squares actually move around with your subjects.
It's getting worse/better. Some cameras now offer a feature, like Sony's Smile Shutter and Canon's Smile Shot, that waits to fire until your subject manages a grin. (Canon is also working on something called Blink Shot. As you can probably guess, it will prevent the camera from taking the picture when your subject's eyes are closed. At last!)
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