Samsung showcases 200-megapixel camera sensor with a giant cat billboard

[nanoguy]

Forward-looking: Samsung wants to push the smartphone industry into a new era of high-resolution photography. To that end, the company has made a camera sensor that is good enough to capture high-quality pictures for giant billboards. That, and the ability to zoom in or crop a photo with minimal quality loss.

Last year, Samsung reignited the smartphone camera megapixel war with a new sensor boasting a resolution of 200 megapixels. The company calls it Isocell HP1, and it will supposedly debut in an upcoming Motorola flagship phone codenamed "Frontier" before making its way into Samsung's Galaxy S23 series phones.

Today, the company wanted to provide an update on the Isocell HP1, which is still in development. The engineers working on the new sensor wanted to test the limits of what can be achieved with such an advanced capture solution, so they set out to print a cat image on a 28-meter-wide, 22-meter-high billboard. For scale, that's about half the size of a basketball court.

The picture was captured using a prototype kit that integrates the new 200-megapixel sensor but is not yet fully optimized for capturing moving subjects. The engineers even used a custom adapter that allowed them to test various DSLR camera lenses, but they eventually gave up this approach as it wouldn't produce results indicative of the Isocell HP1 module's actual performance as a smartphone camera.

After taking a series of pictures, the engineers chose one to print on a dozen 2.3-meter-long pieces of fabric which they then stitched together to form the complete canvas. Minhyuk Lee, who is one of the engineers from Samsung's Sensor Solutions team, believes the main benefits of the Isocell HP1's sensor are the ability to "capture an image that can be zoomed in and cropped without compromising on image quality," as well as the potential to enable 8K video recording at 30 frames per second.

However, by far the biggest advantage of the new 200-megapixel sensor is the ability to group four or 16 pixels into a single, larger pixel to produce a higher quality image with less noise in low-light scenarios.

Meanwhile, companies like Canon are taking a different approach when it comes to improving the sensitivity of camera sensors. The resolution is still modest by modern standards, but a new batch of so-called SPAD sensors looks promising for more than just low-light photography. Everything from mixed-reality glasses to surveillance systems and self-driving cars could benefit from this technology.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/94730-samsung-showcases-200-megapixel-camera-sensor-giant-cat.html

 

[p51d007]

LOL, yeah, the SENSOR might be 200MP, but you can bet the LENS won't look like what they used for this shot! Not to mention the professional POST PROCESSING.
Gotta love the print in tiny letters "actual results may vary, depending on lighting conditons"
No kidding! With that many super tiny sensors jammed together, in poor lighting, it's going to be a
very noisy photo, which means the camera "AI" will try to tamp down the noise, resulting in a non realistic photo.

 

[maxxcool7421]

LOL, yeah, the SENSOR might be 200MP, but you can bet the LENS won't look like what they used for this shot! Not to mention the professional POST PROCESSING.
Gotta love the print in tiny letters "actual results may vary, depending on lighting conditons"
No kidding! With that many super tiny sensors jammed together, in poor lighting, it's going to be a
very noisy photo, which means the camera "AI" will try to tamp down the noise, resulting in a non realistic photo.

or the fact that they are shooting from 3 feet away.. and then DOWNSAMPLING by an order of 16 ... so the resulting image is not a highly detailed (stupid huge width)X(stupid huge height) image ... but a muddy crappy image when the details are at any level of ''distance''

swear to god this is for seflie nuts

 

[stewi0001]

In the video you even see the photographer using a massive camera lens with it.

 

[BadThad]

Over the top ridiculous! NOT NEEDED, the vast majority of people don't need this in their phone. Just image the file sizes (as if they weren't bad enough already). If you need this, then buy a freaking camera already!

 

[dualkelly]

How many times have cell phone companies been caught lying about a picture being captured with a dslr instead of the phone and then saying it was the phone... I am sure samsung was among the top ones lying.

 

[hahahanoobs]

I would prefer more software to improve usability of the phone as a whole rather than a large chunk of time, money going towards increased camera bumpage, so this doesn't get me too excited.

Maybe smartphones have peaked, only waiting for more advanced software to bring new excitement, because the advancements in navigation and AI assistant software interest me more than the hardware right now. Current phone hardware kinda bores me. Screens are the same size, but a bit more colourful. Batteries are the same size, but charge a little faster.... It's all the same. The software is what's lacking imo. Look how good Google camera software is. Outside of Google its just add more MP's! It's like the "we have the bigger GB's" (iPhone vs HTC) all over again.

