Flashback: the second megapixel race

02 October 2022
We thought those days were behind us - the aren't. Smartphone makers are once again in a heated competition to put out the phone with the highest resolution camera.

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  • ?
  • Anonymous
  • fCC
  • 02 Oct 2022

I would like to have just 2 good cameras. A wide and a marco

    • ?
    • Anonymous
    • X5u
    • 02 Oct 2022

    Ra-Iri, 02 Oct 2022Yea i really am waiting for that 5-camera phone with all o... moreOooh this is definitely the future🤣
    And we shall all pay $5500 for this device 🤣😂🤣

      Yea i really am waiting for that 5-camera phone with all of which are 2000mp and all 5" sensors yea that is the future

      And mind you that is only the back of the phone; the front shall come with 4000mp and dual with both normal and ultrawide lenses at 2" aww that is the future and also bend the phone too bend it in 5 parts

      Also make it waterproof and can contact alien satellites from 5.8 million light-years away, without even a sim (bcs sim slot does not exist)

        • S
        • S Yu
        • bJv
        • 02 Oct 2022

        Anonymous, 02 Oct 2022That's a very good point. Any pixel smaller than 1.6mi... moreIt currently doesn't, but it does have the potential. There are preliminary results about using deep learning to overcome the diffraction limit, but if anybody's actually interested in bringing it to consumers, it might be Google. Samsung considering their record is only interested in the MP count.

          • ?
          • Anonymous
          • pLi
          • 02 Oct 2022

          Anonymous, 02 Oct 2022Wait 5-6 weeks and you will see one. Source?

            Megapixel still means nothing, against the sensor technology and optics. Pixel peeping still looks horrible on the 108/200MP phone cameras.

              • ?
              • Anonymous
              • pLi
              • 02 Oct 2022

              S Yu, 02 Oct 2022The most solid advancements these years come from stacking,... moreThat's a very good point. Any pixel smaller than 1.6microns shouldn't be used. And no, grouping multiple sub-micron pixels to make one "pixel" won't get around laws of physics.

                • ?
                • Anonymous
                • Lkg
                • 02 Oct 2022

                blue, 02 Oct 2022It would bring no benefit against binning, the result is al... moreNo? LOL

                48MP bayer > 48MP quadbayer
                48MP bayer > 172MP quadbayer

                Fact ..

                  • ?
                  • Anonymous
                  • Lkg
                  • 02 Oct 2022

                  YUKI93, 02 Oct 2022I really want to see Nokia/Microsoft's PureView oversa... moreWait 5-6 weeks and you will see one.

                    • ?
                    • Anonymous
                    • pLi
                    • 02 Oct 2022

                    YUKI93, 02 Oct 2022I really want to see Nokia/Microsoft's PureView oversa... moreWell, the idea isn't feasible with 200mp. Maybe 64mp at most. Because remember that in our bayer sensor, pixel size shouldn't be too small. i say it shouldn't be smaller than 1.6microns. Even in 1020, it was 1.12microns I think.
                    200mp with such pixel size would be too large of a sensor. Even a 64mp, 1.6micron pixel sensor has diagonal of 18.54mm, whereas 1" sensor has 16mm diagonal.
                    For 200mp, it will be 32.69mm diagonal, bigger than APS-C. Maybe they can experiment actual cameras with such a sensor. Although there already are very high resolution mirrorless cameras.

                    But for phones, it's impossible without making pixels too small, which is bad. In this day, pixel smaller than 1.6microns should be rejected. That's why I don't recommend going over 64mp.

                      • ?
                      • Anonymous
                      • pLi
                      • 02 Oct 2022

                      Anonymous, 02 Oct 2022I wholeheartedly support the second megapixel race We ne... moreI wholeheartedly reject the second megapixel race. Why? Because it's nothing more than a marketing gimmick. With 200mp, or even 600mp, you're gonna get nothing more than a 12mp binned image, lol. It's NO better, infact worse than using a 12mp sensor of same size with normal, large pixels, and not those tiny multi-bayer pixels, between which light get lost. Maybe they get to brag about gimmicky 8k, 12k videos.

