Essential outlines the PH-1’s dual cameras

27 July 2017
In anticipation of its first major release, Essential talks about how dual-cameras make better images and how much work went into them.

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  • Eske Rahn
  • s0B
  • 31 Jul 2017

Yuri84, 31 Jul 2017The image on the right is the fused image. Check the link i... moreYes, Left to right: Colour-only, Mono, Fused

Yes the fused image lacks the borders of the others. Zoom in and look at DETAILS where different depth-planes meets (as I did in the example linked).

I'm sorry if my English is not good enough for you to understand what I try to write. I think we better end the discussion here.

    Eske Rahn, 31 Jul 2017No... The two rightmost Colour and Mono images are NOT alig... moreThe image on the right is the fused image. Check the link in the description. They have two examples and both are signed on the page - color, monochrome, fused image, from left to right. Color (1st from the left) and monochrome (middle) are aligned, fused (3rd from the left, image on the right) is misaligned. Color is first, not third.

      • E
      • Eske Rahn
      • s0B
      • 31 Jul 2017

      Yuri84, 31 Jul 2017I believe you're mistaking fused for color image. Fused is ... morePS
      When you cut&paste the link, there is a BUG in this forum, that includes a special encoded soft hyphen char after the word "uploads" you need to manually remove it for the link to work!!
      (In FF it appears as C2 AD, in IE it is a hyphen, in Chrome and Edge it is a blind character, you find only when moving the cursor with the arrow keys)

      ...Thank you GSMARENA!!!!

        • E
        • Eske Rahn
        • s0B
        • 31 Jul 2017

        Yuri84, 31 Jul 2017I believe you're mistaking fused for color image. Fused is ... moreNo... The two rightmost Colour and Mono images are NOT aligned, look more careful at the parallax of details...
        (But the final field of view of the fused image IS narrower as explained earlier)

        As I said previously, zoom in and look at details where items in different depth planes meets.
        I made an example crop for you with an arrow pointing to a bright background line:
        https://eskerahn.dk/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/EssentialPH1_example_cut.png
        The distance between the mannequin and the line is roughly 20 pixels on the first colour-only, and half that on the mono and fused images.
        You can find similar parallax differences around both images.

          Eske Rahn, 28 Jul 2017Each of the three parts are only 1.6Mpixels, so it is obvio... moreI believe you're mistaking fused for color image. Fused is third from left, color is first. Color and monochrome are perfectly aligned, fused is a bit off. Besides, if they can align color and mono perfectly, fused image should also be aligned perfectly (since its the sum of the two).

            Please companies: When you talk on how great your cameras are in Low Light, put some real life images. After alll the talk they do i go to a party with low light and in now way can i get e good image. The image looks well lit. I need a harder evidence.

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              • AnonD-672479
              • wfE
              • 30 Jul 2017

              Anonymous, 29 Jul 2017The monochrome camera brings an improvement, but basically ... morewell here's hoping they have great software onboard to stack things like HDR onto this camera setup

                • E
                • Eske Rahn
                • s0B
                • 29 Jul 2017

                Anonymous, 29 Jul 2017The monochrome camera brings an improvement, but basically ... moreStrictly it is a lot more than twice the light that is recorded. With colour and traditional layout you have a Bayer filer, that reduces the amount of the incoming light with at the least a factor of three.

                  • ?
                  • Anonymous
                  • pQr
                  • 29 Jul 2017

                  The monochrome camera brings an improvement, but basically just less noise and more detail. The colors are still bad just like the noise reduction algorithm and the dynamic range. Google's HDR+ achieves an extreme improvement in colors, noise, dynamic range, sharpness without a monochrome camera. So in my opinion a monochrome camera is a bad choice when you can only deploy 2 cameras and if there are even no raw files. A fantastic algorithm (like HDR+) is far more important than just two-time the amount of light if there are no raw files. And when you have a good HDR+-like algorithm, then an "optical zoom" dual camera is the best choice. Apparently some companies deploy monochrome cameras only for the reason of making a bad smartphone camera a bit better in a less expensive way. Or they simply don't know how to improve the image processing algorithms.

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                    • AnonD-632062
                    • Tr0
                    • 28 Jul 2017

                    "Ling says she won’t stop perfecting the camera until the very last possible minute." WOW, that's dedication!

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                      • Eske Rahn
                      • s0B
                      • 28 Jul 2017

                      Yuri84, 28 Jul 2017The pictures I have looked at seem to be identical between ... moreEach of the three parts are only 1.6Mpixels, so it is obviously not the full images we are looking at.
                      Either we see three crops, or -more likely- resamples to lower resolution. If you look anywhere in the monochrome and fused image with a depth difference, you will see the exact same perspective, and a slightly different one in the colour-only. (both examples)
                      And yes the fused image covers a lesser area than the monochrome and colour, and as suggested this would be needed to ensure coverage from both cameras, also at shorter distances.

                      I'm not saying whether they are cheating or not, just that what you see does not prove cheating.

