7 ms·

New Camera Sensor Eliminates Need for Flash

63 points by bcn 13y ago

claudius 13y ago
Just recall that less than ten years ago, nobody even knew of this material and it was only the subject of strange theoretical research at ivory tower universities. Please continue to fund science. =)
- georgemcbay 13y ago
  Today a lot more people know of the material, but it is still known as the subject of strange theoretical research at ivory tower universities. I 100% support the idea of funding science and graphene is very exciting, but you still can't buy any of these wonder products it is going to be responsible for and you won't be able to for many years yet because nobody knows how to manufacture it at useful scale. IMO this is probably one of the areas in which most commercial entities limiting or eliminating their long-term R&D in the name of short-term gains is probably hurting us. If there were more effective cross-over between industrial manufacturers (which have mostly moved the manufacturing offshore anyway) and theoretical research, there would be a better pollination of ideas that might help solve these problems quicker.
mosqutip 13y ago
If it gathers light in the infrared spectrum, how is noise eliminated? Ambient room temperature is an infrared-peak blackbody. I'd like to see more on the filtering that has to go into images taken with such a sensor.
- zwieback 13y ago
  Practically every CMOS and CCD camera today has an infrared filter window since the sensors are particularly sensitive in infrared. Homemade night-vision cameras usually involve removing that filter.
- mapt 13y ago
  "infrared" is actually an extremely large portion of the spectrum when viewed on a proper log scale. It's a poor label because it often leads to this confusion. 400nm to 700nm is 'visible light', a factor of 1.75x, infrared is 700nm to 1mm, a factor of 1428x. Only a small portion of this is significant for thermal infrared applications, which at room temperatures are about 8um-15um. Near infrared, up to about 1500nm, acts pretty much like light we can't see, and can be detected well on the same CCD/CMOS sensors (which need filters to block it out).
mapt 13y ago
"1000 times more sensitive" What does that even mean? Even 10 times higher quantum efficiency shooting wide open on optical band targets would be physically impossible. On top of that, 'Eliminates need for flash' is not a great title - most people who care about photography don't use flash much for direct illumination; very flat targets, indirect illumination, close-range zoomed in macro shots, and filling in a dark foreground are the exceptions. Cell phone shots look like cell phone shots in part 1) because they compensate for the tiny sensor with crappy LEDs, not even proper xenon bulbs, but mainly 2) because a 1/4" class sensor can only offer 1/3 the SNR of a cheap point & shoot 1/2.3" class sensor on a good day, for the same level of illumination: they need the flash to work, and so you get flash-based shots, which usually look horrible because of the distinctive way it lights the scene.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- mbessey 13y ago
  From the article, it sounded like the improvement was more around better retention of photo electrons, rather than enhanced efficiency. That would mean potentially longer useful exposure times due to deeper wells.
  - davidcuddeback 13y ago
    > better retention of photo electrons, rather than enhanced efficiency Same thing. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_efficiency http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_efficiency
    - mapt 13y ago
      Parent is not talking about the percentage of photons that are translated into charge, but about the amount of charge that can be held on a given area during exposure without saturating & spilling over to surrounding pixels. Deeper electron wells with the same amount of readout noise would increase the dynamic range of the image; I don't see how we can deduce that this was the stated benefit from the article though, or how that benefit could even be recognized given the early stage of the technology.
ChuckMcM 13y ago
What a strange story, basically "Oh gee, we've created a sensor that is better than all other sensors using the material that everyone thinks is a super material" followed by "If the industry chooses to adopt his design, Wang said it could lead to cheaper, lighter cameras with longer battery lives for all." Really? Ok so if you really create a sensor with a 1000x the light gathering capacity of CMOS sensors and a commensurate 1000x reduced sensitivity to noise, and if it can be manufactured in volume, why wouldn't someone build a camera with it? So why the 'If' in that last paragraph? This guy published a paper two years ago [1] on creating light cavities in Graphene, This is the paper that they article is working from [2] apparently. [1] http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11468-011-9260-1 http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11468-011-9260-1 [2] http://www.nature.com/ncomms/journal/v4/n5/abs/ncomms2830.html http://www.nature.com/ncomms/journal/v4/n5/abs/ncomms2830.ht...
- mc-lovin 13y ago
  Yeah, that also struck me as very odd. Assuming all the other claims are true, my best explanation is that this guy's research is coming out of left field, and so he is not very familiar with how the industry works, and so he can't be certain of anything when it comes to how his research will be used.
- sliverstorm 13y ago
  Hedging his speech. There could be potential hangups he hasn't mentioned or just doesn't know about, for example.
