Flashback: smartphone camera sensors grew not only bigger, but smarter too

09 October 2022
Bigger sensors, bigger pixels - is that all there is to making a good camera? No, it's a bit more complicated than that.

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  • 10 Oct 2022

a combination of a good software and a good hardware is hands down but the phone would be pricey.

    Anonymous, 09 Oct 2022Can't we have another *non*-QB/Tetra/Nonacell sensor l... moreYou'll have good-looking photos when the sun is up and horrible-looking ones when you're in dark.

      Anonymous, 09 Oct 2022Software cant overcome inferior hardware. Accept this fact.... moreLenses for dedicated cameras often use plastic for aspherical elements as it's easier for you to mill/mould a piece of plastic to a complex shape than to do the same with glass. Most phone cameras use aspherical lenses only (e.g. See the cross-cut diagram of Aquos R6/R7's lens), hence they are all-plastic more often than not.

      Smartphone lenses are generally impressively sharp despite having such a low height, a small F-stop and a wide field of view, easily resolving 40-50MP of resolution at the centre as evidenced by the fact that many phones with a Quad Bayer sensor can achieve 2x lossless crop zoom without showing blurriness or haziness in the image. In order for you to get a comparable sharpness on dedicated cameras, you need to close down the aperture by 1-3 stops or your image would suffer from soft edges and sometimes a lot of chromatic aberrations as well.

      The downside of smartphone lenses, however, is that most of them have distorted-looking bokeh with hard outlines and a bunch of rings inside them - now THIS is where they actually cut corners.

      "Only vivo and sony have 1 element made out of glass"
      Nope, Samsung and Oppo use a glass element as well.

        you have to suffer, 09 Oct 2022they are not into those anymore. its all about profit and m... moreThats Nokia, no wonder
        I had the Nokia carbon and leather 8800 Arte8800 at £1000 in 2006
        Carbon fibre
        Sapphire glass
        Titanium
        Stainless Steel 916L

        Pure premium with no expenses spared with materials and craftsmanship

          SpiritWolf, 09 Oct 2022Had P30 Pro for 2,5 years. Didn't get even warm. I cal... moreSo what if it gets hot?
          My S22Ultra and Sony1v gets really hot, but still functioning with no problems.
          Big deal, what you new born baby crying because it gets hot? You're beyond joke.
          Mines gets to 38 degrees

            TheLastOracle, 09 Oct 2022Not true. Smartphone lenses resolve as much detail as their... more"Hi, what phone do you own and owned?"

              Anonymous, 09 Oct 2022Software cant overcome inferior hardware. Accept this fact.... moreYou still insist in talking in physical language you really don't get it do you

              Smartphones can find equivalent inputs for any physical short comings

              Including images taken from physically superior cameras as long as it that image get stored
              on the internet

              You really don't understand what smartphone cameras are doing huh?

                • ?
                • Anonymous
                • n1k
                • 10 Oct 2022

                Few words:

                1. It's not technologically smart to use high resolution multi-bayer sensor, it's worse than normal low resolution RGB bayer. Best is to use high resolution normal RGB bayer layout with reasonably large pixels.

                2. No matter what, everything is ruined by OEM post-processing. They could provide simple post-processing parameter controls. There are many GCam builds with such parameters under "lib patcher". Yes, some GCams have allow controlling way too many parameters and it's all too confusing and complicated. But, some provide very simple, few but important parameters to control, such as sharpness, luminance and chrominance noise, saturation, dehaze etc. Controlling these make dramatic differences, especially sharpness. These OEMs could simply add these options! How much effort does it take?? But they're too lazy and greedy even to do this. That's why it's almost a necessity to install GCam and use it alongside stock app to get best out of the camera sensor and processor's computational ability!

                  • ?
                  • Anonymous
                  • Lkg
                  • 09 Oct 2022

                  jerem06, 09 Oct 2022Google with its Pixel range shows that the software can wor... moreYou believe because you see photos on cellphone and tv. now go check on good screens.
                  Not even the kodak I got in 2010 has oil painting effect.

