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Mobile Photography Set For Major Quality Bump With Sony's 48-Megapixel Sensor (newatlas.com)
Smartphone camera sensors and lenses have to operate in a very tight space, but they continue to close the gap on full-size digital cameras year after year. Sony's new IMX586 sensor boasts a 48-megapixel resolution, the highest yet for a mobile sensor, and should be coming to a phone near you soon. From a report: That increased resolution shrinks the pixel size down to 0.8 microns, which would usually lead to lower sensitivity and poor light collection. However, thanks to some smart technology called a Quad Bayer array -- where neighboring pixels are intelligently combined -- Sony says the effective pixel size is 1.6 microns. The bigger the pixel size, the better the light capture and low-light performance. In comparison, the Google Pixel 2 -- one of the best photo-taking phones on the market right now -- has a camera with a 1.4-micron pixel size. On paper, that means Sony has managed to produce a sensor that combines a huge amount of detail with excellent light capture and low noise levels as well. We'll have to wait until the sensor is actually on the market to know for sure, but the signs are good.
Look, stop with the pixel count arms race. We all know that that's what the vast majority of consumers can understand, but for anyone caring about the details, it's relatively meaningless as a comparator.
If you blow up your photos to the pixel level, you'll find that it's not the pixel count that's making them look bad, it's the pixel-to-pixel noise and compression and color fringing, for example.
We don't need 48 MP taking up space on our phones and hard drives. For camera phone lenses, compressions, 24 MP is already enough. Anything more than that (if photography is your livelihood for example) and you should be relying on a DSLR.
More is not necessarily better
The ability of the lenses to provide a sharp image at that (actual) pixel density is going to need some serious optical design. The sort that usually costs more than the whole phone.
Why not just use the quad bayer array with fewer pixels and give mobile phones an actual low light capability for once.
My new D5600 Nikon camera, cost something in the $700 range, for instance, has a sensor of 24.2 megapixels. But the tippety top of the line Nikon DSLR, the D5, which costs almost $7,000 only has a 20 megapixel sensor, but obviously can take way better pictures because of the PHYSICAL size of the sensor.. More dynamic range, faster exposure, blah blah blah. Then of course there are lenses that will never be practical for a phone but have way more to do with a good picture than the quality of a sensor.
Instead of cramming an ass-million pixels into your camera sensor, why don't you make a lens and sensor big enough to actually let in some light so I don't have to spend a fortune on a phone just so I can take a halfway decent night shot? Yeesh.
23 megapixel, 960 fps (IIRC at 720p). Good low light performance for tiny glass (f 2.0).
Already the best mobile phone camera. Higher resolution will just get you clear pixels of blur.
Sony has a long history of keeping the best CCD chips for their own cameras, selling the high defect ones to other camera companies.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Otherwise, noise. Sorry Sony, megapixels aren't everything. It's time for you to compare your image quality at the pixel level to that of the competition and to the devices you created in the past. Make it comparable. Then come back and tell us.
On paper, that means Sony has managed to produce a sensor that combines a huge amount of detail with excellent light capture and low noise levels as well.
No, it doesn't combine. It gives you a choice between a huge amount of detail or excellent light capture or low noise levels. There are only so many photons hitting a given area at a given exposure no matter how intelligently you subdivide the area.
Why do we still believe in magic in the age of technology?
First post, mademoiselle
Big if true.
-WindBourne
Interesting. From what I understand, BSD is dying. That probably explains a lot, don't you think? The record is clear on one thing: no operating system has ever come back from the grave. Efforts to resuscitate *BSD are one step away from spiritualists wishing to communicate with the dead.
Mediocre.
I have had a full-frame camera with 7 micron pixels for nearly 10 years, and I am still amazed at the pictures clarity it yields. I doubt that .8 micron pixels are ever going to give a good result
Cameras in phones have pretty much killed off the idea of a separate "point and shoot" camera for some time now, and yes, phone cameras can do some absolutely amazing stuff, especially combined with things like in-camera HDR, editing on the phone, instant cloud backup, and ability to share your photos pretty much instantly anywhere you have a data signal. That's pretty neat stuff, and as they say "the camera you use is the one that you have with you". So they are a great blending of two devices in one, and very useful.
That said, it's not all pixel count. A DLSR is going to give you full creative control, plus a full choice of optics optimized for whatever you might be doing, from macro work taking pictures of tiny subjects, to astrophotography, and everything in between. You can also do things with shutter speed, aperture, zoom, etc that you just can't get out of a phone.
I have both. The phone gets a lot of use because it's pretty darn good for what I use it for, and very convenient. The DLSR is hauled out for when the serious picture taking happens.
Why does this represent a 'major quality bump'? Nokia had a 41MP phone in 2012... Oh wow, 17.1% increase in 6 years!
Because consumers don't understand diffracton and false magnification but do understand a bigger number. Too bad this is only going to make the red amplification problem worse as at a pixel size of 800nm it is getting awfully close to the long range of visible red so it will capture even less of that. I would be willing to be I can capture a better quality image with my old K-2000 (10 year old 10MP DLSR) and old screw mount 8 element SMC Takumar f/1.4 but if I used my K-3 and my modern good glass (I own the 3 princesses) I would absolutely crush it. I'd even be willing to bet I could do better than this sensor with a roll of Ektar100 in my Spotmatic F using that same 50mm f/1.4 lens although it would have more noise from the grain.
That said Sony does make some damn fine sensors but no one who knows about optics and sensors really expects this to compete with even entry level DSLRs or mirror-less interchangeable lens cameras, let alone those monster digital medium formats from Hasselblad or Pentax. Instead it will be something for consumers to get into a phone pissing contest over and believe that they can take pictures just as good as a pro can.