- chaz 13y ago
  From a different source: "In reality, though, and contrary to some big-name publications, this graphene sensor isn’t going to replace the silicon sensor in your camera. Graphene is still incredibly hard to work with on a commercial scale (here the researchers are still mechanically exfoliating graphene and placing it on a silicon substrate with tweezers), and there’s no indication that this method would ever scale up. What is far more likely is that these graphene photodetectors might be used in optoelectronics, where optical and electronic components are squeezed into the same system/chip, or in enabling faster fiber-optic networks." http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/157082-graphene-sensor-is-1000-times-more-sensitive-to-light-could-enable-ultra-low-light-photography http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/157082-graphene-sensor-is...
zwieback 13y ago
Sounds interesting although I suspect it's the fact that the sensor uses graphene that makes this a news item. I wonder how fast a sensor like this would be. If it's so sensitive I'm guessing that you can build a super-fast camera, which is something engineers are always looking for. For our high-speed applications in the microsecond exposure time it's hard to get enough light and fast enough shuttering. Even if this thing isn't going to replace CMOS and CCD it could be interesting for high speed metrology.
ams6110 13y ago
Might benefit the casual snapshot photographer, but pros use flash more for fill-in lighting when there are sharp shadows and for freezing motion e.g. in sports photography.
- dietrichepp 13y ago
  There is an entire category of pros--documentary photographers--who love high ISOs and will love higher ISOs even more. By comparison, casual snapshot photographers are more likely to use on-camera flash in low light conditions. But that's just my personal observation.
- ISL 13y ago
  Avoid making a commotion, just as you wouldn’t stir up the water before fishing. Don’t use a flash out of respect for the natural lighting, even when there isn’t any. If these rules aren’t followed, the photographer becomes unbearably obstrusive. - Henri Cartier-Bresson "American Photo", September/October 1997, page: 76 http://www.photoquotes.com/showquotes.aspx?id=98 http://www.photoquotes.com/showquotes.aspx?id=98 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_Cartier-Bresson http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_Cartier-Bresson
harel 13y ago
I've actually read this (in my mind) as: "No need for flash plugins to connect to a computer's laptop"...
lucb1e 13y ago
But then how do I use my phone as flashlight?
salimmadjd 13y ago
Here's the PDF version of the paper, http://cdpt.ntu.edu.sg/Documents/ncomms%204%201811.pdf http://cdpt.ntu.edu.sg/Documents/ncomms%204%201811.pdf This is very exciting and has multiple uses: 1 - drastic improvement to P&S and mobile photography (largest source of photos now). Most of these photos at night suffer from noise and harsh flashes and significant redeye 2 - improving dynamic range in SLR by providing two photodiodes per each pixel. One for high sensitivity (large) and one for low sensitivity to preserve highlights. 3 - providing a great boost to the micro 4/3 systems. The 4/3 makes a great portable platform (size, weight, etc.) however suffers from tremendous shadow noise and as such make it less ideal as a replacement for full-frame (35mm sensors ) SLRs. 4 - might give a new life to Lytro and similar systems. It would allow them to provide higher resolutions images to make them appealing to more demanding phitographers. 5 - worst nightmare for people concerned with government intrusion. It enables cameras to operate in dark streets or other places and keep people under constant watch-day or night.
- cclogg 13y ago
  I wonder if it'll affect the 'look' of the image too (when you put all of these things together). I've never been a fan of the way digital looked (curse you Bayer filter!!), except for maybe the Foveon sensor now. I've actually been having a lot of fun shooting film lately, and scanning it. Skin tones baby!
  - salimmadjd 13y ago
    With increase resolution, Bayer's side effects become less and less visible. Nikon has started to remove antialiasing from their recent cameras. Color analog film may look better SOOC for soe images, but you can exceed that in post-processing
    - cclogg 13y ago
      I guess the problem I still see is like in this image (film left, digital right): http://annawu.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/81420015b_rt-900x299.jpg http://annawu.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/81420015b_... The shadows just fall differently, the skin has a nicer tone (my opinion)... less harsh. I'm sure you could Photoshop/grade it to match more, but only to a certain extent. I'm all for the convenience of digital, just wish they'd improve sensor technology rather than megapixels. But anyway, I'm getting a bit off topic...
gjm11 13y ago
The article says this new sensor is ~1000x more sensitive than the sensors in today's cameras. Comparing it with the extremetech article linked by chaz, it's clear what's happened: The sensor is not ~1000x more sensitive than the sensors in today's cameras. It's ~1000x more sensitive than previous graphene sensors. (And the 1000x improvement is when you measure amps of current generated per watt of incident light, which isn't necessarily the best measure of how well the sensor will actually perform.)