 

[Chriisanthemum]

Over the top ridiculous! NOT NEEDED, the vast majority of people don't need this in their phone. Just image the file sizes (as if they weren't bad enough already). If you need this, then buy a freaking camera already!

I think they're making this stuff for actual dslrs...

 

[Mr Majestyk]

Given how much their 108MP sensor sucks, this should be a real hoot. Scamsung would be much better off sticking with a 24MP sensor and offering stacked sensor, and stacked pixel technology and making the sensor as large as possible. Also true optical zooms lenses, with FL ranges 12-24, 24-75, 75-200.

 

[dualkelly]

I think they're making this stuff for actual dslrs...

I take professional pictures mostly landscape and wildlife and I wouldn't be caught dead with a stupid cell phone camera. The sensor no matter how many megapixels is still considered to be less than Four Thirds while a full frame dslr is of a 35mm sensor are typically 36×24mm. We are not even talking about how the Lenses effect pictures either. Cell phones will never touch a dslr or a mirrorless in image quality no matter how many MP.

 

[Watzupken]

I take professional pictures mostly landscape and wildlife and I wouldn't be caught dead with a stupid cell phone camera. The sensor no matter how many megapixels is still considered to be less than Four Thirds while a full frame dslr is of a 35mm sensor are typically 36×24mm. We are not even talking about how the Lenses effect pictures either. Cell phones will never touch a dslr or a mirrorless in image quality no matter how many MP.

It is true that the camera modules on cellphones can never be as good as the real deal. But I think the technology have improved sufficiently to allow pictures taken by cellphones to be good enough for most people. If you are a camera/ photography enthusiast, the result from the cell phone camera is unlikely to impress you. But you cannot deny the convenience of having a decent camera on a cell phone since it doesn't require a bagful of lenses, batteries and camera accessories to capture a good enough shot.

At the end of the day, I don't believe this 200 MP sensor will be used to output images at the native resolution. It sounds like Samsung may be intending this for delivering better digital zoom quality. I can image if someone intends to take 200 MP of RAW, it will wipe out the storage on the phone in no time.

 

[dualkelly]

It is true that the camera modules on cellphones can never be as good as the real deal. But I think the technology have improved sufficiently to allow pictures taken by cellphones to be good enough for most people. If you are a camera/ photography enthusiast, the result from the cell phone camera is unlikely to impress you. But you cannot deny the convenience of having a decent camera on a cell phone since it doesn't require a bagful of lenses, batteries and camera accessories to capture a good enough shot.

At the end of the day, I don't believe this 200 MP sensor will be used to output images at the native resolution. It sounds like Samsung may be intending this for delivering better digital zoom quality. I can image if someone intends to take 200 MP of RAW, it will wipe out the storage on the phone in no time.

Oh I am all for better pictures on cell phones. There is without a doubt an advantage to better being able to record the world around us in all the more better pixel count. For example there's no way in hell cops would be held accountable for murdering unarmed black men while handcuffed and in custody if it wasn't for video. Video that a modern human being can take with a device in the palm of their hands and with almost no training.

 

[Uncle Al]

LOL, yeah, the SENSOR might be 200MP, but you can bet the LENS won't look like what they used for this shot! Not to mention the professional POST PROCESSING.
Gotta love the print in tiny letters "actual results may vary, depending on lighting conditons"
No kidding! With that many super tiny sensors jammed together, in poor lighting, it's going to be a
very noisy photo, which means the camera "AI" will try to tamp down the noise, resulting in a non realistic photo.

Yeah, I wish they would create a board that could slip into a 4x5 or 8x10 film holder and allow you to use it with view camera's. Granted there are easy ways to develop the application but there are SO MANY large format camera's with their expensive glass sitting in closets just not getting used any longer. I got a new digital back for my Hassiblad and it's nothing short of remarkably impressive. So much that I rarely use my Canon any longer ...... need to do something like that for the larger formats!! And soon, I'm not getting any younger!!!

 

[nismo91]

One good way to test a phone camera sensor is by using it for high res video recording. you'll see many phones struggles because they put so much post-processing effect for photos only.

I mean more details are welcome but... alright, just remember when Samsung introduces 64MP sensor for the first time years ago... and then remember when Samsung also introduces the first 108MP sensor for a phone a while later. if you can't remember that's fine because Sony's 12MP, 40MP and 50MP sensors delivered better results than these anyway.