Sony Reinvigorates the Megapixel Race With IMX586 Image Sensor Announcement

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Sony has announced the industry leading 48 Megapixel IMX586 image sensor for smartphones. The new device packs the most amount of pixels on a smartphone camera image sensor to date. The CMOs sensors are estimated to cost $26.94 and have a September 2018 release date. The image quality is supposed to rival a SLR camera.

Generally, miniaturization of pixels results in poor light collecting efficiency per pixel, accompanied by a drop in sensitivity and volume of saturation signal. This product was designed and manufactured with techniques that improve light collection efficiency and photoelectric conversion efficiency over conventional products, resulting in the world's first*3 0.8 micrometer pixel size, with both high sensitivity and high saturation signal level. This smaller pixel size allows the new product to deliver 48 effective megapixels*2 on a compact unit with 8.0 mm diagonal, which can be fitted on many smartphones. The increased pixel count enables high-definition imaging even on smartphones which use digital zoom.
 
So they're going to try to sell the chip, no one is going to buy it, so they'll put it in their Sony Xperia phones which sell poorly in the US, if at all.
 
scojer said:
So they're going to try to sell the chip, no one is going to buy it, so they'll put it in their Sony Xperia phones which sell poorly in the US, if at all.
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Are you saying that Sony camera sensors for smartphones don’t sell well or that this one won’t? Because last time I checked a lot of smartphones especially the high end ones used Sony sensors.
 
///AMG said:
Are you saying that Sony camera sensors for smartphones don’t sell well or that this one won’t? Because last time I checked a lot of smartphones especially the high end ones used Sony sensors.
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Last I checked outside of their own devices they were used in iPhone 5 & 6?
 
This is why I gave up my DSLR work. The file sizes got crazy. more MP, larger files... REALLY large files...
 
When will the range of the EM spectrum start being significantly expanded? Both for passive and active scanning is my wonder... to go with all those pixels..... How much storage space will the phone have? Will it be able to hold more then 3 pictures at max res?
 
The size of a sensor in a phone will never compare to that of a DSLR. Period.

And that’s where there is a difference between crop and full frame. But if you have a high MP phone camera, you’re just making the image bigger, not necessarily the quality. And file size larger.
 
M76 said:
If any smartphone could do the IQ of my DSLR from 2008 I'd be happy. It has 10MPX.
Hell the $15.000 a piece professional cameras we use have 5MPX sensors.
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Nothing but the highest end of the highest end glass has been MP limited for a long long time.
 
JStamsek said:
The size of a sensor in a phone will never compare to that of a DSLR. Period.

And that’s where there is a difference between crop and full frame. But if you have a high MP phone camera, you’re just making the image bigger, not necessarily the quality. And file size larger.
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Not just sensor size, the glass difference between a phone and a DSLR even with a cheap lens is massive.
 
*Note 1: Under idea conditions we picked to favor this sensor and under perfect high brightness conditions.*

*Note 2: Image quality actually means Image size*
 
scojer said:
Last I checked outside of their own devices they were used in iPhone 5 & 6?
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Eh, Sony owns this market. Most devices use their sensor packages.

See the list here, as it's too long to post: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exmor

Noteables:
- iPhone 8, 8+, X .. isn't listed, but it has an Exmor RS.
- Pixel, XL, 2, 2XL
- Galaxy S7-S9
- OnePlus 6

They're also in most popular action cams.
 
Nukester said:
This is why I gave up my DSLR work. The file sizes got crazy. more MP, larger files... REALLY large files...
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I love large file sizes it just means more detail I can pull out of an image and allows me to spend more time getting the perfect shot and less time fucking around with settings. Also, it might be 48 mp which will be great for digital zoom but you can't violate the laws of physics. All those pixels crammed into a tiny ass sensor is going to make for some shit low light performance. I think they need to concentrate less on the massive displays and thin ass phones and use some of that space to fit better optics and camera sensors in the phone. A super awesome camera is my number 1 feature in terms of importance now followed by battery life. Everything is fast enough nowadays.
 
A super awesome camera is my least important feature. If I take any pictures at all, it's either of my pocket, my thumb, or of a whiteboard. If it can read a QR or UPC code, the sensor is generally good enough for me.

So obviously I could give a hoot about camera performance, and think more than a few good phones and phone companies got buried in the last few years because of the trend of "camera uber alles". That said, I was a happy HTC One M7, M8, and currently Essential owner, so maybe I'm a bit biased.
 
Why do they not know that more pixels at this point is utterly meaningless. They now need to concentrate on improving natural colours and most of all light sensitivity. It is the same as with DSLR's. It took time before they realized that enough is enough and that quality had to improve before moving further.
 
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Chaos Machine said:
I love large file sizes it just means more detail I can pull out of an image and allows me to spend more time getting the perfect shot and less time fucking around with settings. Also, it might be 48 mp which will be great for digital zoom but you can't violate the laws of physics. All those pixels crammed into a tiny ass sensor is going to make for some shit low light performance. I think they need to concentrate less on the massive displays and thin ass phones and use some of that space to fit better optics and camera sensors in the phone. A super awesome camera is my number 1 feature in terms of importance now followed by battery life. Everything is fast enough nowadays.
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That's only if one can get a lens of high enough quality to properly resolve 48Mpx of data on a sensor that small. I had an Experia Z1 Compact phone with a 20Mpx sensor and the general consensus with the users was that setting the resolution past 12Mpx would result in no improvement in detail. Sure there are better lenses now, but not 4x better resolution. I doubt that any lens can be made to fully resolve 48Mpx of data on a sensor that small for a reasonable price.