63 points by bcn 13y ago

Just recall that less than ten years ago, nobody even knew of this material and it was only the subject of strange theoretical research at ivory tower universities. Please continue to fund science. =)

georgemcbay 13y ago
Today a lot more people know of the material, but it is still known as the subject of strange theoretical research at ivory tower universities. I 100% support the idea of funding science and graphene is very exciting, but you still can't buy any of these wonder products it is going to be responsible for and you won't be able to for many years yet because nobody knows how to manufacture it at useful scale. IMO this is probably one of the areas in which most commercial entities limiting or eliminating their long-term R&D in the name of short-term gains is probably hurting us. If there were more effective cross-over between industrial manufacturers (which have mostly moved the manufacturing offshore anyway) and theoretical research, there would be a better pollination of ideas that might help solve these problems quicker.

mosqutip 13y ago

If it gathers light in the infrared spectrum, how is noise eliminated? Ambient room temperature is an infrared-peak blackbody. I'd like to see more on the filtering that has to go into images taken with such a sensor.

zwieback 13y ago
Practically every CMOS and CCD camera today has an infrared filter window since the sensors are particularly sensitive in infrared. Homemade night-vision cameras usually involve removing that filter.
mapt 13y ago
"infrared" is actually an extremely large portion of the spectrum when viewed on a proper log scale. It's a poor label because it often leads to this confusion. 400nm to 700nm is 'visible light', a factor of 1.75x, infrared is 700nm to 1mm, a factor of 1428x. Only a small portion of this is significant for thermal infrared applications, which at room temperatures are about 8um-15um. Near infrared, up to about 1500nm, acts pretty much like light we can't see, and can be detected well on the same CCD/CMOS sensors (which need filters to block it out).

mapt 13y ago

"1000 times more sensitive" What does that even mean? Even 10 times higher quantum efficiency shooting wide open on optical band targets would be physically impossible. On top of that, 'Eliminates need for flash' is not a great title - most people who care about photography don't use flash much for direct illumination; very flat targets, indirect illumination, close-range zoomed in macro shots, and filling in a dark foreground are the exceptions. Cell phone shots look like cell phone shots in part 1) because they compensate for the tiny sensor with crappy LEDs, not even proper xenon bulbs, but mainly 2) because a 1/4" class sensor can only offer 1/3 the SNR of a cheap point & shoot 1/2.3" class sensor on a good day, for the same level of illumination: they need the flash to work, and so you get flash-based shots, which usually look horrible because of the distinctive way it lights the scene.

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
mbessey 13y ago
From the article, it sounded like the improvement was more around better retention of photo electrons, rather than enhanced efficiency. That would mean potentially longer useful exposure times due to deeper wells.
- davidcuddeback 13y ago
  > better retention of photo electrons, rather than enhanced efficiency Same thing. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_efficiency http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_efficiency
  - mapt 13y ago
    Parent is not talking about the percentage of photons that are translated into charge, but about the amount of charge that can be held on a given area during exposure without saturating & spilling over to surrounding pixels. Deeper electron wells with the same amount of readout noise would increase the dynamic range of the image; I don't see how we can deduce that this was the stated benefit from the article though, or how that benefit could even be recognized given the early stage of the technology.

ChuckMcM 13y ago

What a strange story, basically "Oh gee, we've created a sensor that is better than all other sensors using the material that everyone thinks is a super material" followed by "If the industry chooses to adopt his design, Wang said it could lead to cheaper, lighter cameras with longer battery lives for all." Really? Ok so if you really create a sensor with a 1000x the light gathering capacity of CMOS sensors and a commensurate 1000x reduced sensitivity to noise, and if it can be manufactured in volume, why wouldn't someone build a camera with it? So why the 'If' in that last paragraph? This guy published a paper two years ago [1] on creating light cavities in Graphene, This is the paper that they article is working from [2] apparently. [1] http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11468-011-9260-1 http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11468-011-9260-1 [2] http://www.nature.com/ncomms/journal/v4/n5/abs/ncomms2830.html http://www.nature.com/ncomms/journal/v4/n5/abs/ncomms2830.ht...

