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Sony's Latest Smartphone Camera Sensor Can Shoot At 1,000fps (theverge.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the don't-blink dept.

Sony has taken the wraps off of its latest smartphone camera sensor which it says can shoot 1080p slow-motion video at 1,000 frames per second. "The new 3-layer CMOS sensor -- an industry first -- can capture slow motion video about eight times faster than its competition with minimal focal pane distortion, according to Sony," reports The Verge. From their report: The sensor can also take 19.3MP images in 1/120th of a second, which Sony says is four times faster than other chips, thanks to high-capacity DRAM, and a 4-tier construction on the circuit section used to convert analog video signals to digital signals. All of that fancy camera talk basically means this sensor blows every camera currently in a smartphone out of the water. Although the iPhone 7 and the Google Pixel can shoot 1080p slow-motion video at 120fps, they are still miles behind what Sony has reached with its latest sensor. At 1,000fps it even surpasses the Sony RX 100 V, which can only shoot at 960fps.

3 of 86 comments (clear)

  1. Re:storage by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Probably so. I wish Nokia was still making good-quality camera phones (yes, they used to be top quality compared to competitors back then). Anybody still remember that Nokia Lumia 1020 with a 41 megapixel camera from 2013? Would have been nice if they continued on that path.

    Captcha: optical

  2. As usual, the vendor knows best. by geekmux · · Score: 3, Interesting

    While I can certainly applaud Sony in advancing technology for the sake of innovation and capitalism, the form factor certainly questions logic here.

    I shouldn't be surprised though. When it comes to consumer electronics, the vendor knows best, which is why they no longer give a damn about asking a single customer if 1,000fps is something they want or need in a smartphone. It's not exactly a necessary feature in order to take drunk selfies and cat videos destined for social media.

    Camera enthusiasts will continue to cringe as smartphone focus will eventually push development away from the DSLR form factor entirely. It's a shame, because as it stands today, there is no substitute for a lot of good glass.

  3. Re:This is great! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I'm looking at this from a different angle. No, most people are not going to use this for anything more than filming the dog shaking at 1000 fps a couple times.

    But as someone who actually has a use for HD 1000fps, this crap cannot hit the consumer market fast enough. For years there has been basically no mid-range option between the old casio exilim line(which could do technically 1000fps, at an almost unusable resolution) and high-end dedicated HS cameras that you either rent for $$$/day or buy for outright for fifty grand.

    All kinds of Youtube channels will certainly have uses for this, from oddball hobbyists to more mainstream sports. In more practical industries, imaging troubleshooting a machine that's jamming by just dropping a spotlight on it and whipping out your phone, when it normally would have shut the line down all day while you fork over a thousand bucks to the rental place. Small shops might benefit also. 1k should be enough for a gunsmith to examine a bolt cycling and figure out what the problem is on that one weird chinese rifle he's never seen before.

    The most important thing is it's competition in a really niche industry where a few companies have been charging whatever they want for decades. That cannot be a bad thing.