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Sony Releases Stacked CMOS Sensor for Smartphones with 48 Effective Megapixels
- nashashmi 8y agoHow is the 60 mp camera from Nokia different than this?
- jcoffland 8y agoIt has 12 more megapixels.
- Synaesthesia 8y agoIt’s a physically much larger sensor - this is the usual tiny sensor size phones use.
- _Codemonkeyism 8y agoMore information: https://www.dpreview.com/news/0249781150/sony-imx586-smartphone-sensor-comes-with-48mp-and-quad-bayer-design https://www.dpreview.com/news/0249781150/sony-imx586-smartph...
- foobar1962 8y agoWhile pixel density is good, there is no substitute for pixel size ie, larger sensors. Hence the full-frame 35mm and larger sensors will always produce better images. I have a Sony RX100 and its images are superb for a pocket camera -- a combination of the 1 inch sensor and fine Weiss glass. I studied photography before digital and the same was true then: larger formats equalled higher quality particularly for landscape and scenes with specular reflections. The reason was explained to me like this: there is a tree with shiny leaves and these leaves have specular reflections (reflecting the sun directly) so there are extremely small but very bright points of light. These specular reflections hit the film/sensor and spread around a bit. If the grains/pixels are small the highlights will spill into adjacent grains/pixels and reduce sharpness.
- ekianjo 8y agoYes. it is dissapointing to ses so few large digital sensors on the market. Its all focusing on mobile phone sensors right now...
- Tloewald 8y agoThere’s no shortage of large sensors, they just don’t make sense in a phone unless you want it to be huge. In fact there’s a migration upwards in camera sensor sizes owing to the decreasing size of the support electronics, e.g. you can now get a Hasselblad medium format camera that’s smaller than a DSLR. Of course the lenses are huge. I for one would love for Apple or Samsung or whoever to release a photographer’s smartphone with a micro 4/3 mount (it’s the only multi firm properly documented lens mount system and also seems to be the sweet spot for trading off image quality, sensor readout speed, and size) BUT the phone would be at minimum 20mm thick.
- ekianjo 8y agoNo shortage? Are you kidding? There is only Sony and Canon who make full frame sensors right now at mass market level (nikon is supplied by Sony), and the amount of cameras available with not-really-medium-format size, you can count on one hand. This is a far cry from the situation of film cameras where you had at least at least several dozens of medium format cameras available for purchase at once.
- namibj 8y agoWhat about CMOSIS, well, to be fair, the CMV50000 is still just sampling without bayer, but it's a really nice sensor, and you can't really say that it's brother the CMV12000 is bad.
- Tloewald 8y agoAre you talking about sensors or film? Kodak and Fuji dominated film, and today Sony and Canon dominate sensors (Samsung had a pretty solid go of it and simply gave up). Lots of other companies make sensors but they aren’t competitive with Sony. There are plenty of camera companies, mostly using Sony sensors or Sony fabs. The lack of manufacturing diversity isn’t a shortage. It’s a different problem. Is there a shortage of cpus?
- userbinator 8y agoThe fact that they have to explicitly state "effective" every time, along with a footnote that vaguely explains "Based on image sensor effective pixel specification method", strongly suggests that this isn't actually a 48MP sensor. ...and indeed, the link in the other comment here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17597939 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17597939 explains it best: "This requires processing to convert the 'Quad Bayer' data into an approximation of what a 48MP Bayer sensor would have captured."
- foobar1962 8y agoAll single-sensors cameras are like this. Each of the R-G-B sensitive photoreceptors in single-chip sensors are arranged using a Bayer filter pattern which looks like a mosaic. The filter pattern is 50% green, 25% red and 25% blue. The "pixels" of the final image needs to be calculated from this pattern (called de-mosaicing or de-bayering). There is not a 1-to-1 correlation between RGB pixels in the sensor and RBG pixels in the final image, and the final image size may depend on different algorithms to remove artefacts caused by the filter. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayer_filter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayer_filter
- ivanech 8y agoThis sensor is different. R, G, and B each have their own 2x2 blocks which are arranged into the Bayer pattern over a 4x4 block. Conversion to the full 48 MP is a step beyond Bayer demosaicing.
