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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.

21 of 86 comments (clear)

  1. storage by spiny · · Score: 4, Insightful

    but the base model will probably only have enough room to store three seconds of video

    --

    Fry: heh, Yakov Smirnoff said it
    Leela: No he didn't.
    1. Re:storage by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      but the base model will probably only have enough room to store three seconds of video

      With no sd card slot.

    2. 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

    3. Re:storage by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

      Full HD at 8 bit per channel is about 50Mbit.
      Their specs say the DRAM has 1Gbit capacity.
      So that's 20 frames at high speed that can fit in the internal buffer.
      At 240 fps (their specs don't mention 1000 fps??), that gives you 0.08s of video before it needs to be transferred to flash storage.
      Transfer to flash is probably a few orders of magnitude slower, so this will only work for very short bursts of 20 frames.
      They could use the chip in a specialized camera with a high bandwidth RAM buffer, but for smartphones this just seems to be a gimmick.

    4. Re:storage by alantus · · Score: 4, Funny

      The compact version will have a memory stick slot, while the normal one will use betamax tapes.

  2. Is this a technical forum? by dv82 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    "4-tier construction on the circuit section used to convert analog video signals to digital signals" ... Really, posting marketing non-information on Slashdot? Perhaps it's a parallel/pipelined A/D, judging form the application, performance and use of "tier". In any case, A/D converters have common specs, and if this one is special those specs would be of interest. Nerds don't have to be protected from "fancy camera talk".

  3. This is great! by Gravis+Zero · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Finally a feature we can really use in our everyday lives. I bet some poor sap got fired after suggesting, "if we make our phones a little bit thicker we could double the battery life!" What an idiot. ;)

    --
    Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
    1. 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.

    2. Re:This is great! by thegarbz · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Or not. We already have what you want, you people just don't want to turn it on. Reliable phone with 10-20 days of battery life? Turn on ultra-low power mode and you get everything you ever want. Oh but you don't use that mode do you? No one does, because as much as you claim that's what you and everyone wants, the convenience of a device that instead does EVERYTHING trumps your silly battery life + dumb phone requirements every time.

      In the mean time I'm sure we'll all be happy not further crippling our devices to please people like you who don't use these modes which are provided to you already thank you very much.

    3. Re:This is great! by DamnOregonian · · Score: 2

      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.

      As I read TFA, I was thinking to myself, wtf would I ever use this for?!
      Sold.

  4. Light? by Pieroxy · · Score: 2

    I guess that 100fps means every shot will have an aperture less than 1/1000th of a second, meaning it will only work in very bright setups. Still an impressive feat though.

    --
    Write boring code, not shiny code!
    1. Re:Light? by NatasRevol · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Or you can think a little higher.

      Training junior's whole team by showing slow motion of what they're doing right/wrong.

      --
      There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
  5. 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.

    1. Re:As usual, the vendor knows best. by religionofpeas · · Score: 2

      Once the chip is developed, the extra cost of 1,000 fps support is very small, so why not ? And while not always useful, there are certainly times when I'd like to shoot some slow-motion footage. Work-related stuff comes to mind.

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

      Sony make the professional cameras used for TV, live sports and movies. They know what the fsck they are doing. This is just downstream usage for stuff created for high end CCDs. It has probably been sitting on a shelf until Samsung or LG could retool one of their plants and run these things off at a scale and price that makes them viable for consumer gadgets.

      A toilet maker likely knows what the fsck they're doing as well. Doesn't justify forging one out of titanium, which speaks directly to my original point.

      Just because you can, doesn't mean a customer will appreciate the fact the new-and-improved model with features no one asked for now costs $75 more. Bigger is not always better, as pointless remains pointless.

    3. Re:As usual, the vendor knows best. by thegarbz · · Score: 2

      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.

      When Canon / Nikon developed video capabilities in their camera EVERY customer said it was something they don't want. It is now a standard feature that has opened up a new world of videography to to many people.

      Not every customer needs to be asked about every feature, otherwise we'd all be riding really fast horses. Me ... I can't wait. 1000fps would lead to some neat effects for camera footage, and that's before taking into account the features that this opens up from an image processing point of view (anti-shake, HDR etc) all which fundamentally rely on the same principles as high frame rates which is the ability to quickly alter the state of the sensor and read the data out.

    4. Re:As usual, the vendor knows best. by DamnOregonian · · Score: 2

      Doesn't justify forging one out of titanium

      Sounds cold... But also strangely awesome

    5. Re:As usual, the vendor knows best. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      > smartphone focus will eventually push development away from the DSLR form factor entirely.

      Complete nonsense. The same technology is used for both. DSLRs and Mirrorless system cameras get the technology first and phones only benefit later. Current developments in cameras are moving to 4K and higher and using this to do 'HDR', 'post focus'* and 'focus stacking'* by getting the camera to take several very high speed shots, varying focus or aperture or other, and then the user can choose the one(s) they want to keep or merge.

      These cameras can also be set to take photos continuously into a cyclic buffer _until_ the button is pressed. The user can then choose the appropriate shot from the one second or so prior to get the best action shot.

      Very high frames rates are not just for making slow movies. When the processing power of the phones improve then these features will also move to them.

      * https://www.dpreview.com/reviews/panasonic-lumix-dmc-fz2500-fz2000/4

  6. Galaxy S7 can shoot 240 fps by fintux · · Score: 2

    I find it weird that the slow-motion is only compared to iPhone 7 and Pixel at 120 fps, while Galaxy S7 has a double framerate of 240 compared to those. Of course this is still far from 960 fps, but the summary gives an impression that iPhone 7 and Pixel were the industry leaders in this regard, which they simply aren't.

  7. The 3 layers are *not* R,G,B - it's a Bayer sensor by OldMugwump · · Score: 3, Informative

    FWIW, the 3 layers are not red/green/blue, but photosensor, DRAM, and logic. It's a standard Bayer pattern sensor; not a multilayer color sensor. And by "focal plane distortion" they don't mean focus error due to different depths for RGB, but rolling shutter ("jello effect"). (The post was a bit confusing - it's easy to read it as being about a Foveon-type sensor. But no.)

    --
    "Shoot, a fella could have a pretty good weekend in Vegas with all that stuff."
  8. Everyone seems to be focused on the 1000fps by JazzXP · · Score: 2

    For me the real innovation here is significantly reducing the rolling shutter effect. 1000fps is just a byproduct of the tech to do that.