I'm curious as to why the new iPhones use three identically sized camera sensors. From here, it would seem like different sizes allow for different perspectives which would be useful, especially with new features such as wide angle. Is it for aesthetic purposes?
jasonchang2
In isolation it does appear that different sensor sizes/focal length allows for different perspectives decently. I wonder how other factors like aperture affect these perspectives and what tradeoffs there are.
frgalvan
Based on the explanation for the differences of these two sensors, is it safe to say camera's with large sensors will never be replaced by the sensors bound to our current form factor for smart phones?
I always wondered why my photo-enthusiast friends kept using what I considered to be "old school" cameras... Now I know.
kaipinryankoh
if having a larger sensor with larger focal length allows for a better FOV in general, then it seems that there will always be a benefit to having larger cameras over just miniaturizing them, which is interesting given the general push for compactness in technology.
Debbieliang9
It feels like the camera on a smartphone has such a limited focal length because of the limited thickness. However, in the recent decade, the resolution of a smartphone taken photo has improved so much. Some of them can be compared to old cameras. I am wondering how the phone factories achieved this?
kwsong
Chiming in, I think the always-improving quality on cell phone cameras is quite impressive given their size limitations. My partial understanding of this is that phones compensate with more sophisticated image processing that brings the quality up sufficiently for the casual photo-snapper. For instance, this article (old) cites how phones use accelerometer/gyroscope data to more accurately provide image stabilization: https://www.wired.com/2015/12/smartphone-camera-sensors/ . Blur is a pretty dominant issue among point-and-shooters, and if you have data about how a camera was moving to create a certain blur, you can more accurately/easily remove that blur!
f16falcona46
@frgalvan IMO no, since mass-market cameras will always be limited by the human eye in the end, so any non-perceptible improvement is not going to matter. For telescopes, etc, it's a different story.
I'm curious as to why the new iPhones use three identically sized camera sensors. From here, it would seem like different sizes allow for different perspectives which would be useful, especially with new features such as wide angle. Is it for aesthetic purposes?
In isolation it does appear that different sensor sizes/focal length allows for different perspectives decently. I wonder how other factors like aperture affect these perspectives and what tradeoffs there are.
Based on the explanation for the differences of these two sensors, is it safe to say camera's with large sensors will never be replaced by the sensors bound to our current form factor for smart phones?
I always wondered why my photo-enthusiast friends kept using what I considered to be "old school" cameras... Now I know.
if having a larger sensor with larger focal length allows for a better FOV in general, then it seems that there will always be a benefit to having larger cameras over just miniaturizing them, which is interesting given the general push for compactness in technology.
It feels like the camera on a smartphone has such a limited focal length because of the limited thickness. However, in the recent decade, the resolution of a smartphone taken photo has improved so much. Some of them can be compared to old cameras. I am wondering how the phone factories achieved this?
Chiming in, I think the always-improving quality on cell phone cameras is quite impressive given their size limitations. My partial understanding of this is that phones compensate with more sophisticated image processing that brings the quality up sufficiently for the casual photo-snapper. For instance, this article (old) cites how phones use accelerometer/gyroscope data to more accurately provide image stabilization: https://www.wired.com/2015/12/smartphone-camera-sensors/ . Blur is a pretty dominant issue among point-and-shooters, and if you have data about how a camera was moving to create a certain blur, you can more accurately/easily remove that blur!
@frgalvan IMO no, since mass-market cameras will always be limited by the human eye in the end, so any non-perceptible improvement is not going to matter. For telescopes, etc, it's a different story.