Even Micro4/3 sensors are only 20Mpx which equates to 3.3micron pixels. The pixels on this 48Mpx sensor are 0.8microns which is just crazy.
There's a reason why the iPhones are "stuck" at 12Mpx and yet still are among the best smartphone cameras produced today.
 
M76 said:
If any smartphone could do the IQ of my DSLR from 2008 I'd be happy. It has 10MPX.
Hell the $15.000 a piece professional cameras we use have 5MPX sensors.
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Are you shooting with a Canon 1D MKII?

I still love getting the people who tell my their camera phone more camera with more MP than my Canon 5D MK II. Every time they brag I just tell them to go blow up the image past 8x10 and let me know how it looks.
 
I'd rather they did with that 48MP sensor what the likes of SIGMA/HTC etc. have done in the past. Make four pixels act as one pixel so you get a 12MP image but the colour reproduction is more advanced per pixel (4 colours/shades potential for each pixel). Image size is pretty pointless for 99% of folks once you go past 8MP anyway.


But you know....doesn't matter how good your camera is, I still don't really want to look at your pictures. :whistle:
 
JStamsek said:
The size of a sensor in a phone will never compare to that of a DSLR. Period.

And that’s where there is a difference between crop and full frame. But if you have a high MP phone camera, you’re just making the image bigger, not necessarily the quality. And file size larger.
Click to expand...

High numbers are a great marketing tool though. It’s no different than people clamouring for 4K resolutions on their TVs even though your retina physically can’t resolve the difference at typically viewing distances. But, you know, bigger number, so you can totally like, see the difference man!
 
I know they get a lot of crap around here but Huawei makes one of the better cameras for smartphones. They partnered up with Lecia (marketing partnership for the most part) and have produced some fantastic smartphones.

The Huawei P20 Pro and the upcoming Mate 20 are a couple of phones that one should look at if they're into photography.

My D850 & 28E (or 70-200 FL) still crushes them though :smug:
 
noclevername said:
Are you shooting with a Canon 1D MKII?

I still love getting the people who tell my their camera phone more camera with more MP than my Canon 5D MK II. Every time they brag I just tell them to go blow up the image past 8x10 and let me know how it looks.
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It's a bit more specialized than that.
 
Phone cameras are limited by lens quality and size. They try to make up for that with denser sensors and more image post processing, but they are past the point of diminishing returns now. Even my old 8MP Panasonic DSLR takes better pictures than the most expensive phones. A cell phone will never take as good a picture as an equivalently priced DSLR, but on the other hand, the DSLR makes a lousy phone.
 
But why. You are already out-resolving the tiny optics any phone can provide at like 8MP. 48MP is just a complete and total waste.

My guess the answer is "Because 48 is bigger than 8, and I want the more emm peee's". In other words, marketing nonsense.
 
I'm sure that marketing plays a decent part, but the resolution does allow for more software manipulation in post.

And the high resolution is probably just a bonus from Sony's push to cram as much technology as they can into their phone camera sensors, to decrease the noise and increase read speed, generally. Really nothing wrong with that.

[also, every photographer knows that the best camera is the one they have with them... if the actual output of phones using this sensor is good, then it's good]
 
Damn bro, that 48mpix phone camera has moar pixels than my 42mpix A7R III !
Better switch to next gen smartphone.
 
Nukester said:
This is why I gave up my DSLR work. The file sizes got crazy. more MP, larger files... REALLY large files...
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Kind of an expensive and very fun hobby to have disk space be your speed bump?
 
I realize the average (and even above-average) phone can't compete with a mediocre dslr with a kit lens yet, but having more megapixels might mean those sweet panoramas you can take in 5 seconds can actually be printed at a reasonable size. Sure phones still won't be all that great at portraits, but they're already pretty good at making impressive landscape shots easy. It wouldn't surprise me at all if the phones that use this sensor down-sample to 16mp or less — still plenty of pixels for a phone and lots of room for "zoom" without losing image quality. And at the rate photographic technology is advancing, I won't be surprised if phones are capable of competing with "pro-sumer" cameras in the next 5-10 years. I just picked up a Sony A7 III, and I'm still blown away at how far cameras have come in the past decade. Compared to the last "professional" camera I used (1Ds MKIII) this $2000 hobbyist camera is just "better" (aside from ergonomics - the Canon had a better physical layout and menus by far) in nearly every way — low-light performance, autofocus speed, drive speed, buffer size, it can shoot shockingly nice 4k video (and with an on-camera mic that does nearly as well as my Zoom H4n), and the images are just plain nicer than the old Canon. I'd say the jump in functionality and image quality is on par with the jump from a Kodak DCS 760 to the 1Ds MK III - except instead of comparing an $8,000 flagship* to an $8,000 flagship, it's an $8,000 flagship compared to a $2000 camera that's not even the top model in a mid-level series.

* I could be wrong about the price, that Kodak is so old my memory is a bit hazy. We may have paid more, but it certainly wasn't any cheaper than that.
 
Darunion said:
Kind of an expensive and very fun hobby to have disk space be your speed bump?
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It was fun for a while, but god almighty, file management got to be a pain in the ass. The larger file sizes in Photoshop post processing also got to be a pain. Just not what I considered fun anymore.
 
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