                      Only megapixel race I support is PureView. Which is using a true RGB sensor to produce a proper high resolution image and then downscaling it for low noise, high quality image that doesn't take up much space. Till this day, the colour reproduction on 1020 pureview remains unmatched.

                        • ?
                        • Anonymous
                        • I@H
                        • 02 Oct 2022

                        YUKI93, 02 Oct 2022I really want to see Nokia/Microsoft's PureView oversa... moreinterested on that, too... i have a current blind photo shoot challenge (21 phones for round 1) and nokia lumia 1020 is one of them (qualifying for the next round)...
                        i even chose the 5mp photo (binned) not the 38mp resolution, and it blows away even those with 12mp... i guess, fb distorted others, haha...
                        but i digress...
                        i think the only problem that lumia 1020 had, is the slow processing... and that was with the snapdragon 4 plus... if we put at least sd845, i guess, it could be better, at least for that 41mp sensor... or they could make a separate image processor, and make use of a 200mp sensor...
                        if 5mp gives quality image on lumia 1020, it would be amazing how it would turn out for 12mp from 200mp sensor...

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                          • AllTalkButNoact
                          • fwL
                          • 02 Oct 2022

                          I still see no device implemented the so called "staggeredHDR" after the pandemic all new devices feels as a downgrade from pre-pandemic one . right everything is all talk but no act . "staggered HDR" talked about since SD888 release yet no device featuring it on all sensors .

                          I guess the smartphone industry peaked at SD865 days ....

                            • b
                            • blue
                            • 0CN
                            • 02 Oct 2022

                            YUKI93, 02 Oct 2022I really want to see Nokia/Microsoft's PureView oversa... moreIt would bring no benefit against binning, the result is all the same.

                              • b
                              • blue
                              • 0CN
                              • 02 Oct 2022

                              CargoJoe, 02 Oct 2022I don't mind the megapixel war. Sure it's redunda... moreWe get high MPix count in our pockets and no real benefit of it... Size does matter, any 12 MPix CSC or DSLR beats all phones any time.

                                I really want to see Nokia/Microsoft's PureView oversampling algorithm on modern smartphone camera sensors. Imagine having such an algorithm on Samsung's 200MP sensor, that'd be a real lossless zoom monster right there!

                                  • S
                                  • S Yu
                                  • vU9
                                  • 02 Oct 2022

                                  CargoJoe, 02 Oct 2022I don't mind the megapixel war. Sure it's redunda... moreThe most solid advancements these years come from stacking, and general computation(faster SoC to brute force everything), while ineffective higher resolution(i.e. shrinking photosites beyond the diffraction limit, and increasing noise, noticeably reducing effective imaging area etc.) gets in the way of that, if anything.

                                    • S
                                    • S Yu
                                    • vU9
                                    • 02 Oct 2022

                                    >Staggered HDR does a similar trick except it varies the exposure time (low, medium and high).
                                    You speak as if it's a feature of the resolution and CFA, no, it needs specific hardware support, and I don't even think it's being utilized at the moment.
                                    As for using 2 ISO settings, that's applying different gain, but the results vary according to where you apply gain in the pipeline, and would even vary with sensor design. Generally speaking the effects would be subtle, which is why I don't see much sense in a 16-1 bin, most of the extra data generated is tossed aside due to, well, obvious bottlenecks, and the assumed need for ZSL of course.

                                      • ?
                                      • Anonymous
                                      • Lkg
                                      • 02 Oct 2022

                                      Feem, 02 Oct 2022See, the thing is that I noticed in SOME phones that the hi... moreThese non-bayer CFA sensors are made to work at lower resolution.
                                      Pixels working at different exposures to increase DR.
                                      Not to be used at full resolution, this is why google does not allow 50 amd 48MP.

                                      They will never give you same you get from bayer of same resolution.

                                      Most are using just to push 8K videos in the end.

                                        • Feem
                                        • qK0
                                        • 02 Oct 2022

                                        Anonymous, 02 Oct 2022I wholeheartedly support the second megapixel race We ne... moreSee, the thing is that I noticed in SOME phones that the higher the MP of the camera, the higher the “native MP”.
                                        Call me an idiot, but what exactly is native MP, and is increasing a good thing along with the overall MP count? (Ex. 108 MP, 200 MP, 48MP, 50 MP, etc.)