- DrStalker 8y agoThere are exceptions like the Foveon sensor where the red, green and blue sensors are stacked behind each other or monochrome sensors with interchangeable filters used in scientific applications, but those are not found in common consumer level cameras. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foveon_X3_sensor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foveon_X3_sensor
- frozenport 8y agoThey also have some amount of cross talk, and overall are hard to justify compared to a conventional sensor.
- ivanech 8y agoThe possibility of 4x more dynamic range (2 stops) is very exciting. DPReview's writeup [1] mentions the possibility that each of the subpixels could be set to different sensitivities and that each one's information could contribute to the larger pixel's output, increasing its overall dynamic range at the expense of resolution. This simple approach isn't practical with the Bayer pattern because all adjacent pixels have different color filters. EDIT: I actually found a little explainer on quad bayer on Sony's site [2] for an industrial sensor from 2017. Instead of changing each subpixel's sensitivity, they change how long the subpixel collects light. [1] https://www.dpreview.com/news/0249781150/sony-imx586-smartphone-sensor-comes-with-48mp-and-quad-bayer-design https://www.dpreview.com/news/0249781150/sony-imx586-smartph... [2] https://www.sony-semicon.co.jp/products_en/new_pro/may_2017/imx294cjk_e.html https://www.sony-semicon.co.jp/products_en/new_pro/may_2017/...
- DrStalker 8y agoI'd be much happier with 5 high quality megapixels instead of pushing megapixel count as an indicator of camera quality.
- jmiserez 8y agoThat’s what you get with this in low light conditions: a 12MP image. If enough light is available, you get a 48MP image. Best of both worlds, so to say.
- zokier 8y ago5MP is just very small these days. 3840x2880 is practically the minimum you want to go (to be able to capture 4k shots) and that is already 11+MP. For 4k video there is the additional challenge that if your sensor is not exactly the right size then how are you going to sub-sample it? I bet it is not a complete coincidence that the quoted 48MP figure is pretty close to 4x above 11MP (=double the horizontal/vertical resolution); I imagine they are planning to sample every other pixel over 8K area, which probably brings in all sorts of benefits.
- coldtea 8y ago>5MP is just very small these days. Very small for what? You can print 6MP in A3 size, and nobody would even notice...
- kalleboo 8y ago4K display. Who prints these days?
- coldtea 8y ago>Who prints these days? People who care about photography. Who watches their photos on a 4K display and pixel-peeps that they're 20% less that its full resolution? (4K is about 8MP -- but you need to go to 2MP (square root of 8MP) to have half the visual resolution. 5-6MP to 8MP is much closer that it looks on paper, as the change is not linear (pixels cover an area, not a line).
- Neil44 8y agoWhen was the last time you took a picture that didn’t come out how you wanted it, and it was because you didn’t have enough megapixels?
- adam-a 8y agoOne really useful application is better digital zoom. I've definitely found I wanted to crop or zoom an image on my smartphone to frame a distant subject, but the resolution of my camera becomes apparent when I do it.
- rangibaby 8y agoThere is the world of hype, where reviewers and people who want to buy the newest thing live. As soon as the newest thing comes out it makes everything before it look like trash, at least until the next thing comes out. OTOH the Nikon D3S/D700 (2008, 12MP) are still selling used for $1,000+ so I guess that 12MP is plenty for whoever is buying them.
- kalleboo 8y agoIf you read the description of the sensor, it actually sounds a lot more interesting than just "moar pixels". It can use the adjacent same-colored pixels at different sensitivities to either increase the dynamic range (basically single-shot HDR), or join them together to increase low-light sensitivity at a 1/4th the resolution.