                        • ?
                        • Anonymous
                        • snJ
                        • 28 Jul 2017

                        i want the Matrix filter from the header image

                          Eske Rahn, 28 Jul 2017Well, before dooming as cheating, we do not know for sure t... moreThe pictures I have looked at seem to be identical between colored and monochrome, only the "fused" image differs. It removes a part on bottom and adds a part on top - this can only be done by moving the camera slightly. If it was a crop, why are color and monochrome images nearly identical (I couldn't find a difference, other than lack of color), and only fused image differ?

                          I think they took several photos and picked the best of the bunch to show as a "fused" image, when in fact it was an independently taken image at a different time, which would allow them to "create a better image via algorithms". The difference is very subtle, a few pixels on sides and top/bottom, so you wouldn't be able to see it directly on the phone (screen is too small). But the difference is certainly there, and only on the "fused" image (I haven't seen any field of view differences between monochrome and color images, only "fused" image differs).

                          If they had to crop the image, field of view of the fused image would be narrower from every side, as if zoomed in, but it has extra pixels on top of the image, pixels that are not present in either the monochrome or color image.
                          If cameras had different fields of view, color image wouldn't match monochrome image perfectly (but as far as I looked, they are an exact match).

                          Besides, the text says monochome image allows removal of noise, not increasing the amount of details captured in dark areas or changing white balance, but "fused" image shows all of it. Which makes me believe it was a different picture altogether.

                          If it happened once, okay, someone screwed up, but it happened twice. Double screw up is unlikely.

                            • D
                            • AnonD-82756
                            • nGx
                            • 28 Jul 2017

                            Does the Essential have a turbo on it

                              • E
                              • Eske Rahn
                              • s0B
                              • 28 Jul 2017

                              Yuri84, 28 Jul 2017I believe they used different images for "color, monochrome... moreWell, before dooming as cheating, we do not know for sure that the collages consist of the ENTIRE originals, it could well be some centre crops, so don't look at the edges only.

                              If you look at the sculpture example
                              https://images.contentful.com/6nksu8gsclwp/1mOhefgHTysocgaUGIAYU8/7c0504f1439b767f33993a50a80472f1/01HighResolution_Click.png

                              It is quite clear that the fused image is the monochrome image with applied colours.
                              e.g. look at where the "S" in "Jose" meet the sculpture, it is identical on the last two, and with slight parallax effect on the first colour-only image.

                              On the other example,
                              https://images.contentful.com/6nksu8gsclwp/3XaaBnb89OSoeyMC2OEWu0/2a6c3bed36be6bb466915ff4518cee46/02HighResolution_Click.png
                              look at the right necklace, and how the grey loose 'neck-plate' above meets the drapery behind, and you will see exactly the same. The two rightmost have identical perspective, and the colour-only have slight parallax.

                              And EXACTLY to handle this difference in parallax they would need to drop some pixels at the sides where they don't have information from both cameras...

                                Anonymous, 28 Jul 2017not a significant difference between color only and fused i... moreNot significant? Please see at least on a 10" screen. The noise difference is HUGE, especially at the sky.

                                  I believe they used different images for "color, monochrome" and "fused" examples. They're taken in the same place but at a slightly different angle. The difference is very minor, but the fact itself is very major - that is cheating.

                                  If you look at the image from what seems to be a museum, you'll notice only fused image seems to be taken at a slightly lower angle. Look in the middle bottom of the image, scroll from left to right - color and monochrome have a different field of view compared to the "fused" image, means they were taken from different angles. How do you 'fuse' an image to make it look that way? You don't. Its a different image altogether.

                                  If you look at the "night time" image and look at the left edge of the screen, you'll notice this again - color and monochrome image have a few more pixels on the left side compared to the fused image. Means this, again, was a completely different image.

                                  In other words, they're cheating. And didn't even bother to go pixel-peeping (the only way to spot difference between a color and a 'fused' image.

                                  How I found out - I went pixel peeping. I noticed that not only fused image had a bit extra detail in darker areas (can be explained with the 'fuse' algorithm), it also had slightly different colors, as if white balance had slightly different setting (how do you figure out correct white balance in color image using a black & white image?). Afterwards I looked for other dark areas and noticed images don't match exactly. If it was a bit cropped image (explained by fusing algorithm and misaligned cameras, "extra" areas may be cropped to only show areas that match up), cropped area would become the final image. But it wasn't the case - fused image had less pixels at the bottom and more pixels on top - meaning it was taken at a different angle (ever so slightly different).

                                  Now, the question is: why do they cheat?

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                                    • .alpha
                                    • rfe
                                    • 28 Jul 2017

                                    For a phone that should have been out a month they sure are moving slowly refining the software.

                                      • E
                                      • Eske Rahn
                                      • s0B
                                      • 28 Jul 2017

                                      Anonymous, 28 Jul 2017not a significant difference between color only and fused i... moreWhat scale are you watching in? On a phone?
                                      If you see them in full resolution on a large screen there is a big difference. Less noise and sharper contrast.
                                      Roughly speaking it looks like they take the mono image and substitute each grey with the colour from the noisier and softer colour image.

                                        • ?
                                        • Anonymous
                                        • bJb
                                        • 28 Jul 2017

                                        not a significant difference between color only and fused image. Not worth the dual camera. I rather have telephoto or wide angle like LG G6.

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