Samsung's 200MP periscope telephoto camera expected to bring whopping 200x digital zoom...

[DragonSlayer101]

Forward-looking: Vivo may not be an instantly-recognizable smartphone brand in the US, but it is one of the most popular mobile manufacturers in China, India, and other leading Asian markets. The company recently launched its X100 and X100 Pro phones globally, and is now rumored to be working on the X100 Pro Plus, which is giving us hints of what's to come in 2024.

Smartphones with 200MP cameras have emerged in the past year, primarily for main cameras. However, Samsung Semiconductor is now hinting a shift towards 200MP telephoto cameras, a move that could further enhance smartphone photography.

Telephoto cameras have gained popularity among smartphone enthusiasts as they offer a longer optical zoom range and enhance the quality of portrait photographs. A larger telephoto sensor could bridge this quality gap when compared to a main camera sensor and provide a shallower depth-of-field, achieving the desired blurry background effect in portrait shots.

With frequent leaks being common for most Chinese smartphones, a recent Weibo post by prolific tipster Digital Chat Station has seemingly revealed key details about the camera setup of the X100 Pro Plus. According to the post, a prototype X100 Pro Plus model currently being tested by Vivo features a Samsung-made 200MP periscope telephoto camera with a whopping 200x digital zoom.

The tipster goes on to claim that the engineering samples of the upcoming phone are capable of 4.3X optical zoom, while the final retail units will likely be able to offer a more impressive 10x optical zoom. The posts also reveal that the camera will have a 1/1.5 inches sensor with a 100mm focal length.

According to prior leaks, the Vivo X100 Pro Plus could be powered by the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 SoC and feature a 2K display with an under-display fingerprint scanner. The device is also said to offer at least 12GB of memory and 512GB of built-in storage in the base model, with more premium variants offering even higher RAM and storage options.

While Vivo devices have historically never been sold in the US, the aforementioned news could still be significant for American market. Vivo is owned by China's BBK Electronics – the same company that also owns a bunch of other popular mobile phone brands, such as OnePlus, Oppo, iQOO, and Realme.

While OnePlus flagships are typically reworked versions of Oppo devices, there's always a chance that some technology from Vivo and other BBK brands might also find its way into next-gen OnePlus devices sold in the US. That said, it remains anyone's guess whether the company will introduce the 200MP Samsung camera with 200x zoom in OnePlus devices intended for the US market.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/101343-samsung-200mp-periscope-telephoto-camera-expected-bring-whopping.html

 

[Tuxie]

It doesn't matter how good cameras they put in their phones if they ruin the photos with mandatory exaggerated postprocessing and oversharpening anyway. Halos/outlines around all edges, extreme dynamic range compression removing all feeling of 3D depth, oversaturated colors. Basically the photos look like artificial paintings and I'm dumbfounded at all the "oooh, beautiful!" comments these photos get in social media.

 

[return]

"digital zoom" I'm not a photographer & I even know it is crap!

 

[Mouseface]

So its a Samsung lens and could go into any smartphone and likely will be in Samsung smartphones

Looks like a nice lens

I won't be buying any Chinese smartphones or other electronics from PRC any more

 

[godrilla]

I have the Galaxy s23 ultra and never use the 200 megapixel camera. The photos are less detailed than the telephoto camera. Samsung also admitted they use ai to post processes their photos. They do have the ability to shoot raw photos as well. The ai processing is subjective, but I personally like it. Also the night photo allows you to adjust shutter speed to up to 5 seconds which makes for some really nice night photos imo.
Here are some photos I took in the Bronx Zoo, showing off the digital zoom capabilities, quality and limitations. The one with the red panda ( 1stphoto is most detailed telephoto, 3rd one 200 megapixel camera 2nd photo 100 megapixel). Ai processing limitations with moving water shown with the turtles and ducks with artifacts. Also the giraffe picture is overdone. Lastly the elk shows the zoom capabilities with 100x zoom.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/G9qexdstjcCwjmcPA
Enjoy

 

[Mr Majestyk]

What a load of crap. If the zoom is 200x then the cropped resolution will be X/(200)^2 where X is the sensor pixel count. So even with 200MP the final resolution 1/200MP or 5000 pixels. That's enough for an avatar or emotional.

 

[p51d007]

If 200 MP on a smartphone sensor is such a good thing, why is it my d-slr tops out a 26 MP?
It's not the number of sensors, it's the size of the sensors, not to mention the GLASS in front of
the lens. (one of my telephoto lenses is more than a smartphone). When you cram that many super
tiny sensors together, and then try to take a less than good light photo, the camera turns up the sensor
gain to hopefully capture the light. The signal to noise ratio goes up, which causes the photo to have noise
which are the speckles in the photo. Then the camera software post processes it to remove it, which can
result in a terrible photo, so the software sticks something back in which looks like a flat photo.
Yeah, the best camera is the one you have with you, but, you still hear claims of "just as good as a d-slr".
If I'm going somewhere to purposely take photos, my smartphone will NOT be my camera of choice.