- coldtea 8y agoEvery time I use my mobile phone (an iPhone X at that).
- yread 8y agoActually very often. It's probably because I was spoiled by the 40MP Nokia 1020 and now I'm back to normal smartphones.
- hmd_imputer 8y agoI have already sold my Nikon camera and currently selling all my lenses to permanently switch to Sony. As far as I know, Sony is the only company currently doing real innovation in the field of image sensors.
- ipsum2 8y agoThis is a strange (and off-topic) argument. Sony is mainly prevalent because they sell sensors to other companies, while Nikon doesn't do that (AFAIK). Other companies advancing camera sensor design include Aptina and TowerJazz.
- PakG1 8y agoPermanently is a long time.
- renjimen 8y agoAre you talking about going from DSLR to mirrorless? If so, I'm also toying with the same idea, but I'm unsure about when to switch. DSLR tech has stagnated meaning they keep their value, so presently I can sell with a small loss, while mirrorless tech is rapidly improving so today's models will lose their value quickly - not a good investment. However, a lot of people seem to be making the switch, which will drive down the value of DSLRs over time, so switching too late means making a larger loss on my DSLR. Not to mention the cost effectiveness of DSLRs vs. mirrorless cameras. From what I've read, mirrorless are still behind. I suppose I should wait for the release of a mirrorless model that rivals similarly priced DSLRs at a time when the rate of improvement has lessened somewhat to maintain its value.
- pizza234 8y ago> while mirrorless tech is rapidly improving so today's models will lose their value quickly It is improving very slowly, actually, by any standard of improvement. I have an almost 6-years midrange MFT camera, which I wanted to replace with the latest and greatest MFT, but things haven't changed in a significant way. I've actually spent a holiday carrying around both the old camera and a "latest and greatest" APS-C, and taking the same pictures with both. While there was difference, it wasn't as large as one would expect from a ~5 years timeframe. Of course, I must mention that I don't generally take pictures in extremely challenging conditions (very low light, very fast focus speed etc.etc.). On top of that, the MFT market radically changed in the last years. Nowadays the best sensors are in the top-of-line camers, which are very expensive (on par with APS-C), and it seems they're not permeating down to the midrange segment, as they used to do. In other words, buying today a midrange MFT gives almost no noticeable improvement compared to a 5 years old midrange MFT. Buying a top-of-line MFT gives an advantage that is not as large as expected, while also being very expensive. I don't imply that using MFT doesn't make sense (it's my favourite format), however, it's nowadays far from being revolutionary.
- mtgx 8y agoAndroid discussion on this yesterday, and why it may not be as good as it seems. As others have said, you can lose a lot with that pixel density: https://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/915a1r/sony_releases_stacked_cmos_image_sensor_with_48/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/915a1r/sony_releas...
- lifeisstillgood 8y agoThere was a point in the 90s when every upcycle in clock speed translates directly to a payoff for software and users - that is moving to a new CPU generation bought you faster response times or quicker databases Somewhere a decade ago this kinda stopped for anything mere humans could recognise - you could keep running your laptop or tower past the 18 month upgrade cycle and not notice or care too much (pace gaming) Cameras seem to be in the same position now - i click the button on my camera phone and zoom in and am astounded - just astounded, at clarity. I suspect the next driver will be like big data sucked up all those new cores, something like 3d cameras will be where the new frontier for camera improvements come from - not a demand for pictures that are better than most humans can already tell
- monikagab 8y agoA space widget is used to create blank spaces on the website for flexible positioning and distancing between items on the page. The space widget plays an important role allowing you to add space between the items. http://support.exai.com/website-widgets/space-widget http://support.exai.com/website-widgets/space-widget
- verytrivial 8y agoI would trade ALL the pixel above about 8MP for dozen or more stops of dynamic range in the sensor instead of as a software hack.