mc-lovin 13y ago
Yeah, that also struck me as very odd. Assuming all the other claims are true, my best explanation is that this guy's research is coming out of left field, and so he is not very familiar with how the industry works, and so he can't be certain of anything when it comes to how his research will be used.
sliverstorm 13y ago
Hedging his speech. There could be potential hangups he hasn't mentioned or just doesn't know about, for example.
chaz 13y ago
From a different source: "In reality, though, and contrary to some big-name publications, this graphene sensor isn’t going to replace the silicon sensor in your camera. Graphene is still incredibly hard to work with on a commercial scale (here the researchers are still mechanically exfoliating graphene and placing it on a silicon substrate with tweezers), and there’s no indication that this method would ever scale up. What is far more likely is that these graphene photodetectors might be used in optoelectronics, where optical and electronic components are squeezed into the same system/chip, or in enabling faster fiber-optic networks." http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/157082-graphene-sensor-is-1000-times-more-sensitive-to-light-could-enable-ultra-low-light-photography http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/157082-graphene-sensor-is...

zwieback 13y ago

Sounds interesting although I suspect it's the fact that the sensor uses graphene that makes this a news item. I wonder how fast a sensor like this would be. If it's so sensitive I'm guessing that you can build a super-fast camera, which is something engineers are always looking for. For our high-speed applications in the microsecond exposure time it's hard to get enough light and fast enough shuttering. Even if this thing isn't going to replace CMOS and CCD it could be interesting for high speed metrology.

ams6110 13y ago

Might benefit the casual snapshot photographer, but pros use flash more for fill-in lighting when there are sharp shadows and for freezing motion e.g. in sports photography.

dietrichepp 13y ago
There is an entire category of pros--documentary photographers--who love high ISOs and will love higher ISOs even more. By comparison, casual snapshot photographers are more likely to use on-camera flash in low light conditions. But that's just my personal observation.
ISL 13y ago
Avoid making a commotion, just as you wouldn’t stir up the water before fishing. Don’t use a flash out of respect for the natural lighting, even when there isn’t any. If these rules aren’t followed, the photographer becomes unbearably obstrusive. - Henri Cartier-Bresson "American Photo", September/October 1997, page: 76 http://www.photoquotes.com/showquotes.aspx?id=98 http://www.photoquotes.com/showquotes.aspx?id=98 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_Cartier-Bresson http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_Cartier-Bresson

harel 13y ago

I've actually read this (in my mind) as: "No need for flash plugins to connect to a computer's laptop"...

lucb1e 13y ago

But then how do I use my phone as flashlight?

salimmadjd 13y ago

Here's the PDF version of the paper, http://cdpt.ntu.edu.sg/Documents/ncomms%204%201811.pdf http://cdpt.ntu.edu.sg/Documents/ncomms%204%201811.pdf This is very exciting and has multiple uses: 1 - drastic improvement to P&S and mobile photography (largest source of photos now). Most of these photos at night suffer from noise and harsh flashes and significant redeye 2 - improving dynamic range in SLR by providing two photodiodes per each pixel. One for high sensitivity (large) and one for low sensitivity to preserve highlights. 3 - providing a great boost to the micro 4/3 systems. The 4/3 makes a great portable platform (size, weight, etc.) however suffers from tremendous shadow noise and as such make it less ideal as a replacement for full-frame (35mm sensors ) SLRs. 4 - might give a new life to Lytro and similar systems. It would allow them to provide higher resolutions images to make them appealing to more demanding phitographers. 5 - worst nightmare for people concerned with government intrusion. It enables cameras to operate in dark streets or other places and keep people under constant watch-day or night.

cclogg 13y ago
I wonder if it'll affect the 'look' of the image too (when you put all of these things together). I've never been a fan of the way digital looked (curse you Bayer filter!!), except for maybe the Foveon sensor now. I've actually been having a lot of fun shooting film lately, and scanning it. Skin tones baby!
- salimmadjd 13y ago
  With increase resolution, Bayer's side effects become less and less visible. Nikon has started to remove antialiasing from their recent cameras. Color analog film may look better SOOC for soe images, but you can exceed that in post-processing
  - cclogg 13y ago
    I guess the problem I still see is like in this image (film left, digital right): http://annawu.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/81420015b_rt-900x299.jpg http://annawu.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/81420015b_... The shadows just fall differently, the skin has a nicer tone (my opinion)... less harsh. I'm sure you could Photoshop/grade it to match more, but only to a certain extent. I'm all for the convenience of digital, just wish they'd improve sensor technology rather than megapixels. But anyway, I'm getting a bit off topic...

gjm11 13y ago

The article says this new sensor is ~1000x more sensitive than the sensors in today's cameras. Comparing it with the extremetech article linked by chaz, it's clear what's happened: The sensor is not ~1000x more sensitive than the sensors in today's cameras. It's ~1000x more sensitive than previous graphene sensors. (And the 1000x improvement is when you measure amps of current generated per watt of incident light, which isn't necessarily the best measure of how well the sensor will actually perform.)