A method for gesture identification with natural images includes generating a series of variant images by using each two or more successive ones of the natural images, extracting an image feature from each of the variant images, and comparing the varying pattern of the image feature with a gesture definition to identify a gesture. The method is inherently insensitive to indistinctness of images, and supports the motion estimation in axes X, Y, and Z without requiring the detected object to maintain a fixed gesture.