Time to offend someone
We all know that that's what the vast majority of consumers can understand, but for anyone caring about the details, it's relatively meaningless as a comparator.
Do people actually care?
Sometimes, I think marketers care about things because they think other people care and those people think other people care. I don't. I never look at the camera specs. Frankly, anything over 5MP is more than adequate for a phone.
Real estate. Every real estate agent spews the same thing, "The house and interior paint needs to be neutral colors yada yada yada yada..."
I asked a real estate agent once, "Whenever someone buys a house, the first thing they do is redecorate. Is there actual data that shows neutral colors help sales?
"That's what everyone says."
"In your experience?"
"I never noticed"
Before my wife and I made our decision to buy (and we planned to redecorate), the owners paid someone to paint the entire interior of the house and replaced the carpets at the insistence of their realtor. This horribly ugly boring beige color. It was like someone hired a color blind interior decorator.
At the closing, I told the seller, "Why did you paint? We're going to paint over all this anyway and put in hardwood floors.
A few thousand dollars went into the trash.
All because everyone else says so.
Then came in the electrics, the puny wheezy golf cart electrics.... Beats them hollow in their own game. An electric SUV beats an Alpha Romeo Spyder, while towing an Alpha Romeo Spyder!
Wish someone will make a CCD with a dynamic range 3 orders of mag better than the crappy ones we have.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
While I know this high pixel count is worthless, can anyways with actual knowledge of the technology tell me if this would help with digital zoom? If my cellphone camera could offer me a 10x zoom producing a 4 Megapixel image, this is something I might consider buying.
Quad Bayer is just the binning of a 2x2 region of sensors. It does not give you double the effective sensor size. They are using both long and short exposure to give more dynamic range. See the following diagram. https://i.imgur.com/rm1UKHj.pn...
Even if it's a Sony.
Agree with all of that no doubt. There's also the sensor size to consider. Pixel to pixel noise is worse in small sensors with high pixel counts, where the pixel count can cause a less desireable result than the lower count, larger, noise reducing pixel spacing.
So, a full frame sensor (35 mm = 1.37 inches) is best, and found in better DLSR cameras, but no way can be fit into phone partly due to the optical lens needed. So, mobile will continue to be crappy, relatively speaking compared to DLSR. A 24 mp sigma quatro is on my bucket list - but my 16 MP Pentax will put any mobile to shame
Wow, I can have a tiny, noisy sensor, paired with a tiny, slow lens, paired with poor aperture control, poor ISO, poor focusing, poor zoom, no image stabilization, to take very high resolutions photos, with blur and noise.
How can I lose?
I need to throw away my DSLR and lenses, the new *Phone will replace them all!
There is a diffraction limit which sets in when the pixel size is smaller than 1.22*wavelength*f_ratio. The wavelength range is 0.4-0.7 micron (let us take middle wavelength of 0.55 micron). Best f_ratio that I have seen is 1.8, so the limit kicks in at at around 1.2 micron pixel size. The limit is for far off objects and you get little better when nearby assuming you have a perfect lens.
In practice, it will be impossible to beat 16 MP SLR camera in terms of resolution. This is why mega zoom camera cannot give as good resolution of moon as some of the SLR with large lens can give.
Yay! 48MP vertical vidéo!
The effective pixel size of 1.6 microns means that they're quad binning the sensor pixels - this equates to a 16MP sensor, not 48MP.
Porn will lead the way as usual?
Maybe.
What good is it if automatic computer airbrushing wipes away all the wrinkles, in the "all the best skin is wrinkly" sense?
Can someone write a semi-intelligent skin filter that gets rid of flakes and dirt and face wrinkles, but leaves junk wrinkles and wrinkles on the sexy bottoms of feet, above the knuckles, and on the sexy elbows?
Some places you want texture, and others you don't.
Come on, man. AI is supposed to be at that level to know what is where and how on a 3D model.
Someone else that actually GETS IT. About the only "good" such a LARGE amount of pixels, in such a TINY area is for crop/zooming. Most 8-10mp sensor, if you were to print, would print a photo of A3 (11x17) size. Who prints these days? Higher MP count is good for cropping/zooming without losing as much detail when zooming. As you stated, adding MORE sensors in such a tiny substrate, with the paths so close together, increases the signal to noise ratio, which, after capture, then the software has to attempt to compensate for said noise and knock it down, which would most likely flatten out the photo. Instead of increasing the MP count, how about making EACH sensor LARGER, and increase the physical size of the sensor, and, increase the physical size of the glass in front of the sensor.
Noise and sensor size are the main parameters for a sensor..then high quality glass for the lens. MP is more a marketing war between brands.....we need smarter people, not smarter phones and cars.....what's next? smart fridges?
The "camera" smart phone to compare against isn't one of the new ones, but the Nokia Lumia 1020. It actually had a good camera: good lens, 41 megapixel sensor, good light/shadow sensitivity, real flash, good camera software. Downside was it was a Window's Phone (anyone who actually used a Windows Phone probably liked the operating system and hated the lack of a good app store), and it was oddly shaped. My 1020 stopped working as a phone a while ago, but it's still the best camera I own.
And it as an *amazing* ... random number source! :D
(Of course it also had a large sensor and lens because Nokia hardware engineers knew what they were doing.)
One, two or three photons per pixel, to be exact. ;)
Way too many pixels for way too little space. And most of it will be used b the thin walls between them. It's like the India of sensors.
How does this help when performance is limited by the lens? My 15 megapixel camera has more coma and chromatic aberration than the sensor will support.