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Presumably the individual pixel size is smaller though? So where's the true advantage here vs having fewer larger pixels which would presumably have less noise

by Osmium 13y ago

Presumably the individual pixel size is smaller though? So where's the true advantage here vs having fewer larger pixels which would presumably have less noise anyway.

potatolicious 13y ago
There are a few ways this is advantageous. Modern camera sensors have a bayer filter in front of them - a RGB grid basically. This allows each pixel to see only one color of light. The resulting image is "demosaiced" with an algorithm, where by each pixel determines the two colors it's missing by borrowing from nearby pixels. This can cause some artifacts. By squeezing more pixels into the same space, effectively each resulting pixels in the ~8MP image has actual RGB data, not just data borrowed from neighbors.
- Osmium 13y ago
  Thanks -- I hadn't thought of that. I have read recently that there's a push away from Bayer filters, e.g. http://www.43rumors.com/detailed-panasonic-colour-splitter-sensor-report/ http://www.43rumors.com/detailed-panasonic-colour-splitter-s... But I imagine that's a long way off from appearing in smartphones...
dntrkv 13y ago
I read an article a while back when they were just testing this tech. It said the camera takes a picture at the full ~40MP res and then algorithmically chooses the best pixels and sizes down the image to a more reasonable 8MP. Apparently this has a huge benefit on low light shooting.
Geee 13y ago
Pixels are also used for lossless zoom. You can crop a 5 MPix image from the full image with about similar quality as straight from iPhone's sensor.
slantyyz 13y ago
The Nokia's pixels by my calcs are ~1.44 microns which is a little larger than an iPhone 5's pixels (~1.4 microns). The Nokia sensor has around 5.5x the surface area of the iPhone 5 but only 5.125x the resolution. So basically the Nokia's advantage is having both a high quantity of pixels and having larger pixels.
- Osmium 13y ago
  That's really interesting. Thanks! Very impressive to see that in a phone.

by Osmium 13y ago

Presumably the individual pixel size is smaller though? So where's the true advantage here vs having fewer larger pixels which would presumably have less noise anyway.

potatolicious 13y ago

There are a few ways this is advantageous. Modern camera sensors have a bayer filter in front of them - a RGB grid basically. This allows each pixel to see only one color of light. The resulting image is "demosaiced" with an algorithm, where by each pixel determines the two colors it's missing by borrowing from nearby pixels. This can cause some artifacts. By squeezing more pixels into the same space, effectively each resulting pixels in the ~8MP image has actual RGB data, not just data borrowed from neighbors.

Osmium 13y ago
Thanks -- I hadn't thought of that. I have read recently that there's a push away from Bayer filters, e.g. http://www.43rumors.com/detailed-panasonic-colour-splitter-sensor-report/ http://www.43rumors.com/detailed-panasonic-colour-splitter-s... But I imagine that's a long way off from appearing in smartphones...

dntrkv 13y ago

I read an article a while back when they were just testing this tech. It said the camera takes a picture at the full ~40MP res and then algorithmically chooses the best pixels and sizes down the image to a more reasonable 8MP. Apparently this has a huge benefit on low light shooting.

Geee 13y ago

Pixels are also used for lossless zoom. You can crop a 5 MPix image from the full image with about similar quality as straight from iPhone's sensor.

slantyyz 13y ago

The Nokia's pixels by my calcs are ~1.44 microns which is a little larger than an iPhone 5's pixels (~1.4 microns). The Nokia sensor has around 5.5x the surface area of the iPhone 5 but only 5.125x the resolution. So basically the Nokia's advantage is having both a high quantity of pixels and having larger pixels.

Osmium 13y ago
That's really interesting. Thanks! Very impressive to see that in a phone.