- Aoyagi 8y agoNot that different from my ancient Nokia 808 PW or the Nokia 1020, and I presume the low light performance will be worse as well.
- jug 8y agoHmm, I don’t think 48 MP is very suitable for smartphones. That sounds very large and unwieldy with the often limited space (not only on phones but even more so cloud backups). Who is asking for larger photos these days anyway? The inproved DR is interesting though! Smartphones are currently very behind APS-C and full frame sensors there since it’s traditionally been more or less tied to sensor size.
- frou_dh 8y agoPresumably the phone's image processing algorithms can make productive use of extra sensor data without ultimately needing to persist a larger file to the filesystem.
- sorenjan 8y agoYou can use pixel binning to downsample an image to a more reasonable size with less noise, and you can use the extra resolution to crop the image and effectively have a usable digital zoom.
- amarant 8y agowhats really interesting here is the 4 times greater dynamic range, that could actually make a visible difference to your pictures! increasing the pixelcount is largely irrelevant for smartphones, and has been for a while.
- nottorp 8y agoDo the megapixels matter if they're paired with crap lenses? Don't think so.
- chaoticmass 8y agoDoes the THD matter on an amp if the speakers are crap? Do good brakes matter if the tires are bald?
- haikuginger 8y agoI'm curious to see how the "Quad Bayer" mosaic works out. Other manufacturers have tried novel filter patterns before, but nothing so far has really been able to compete. Essentially, almost all digital cameras today use a planar CMOS sensor with alternating RGB-sensitive pixels, arrayed like so: RGRGRGRG GBGBGBGB RGRGRGRG GBGBGBGB This pattern is not perfect, but is highly effective. Luma (color-independent) resolution is essentially equivalent to the actual number of pixels, while chroma (color-dependent) resolution is only slightly less - we essentially get one "real" point of color information at each intersection of four color pixels, because at each of those intersections we have one red, one blue, and two green pixels. In other words, "the luma information we gather for a given color on a pixel of that color is immediately relevant to the effective pixel composed by it and its adjacent neighbors at each of its four corners". In this 8x8 Bayer pattern pixel grid with 64 real pixels, we get 49 effective chroma pixels; one for each intersection of 4 physical pixels. In comparison, here's the pattern for "Quad Bayer": RRGGRRGG RRGGRRGG GGBBGGBB GGBBGGBB I'm concerned that chroma resolution and overall color accuracy will be much lower with this pattern. Essentially, with the original Bayer demosaicing, you only need to sample from the four color pixels adjacent to each corner in order to get a bit of the three channels, and the pattern gives equal weight to both red and blue, while providing extra accuracy in the green channel that human vision is most sensitive to. In comparison, as far as I can tell, a single "effective pixel" (one with information on all three channels) using the Quad Bayer pattern has to be made up of data from nine individual pixels. Additionally, when an effective pixel is centered on an actual pixel with either red or blue filters, that color is relatively dominant in the pixels considered - it'll be equally weighted with the green channel, and the opposing color will only make up 1/9 of the total signal composing that effective pixel. Effective pixels centered on green pixels will give equal weight to red and blue, with slightly over 5/9 of the weight given to the green channel. Granted, the sensor should still be able to produce a full 48MP of luma resolution, but chroma detail will be much more "smeared" because of the wide area that has to be considered to get a full color pixel, and the more substantial overlap of that full color pixel with other full color pixels. Color accuracy will likely also be lower, because in effective pixels centered on red and blue pixels, only a single pixel of the opposing color will be used, which means that any noise in that channel will have an outsized impact on the overall color. What this boils down to is that, when used as a 48MP sensor, this sensor will have entirely different imaging characteristics than a traditional Bayer imager, and that those