Lumia 1020 (PureView 41MP OIS sensor)

[TheAnimus]

Anyone else watching this with an interest?

Their sensor technology is really impressive for photography, the fact that they eschew the whole rectangular sensor thing is quite interesting, but also the oversampling techniques. If they have now been able to combine this with stabilisation for low light....

The full details are released on the 11th, but as usual things have been accidentally leaked
http://www.theverge.com/2013/7/8/450...elfiore-flickr

But, skip to the end, get a load of this:
http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3672/9...d7e1a29c_o.jpg

That is jaw droppingly fantastic for a cameraphone I think.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

That looks a pretty decent camera for a phone!!

[TheAnimus]

Yeah should have realised these were going to be good by the fact they haven't offered to sell me one on a discount via a developer early access program.

The 808 is cracking for a phone. This looks to have tweaked it rather nicely. Some of the sensor technology for a mirrorless camera is impressive too.

I think Canon should get their act together, see if the polarised split pixel phase shift focus thing can be made for a phone. Focusing I've always found very weak on phones (and mirrorless in general!)

[kalniel]

But, skip to the end, get a load of this:
http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3672/9...d7e1a29c_o.jpg

That is jaw droppingly fantastic for a cameraphone I think.

Well that's only a 3MP image so will look quite good with the downsampling/sharpening - I would have thought most modern phones could get close, though I don't have a smart phone so don't know quite how bad they are.

[TheAnimus]

Well that's only a 3MP image so will look quite good with the downsampling/sharpening - I would have thought most modern phones could get close, though I don't have a smart phone so don't know quite how bad they are.

Well the idea of the 41MP sensor is to downsample!

It isn't about having great looking A0 prints. It's about making better photographs for the casual 'tog!

[kalniel]

Well the idea of the 41MP sensor is to downsample!

It isn't about having great looking A0 prints. It's about making better photographs for the casual 'tog!

Sure, but a good 8 or 12MP shot should also downsample quite nicely to that size too.

[TheAnimus]

Sure, but a good 8 or 12MP shot should also downsample quite nicely to that size too.

No.

This will take some time to explain, but most of it is due to the Bayer pattern. Our eyes see Red/Green - Blue. Notice the space I put in there for dramatic effect. The frequencies are not distributed evenly. We bias most sensors with lots of green.

This means down sampling from it is not straight forward, you are taking a pattern, which has certain traits, and squishing it on to a matrix (pixels, normally rectangular) hoping for the best. Nyquist (a classic sampling theorm which becomes hell just multiple by 2) is a bit challenging to apply here, because its a 2d pattern.

So assuming we are going for a 4MP output image. That is 2*2. So a 12 is 3.46*3.46..... That isn't even double! Already the sampling (which is imperfect to begin with) is going to be stretched even more. It can't cancel noise in the same way, and will loose sharpness. Now if you've got a 41MP sensor, (again taking liberties because they aren't square) you have a 6.4*6.4 image. Nocking that down to 2*2 and oooh, look at that, we've got something we can work with. PureView doesn't use a regular Bayer pattern, so it can really take advantage of this oversampling accuracy.

There is a good reason why I find this stuff fascinating. It is one of the only areas that people are being really innovative in still photography.

[TheAnimus]

http://www.wpcentral.com/live-blog-nokia-lumia-1020

So it's got some on paper at least, impressive features. Mostly its stabilised and backlit.


It will be out in the US by the end of the Month and in the UK by the end of this quarter (so September then!) hopefully some more sample shots will be released, and we will probably see real users pictures by the end of this month.

They also have a 'pro' photography app, with composition grids and better control over the variables. Interesting device, will wait for prices.

[TheAnimus]

They've released the sample images, and I'll be honest, they are incredibly 'meh'.

For example:
http://press.nokia.com/wp-content/up...-highres-3.jpg

Has brilliant, truly staggering detail. It looks like it was a casual shot, rather than something carefully staged. I don't know if its due to the sensor size drop or what though, it is very, very boring shot to me, no DoF, not even a hint of Bokeh, which be honest, is what we all want from this.

It looks to give simply sharp pictures which a large DoF. I want that in my phone. Just not as much as I fear they will charge.

The gallery is here:
http://press.nokia.com/products/medi...ro-highres-13/

I will say its amazingly sharp for a phone, but I think will lack creative options, even with their new pro camera app (which I'll be honest, I really like the interface concept of!)

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

The 5MP mode seems to produce really tack sharp pictures though. TBH,I don't think the higher MP modes are of much use,as you can get a decent A4 sized print out of 5MP.

[TheAnimus]

If I understand, its for cropping.

You downsample normally, but can simulate zoom if you need it.

[Erlenmeyer]

its like the camera is photoshopping your pictures for you, some of them look a bit unnatural

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

It looks like the sensor is slightly smaller than the one found in the 808:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/7142/s...-camera-system

[TheAnimus]

Yeah I was indirectly complaining about that in the post above, regarding Bokeh. Because ultimately some people have taken some really nice pictures with the 808. If by making it smaller, so its less bulky, or maybe its because of OIS, you loose that, its sad!

[kalniel]

Their sensor technology is really impressive for photography, the fact that they eschew the whole rectangular sensor thing is quite interesting,

What do you mean by eschewing the whole rectangular sensor thing? It looks pretty rectangular to me.



Sensors will tend to be produced as rectangles for ease of cutting from the substrate.

[TheAnimus]

Oh I meant in how they process the image. There is a PureView PDF that explains it quite well, better than I did!, the idea is that they are really looking at using massive oversampling to take away the flaws inherent in our light capture. Silicon will probably be rectangular in the same way glass is spherical. Basically you can't use the edge without oversampling.