                    • ?
                    • Anonymous
                    • Lkg
                    • 09 Oct 2022

                    TheLastOracle, 09 Oct 2022Not true. Smartphone lenses resolve as much detail as their... morekeep dreaming.

                      Anonymous, 09 Oct 2022Software cant overcome inferior hardware. Accept this fact.... moreGoogle with its Pixel range shows that the software can work miracles with small sensors

                        Anonymous, 09 Oct 2022Software cant overcome inferior hardware. Accept this fact.... moreNot true. Smartphone lenses resolve as much detail as their glass counterparts, per cubic sq mm. Maybe even more.

                        "Zeiss revealed that today’s smartphones require extremely complex high-resolution lens elements which need to be crammed into a very small space to create sharp images. To manage this, double-aspherical lens elements need to be manufactured, and that is not possible to realize from optical glass. Because of that, the camera modules of today’s smartphones are using moulded plastic materials."

                        https://nokiamob.net/2021/11/16/almost-all-smartphone-camera-lenses-are-plastic/

                        I remember reading long back, that plastic lenses are much slimmer than glass, yet with very similar quality and properties. And lenses have many many elements. The last lens on the outside could be a single piece of extremely high anti reflection coated glass, or even plastic, and thw quality difference, if any, would be dismal.

                          • ?
                          • Anonymous
                          • Lkg
                          • 09 Oct 2022

                          IpsDisplay, 09 Oct 202210$, light absorption, plastic Even though the conversat... moreSoftware cant overcome inferior hardware. Accept this fact.

                          Cellphones use 6-7 elements within the lens. Only vivo and sony have 1 element made out of glass. Pro lenses can be up to 18 elements, all glass.
                          Plastic is not as translucid as glass, phones use because lower weight/lower costs.

                          Have you seen any pro lens with plastic elements.

                          Tell me, why do photos of phones look muddy on pro monitors?

                            There is still gap between phone and full size cameras if its just low res battle, but 64mp from phone and 25mp from camera are pretty close.
                            That's basically the reason hi res in phones exist and won't go away.
                            Hi res video recording is another reason.

                              Anonymous, 09 Oct 2022You still do not understand. Plastic lenses cannot hand... more10$, light absorption, plastic

                              Even though the conversation is about computational photography you only echoe physical talking points.. so you already show your stuck in your ways of thinking

                              It's the argument of brain over brawn and this arguement is already settled years ago which is better

                              Computational camera can substitute light absorption with CONTEXT these cameras can use search engines, taking pictures from Google image galleries and even have always on running video to prepare the camera and then just stitch /fill in the blanks of what it couldn't physically capture

                              Machine learning algorithms can even see through objects

                              With traditional cameras if it can't physically capture then there is nothing it can do game over the more restricted smartphone camera are the more stronger work around algorithms will be born and progress

                                • ?
                                • Anonymous
                                • Lkg
                                • 09 Oct 2022

                                Anonymous, 09 Oct 2022Can't we have another *non*-QB/Tetra/Nonacell sensor l... morePro-i 2 , november 11th.

                                  Anonymous, 09 Oct 2022Can't we have another *non*-QB/Tetra/Nonacell sensor l... morethey are not into those anymore. its all about profit and marketing.

                                    you have to suffer, 09 Oct 2022i already figured it out its the battery problem. its aging... moreCan't argue with that. Bought replacement battery from China for my then Lumia 950XL. Probably worst decision in my life as it exploded during first charging.

                                      • ?
                                      • Anonymous
                                      • U@K
                                      • 09 Oct 2022

                                      Can't we have another *non*-QB/Tetra/Nonacell sensor like with those Lumias, would love to see what that could do with oversampling rather than binning !!

                                        SpiritWolf, 09 Oct 2022Had P30 Pro for 2,5 years. Didn't get even warm. I cal... morei already figured it out its the battery problem. its aging over time that caused the heat. she told me that her p30 was bought since may 2019. its over 3 years, still uses original battery straight from factory. if its too late to change battery, it'll inflate and bends the display. also you have the p30 pro while my aunt had regular ones. its a different model.

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