characteristics will be highly dependent on how the output of this sensor is processed - which will be interesting in a world full of software highly optimized to demosaic Bayer-pattern images. What's slightly more interesting is the high-sensitivity 12MP mode. Essentially, it's an attempt to reduce the impact of random noise in the image by adding together four pixels of each channel to produce a "superpixel" less impacted by noise overall. These superpixels can then be processed in a standard Bayer pattern as a 12MP effective image. Thinking about it overall, though, I become more and more confused. In both of these modes, this pattern doesn't give us anything, really, that we can't already do using a Bayer filter. Let B represent a sensor using a standard Bayer filter pattern, and let Q represent a sensor using this "Quad Bayer" pattern, where each of these patterns have a red pixel in the top-left corner. Let any given effective pixel be represented by a 3-tuple of the form (R, G, B), where R, G, and B are the number of physical pixels sensitive to each of the red, green, and blue channels which compose that effective pixel. Let f(p, w, h, s, i) be a function returning a two-dimensional matrix of all the effective pixels produced by a matrix of physical RGB pixels, laid out in pattern p, with actual pixel width and height w and h, where an effective pixel measures s actual pixels horizontally and vertically, and where an offset of i actual pixels in either vertical or horizontal directions produces the "next" pixel in that direction. Thus, our standard Bayer pattern produces the following: f(B, 4, 4, 2, 1) => ( ((1,2,1),(1,2,1),(1,2,1)), ((1,2,1),(1,2,1),(1,2,1)), ((1,2,1),(1,2,1),(1,2,1)) ) The 9-pixel-effective-pixel Quad Bayer pattern produces this: f(Q, 4, 4, 3, 1) => ( ((4,4,1),(2,5,2)), ((2,5,2),(1,4,4)) ) Note that there are fewer effective pixels for the same total number of pixels - that's okay, though, because the number of effective pixels approaches the number of total pixels as the sensor scales in the X and Y dimensions - this very small hypothetical sensor doesn't benefit from that scale yet. You can also see that each effective pixel is composed of a larger number of physical pixels - there's a tradeoff there, in that this means that overall, noise should have a smaller impact on the value of a given pixel, but there's a loss of resolution because those pixels are spread over a wider area. This raises the question, "what if we do a 9-pixel effective pixel on a standard Bayer pattern?" Well, we get this: f(B, 4, 4, 3, 1) => ( ((4,4,1),(2,5,2)), ((2,5,2),(1,4,4)) ) Interestingly, while the exact arrangements of the different color channels within the effective pixels are different, the total number of pixels of each channel remains completely identical, meaning that any given effective pixel should have identical noise characteristics to the Quad Bayer pattern. In fact, it's arguable that the Bayer pattern is better, because the color physical pixels are more evenly distributed around the effective pixel. What if we do the high-sensitivity superpixel sampling? For the Quad Bayer pattern, it looks like this: f(Q, 8, 8, 4, 2) => ( ((4,8,4),(4,8,4),(4,8,4)), ((4,8,4),(4,8,4),(4,8,4)), ((4,8,4),(4,8,4),(4,8,4)) ) And for the standard Bayer, like this: f(B, 8, 8, 4, 2) => ( ((4,8,4),(4,8,4),(4,8,4)), ((4,8,4),(4,8,4),(4,8,4)), ((4,8,4),(4,8,4),(4,8,4)) ) Again, sampling in a similar pattern gives the same overall result. So, all else being equal, I'm not sure it makes sense. Of course, there is the possibility that all else is not equal. Having multiple adjacent pixels of the same color could enable consolidating the signals of those pixels together earlier on in the image processing pipeline into an actual lower-resolution standard-Bayer signal. That could actually have real benefits if that early-stage signal combination results in a greater signal amplitude that drowns out noise. Basically, this has all been kind of stream-of-consciousness and much longer than I originally planned, but here's the Cliff Notes from what I can tell. In comparison to a Bayer sensor of the same pixel resolution... Pros: - (If implemented to take advantage, possibly) Ability to act as unified large pixels, increasing SNR at lower resolution settings Cons: - Less-fine maximum chroma resolution when all pixels are active