5 ms·

Resolution will always be an issue since it's a trade off of dedicating a fixed area to single 2D plane or a fraction of it to multiple planes in 3D.

jbay808 4y ago
That's true, but it might be mainly a cost issue. You can make up for the resolution loss by using a much larger sensor; since the microlenses are very thin, it won't increase the weight or bulk of the device very much. Just the cost.
- aaroninsf 4y ago
  This. The overview of the 48 megapixel camera on the iPhone 14 talked chipperly about the fact that the user-land resolution is already decimated (well, quadrimated?) 4 to 1 to 12mp images, with the subtext "but those are highly determined optimized pixels!"
  - wyager 4y ago
    The 48mp sensor on the iPhone seems like a gimmick - even with purely diffraction-limited optics, I doubt you could seriously increase optical bandwidth at that sensor size beyond, say, 10-20Mp, to say nothing of aberration limiting and shot noise constraints. Just now we're starting to see 40Mp APS-C sensors, and people are debating if it's worth it to do that on a sensor that's like 10x larger than the biggest iphone sensor.
    - foldr 4y ago
      Some simple calculations suggest otherwise. The iPhone 14 Pro 48MP camera has a pixel size of 1220 nanometers. The diameter of the Airy disc at f1.78 for 500nm light is 2170 nanometers. Seems like Apple has designed things so that they're just on the right side of the Rayleigh criterion. The Rayleigh criterion is admittedly pretty lax from the point of view of imaging. People often talk about digital cameras being "diffraction limited" if the diameter of the Airy disc is larger than the dimension of a pixel (which is clearly the case for the iPhone). However, AFAIK, there is no strict limit here. It's something of an open question how good smart sharpening algorithms can get – especially when they're allowed to 'cheat' by using knowledge of the statistical properties of typical real world scenes. The pixel size for a 48MP APS-C sensor is about 2900 nanometers, so it's not 10x bigger (even if you compare area).
      - wyager 4y ago
        > It's something of an open question how good smart sharpening algorithms can get True, but you're strictly limited by what I assume are microscopic gate capacitances on pixels that small. The maximum number of electrons in an iphone pixel are probably less than 10k, leading to less than 7 bits of maximum theoretical entropy per px from shot noise limits. This is going to sharply curtail (no pun intended) your ability to "back out" airy disk overlap.
        deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
        foldr 4y ago
        Stacking multiple exposures should help with that.
nico 4y ago
I wonder if something like DAIN[1] could be used to take fewer planes and then interpolate. Maybe that way the tradeoff wouldn’t be as bad? 1: https://twitter.com/karenxcheng/status/1564636065410953217 https://twitter.com/karenxcheng/status/1564636065410953217

jbay808 4y ago

That's true, but it might be mainly a cost issue. You can make up for the resolution loss by using a much larger sensor; since the microlenses are very thin, it won't increase the weight or bulk of the device very much. Just the cost.

aaroninsf 4y ago
This. The overview of the 48 megapixel camera on the iPhone 14 talked chipperly about the fact that the user-land resolution is already decimated (well, quadrimated?) 4 to 1 to 12mp images, with the subtext "but those are highly determined optimized pixels!"
- wyager 4y ago
  The 48mp sensor on the iPhone seems like a gimmick - even with purely diffraction-limited optics, I doubt you could seriously increase optical bandwidth at that sensor size beyond, say, 10-20Mp, to say nothing of aberration limiting and shot noise constraints. Just now we're starting to see 40Mp APS-C sensors, and people are debating if it's worth it to do that on a sensor that's like 10x larger than the biggest iphone sensor.
  - foldr 4y ago
    Some simple calculations suggest otherwise. The iPhone 14 Pro 48MP camera has a pixel size of 1220 nanometers. The diameter of the Airy disc at f1.78 for 500nm light is 2170 nanometers. Seems like Apple has designed things so that they're just on the right side of the Rayleigh criterion. The Rayleigh criterion is admittedly pretty lax from the point of view of imaging. People often talk about digital cameras being "diffraction limited" if the diameter of the Airy disc is larger than the dimension of a pixel (which is clearly the case for the iPhone). However, AFAIK, there is no strict limit here. It's something of an open question how good smart sharpening algorithms can get – especially when they're allowed to 'cheat' by using knowledge of the statistical properties of typical real world scenes. The pixel size for a 48MP APS-C sensor is about 2900 nanometers, so it's not 10x bigger (even if you compare area).
    - wyager 4y ago
      > It's something of an open question how good smart sharpening algorithms can get True, but you're strictly limited by what I assume are microscopic gate capacitances on pixels that small. The maximum number of electrons in an iphone pixel are probably less than 10k, leading to less than 7 bits of maximum theoretical entropy per px from shot noise limits. This is going to sharply curtail (no pun intended) your ability to "back out" airy disk overlap.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
      - foldr 4y ago
        Stacking multiple exposures should help with that.

nico 4y ago

I wonder if something like DAIN[1] could be used to take fewer planes and then interpolate. Maybe that way the tradeoff wouldn’t be as bad? 1: https://twitter.com/karenxcheng/status/1564636065410953217 https://twitter.com/karenxcheng/status/1564636065410953217