Android API 20 l preview features

L Preview Features 

     The Android team has been work replacing old code that hasn't scaled well with newer and more powerful hardware. We've long known that the camera API was destined to see a massive update, but we were missing details like a release date or exactly what was coming. Thanks to the L release, we can finally see what has been in the works for all these many months.

 Camera 2 API

     The most important aspects of the new Camera API is a dramatic increase in performance over the previous interface. The Camera 2 system is now capable of delivering full resolution images at the same speed the hardware can capture them thanks to a fully synchronized pipeline model. This allows the Nexus 5 to achieve 30 frames per second while capturing 8 at it's maximum of 8 megapixels.

     In addition to the profound performance improvements, the new camera API also includes burst mode, Digital Negative format (similar to RAW), HDR+, and full manual control of capture and post-processing. Many of the finer control configurations can also be modified, including:

• Exposure time
• ISO Sensitivity
• Frame duration
• Lens focus distance
• Flash trigger
• Color correction matrix
• JPEG metadata
• Tonemap curve
• Crop region
• AE / AF / AWB mode
• AE / AWB lock
• AF trigger
• Precapture AE trigger
• Metering regions
• Exposure compensation

        This new camera API will be officially released in Android L, and it’s already usable on the Android L preview for the Nexus 5. While there are currently no third party applications that take advantage of this API, there is a great deal of potential to make camera applications that greatly improve upon OEM camera applications. However, the most critical point to take away is that the new camera API will open up the possibility for applications that no one has thought of yet. While there are still issues with the Android camera ecosystem, with the release of Android L software won’t be one of them.