 

[SixTymes]

It doesn't matter how good cameras they put in their phones if they ruin the photos with mandatory exaggerated postprocessing and oversharpening anyway. Halos/outlines around all edges, extreme dynamic range compression removing all feeling of 3D depth, oversaturated colors. Basically the photos look like artificial paintings and I'm dumbfounded at all the "oooh, beautiful!" comments these photos get in social media.

Not unlike rap music being most popular "oooh, that's dope". Opps,they changed the name from crap music to "hip hop"

 

[YOUDIEMOFO]

I say bring it on. Because im.loving the movement of these smart devices and their capabilities. My S23 Ultra is and has been rocking it since its release.

The photos of our Disney World vacation were reason enough for me to buy this epic piece of hardware. To have them immortalized into the cloud at these specs and overall capabilities has been well worth the money for this device.

I'm hoping for some serious competition in the camera department for these newer smart phones. Something to make Sammy up their game tremendously for the S25 release.

And if there's a capable 200X zoom in there...the. icing on the cake. This 100x is something to teuly behold that is for sure. Just from a smart phone perspective these devices have been moving at an exponentially fast rate.

I just hope that the foldables do not disrupt that progression with their added hardware and other "shtuff" incorporated. I'm all about that feature-set and multi-capable functionality.

 

[maxxcool7421]

I say bring it on. Because im.loving the movement of these smart devices and their capabilities. My S23 Ultra is and has been rocking it since its release.

The photos of our Disney World vacation were reason enough for me to buy this epic piece of hardware. To have them immortalized into the cloud at these specs and overall capabilities has been well worth the money for this device.

I'm hoping for some serious competition in the camera department for these newer smart phones. Something to make Sammy up their game tremendously for the S25 release.

And if there's a capable 200X zoom in there...the. icing on the cake. This 100x is something to teuly behold that is for sure. Just from a smart phone perspective these devices have been moving at an exponentially fast rate.

I just hope that the foldables do not disrupt that progression with their added hardware and other "shtuff" incorporated. I'm all about that feature-set and multi-capable functionality.

Chat-gtp reply ... :| lol

 

[maxxcool7421]

This is pure false advertisement.. the ''image'' is resized to 16-24mp in resolution. like every other 64mp / 128mp phone

 

[Tuxie]

Not unlike rap music being most popular "oooh, that's dope". Opps,they changed the name from crap music to "hip hop"

I'm not judging anyone's taste in music. I am however judging everyone who think that autotuned vocals and quantized overcompressed guitars sound good. They are wrong.

 

[gmorita]

If 200 MP on a smartphone sensor is such a good thing, why is it my d-slr tops out a 26 MP?
It's not the number of sensors, it's the size of the sensors, not to mention the GLASS in front of
the lens. (one of my telephoto lenses is more than a smartphone). When you cram that many super
tiny sensors together, and then try to take a less than good light photo, the camera turns up the sensor
gain to hopefully capture the light. The signal to noise ratio goes up, which causes the photo to have noise
which are the speckles in the photo. Then the camera software post processes it to remove it, which can
result in a terrible photo, so the software sticks something back in which looks like a flat photo.
Yeah, the best camera is the one you have with you, but, you still hear claims of "just as good as a d-slr".
If I'm going somewhere to purposely take photos, my smartphone will NOT be my camera of choice.

Absolutely agree, with everything you said. With all the post processing and oversampling to reduce sensor noise, the 200MP sensor probably acts more like a <16MP. A good metric in determining the overall image quality is to look at the size of the RAW image file. For instance, my Canon 77D produces 33MB files for a 26MP sensor.

I also do not see how it is physically possible to create even a 4x optical zoom in a smartphone form factor. If you ever look at how the focus and zoom works in a REAL lens, you will see many elements moving in both directions in order to keep distortion like barrel and pincushion under control while maintaining a relatively flat focus. For example, my "old" 70-200mm f/4 L zoom has 20 lens elements in 15 groups with a couple low dispersion elements to reduce chromatic aberration, try doing that in a smartphone.

The only way to a 4x "zoom" range in a phone is to have multiple sensors and lenses, ie cameras, and take several images in rapid succession while using software to interpolate and merge the images. In the picture at the top of the article, I see four cameras on this phone.

The cameras in smartphones are OK if it's all you have but they are still toys as far as I am concerned. Also, don't even get me started on the in phone over processing to produce JPGs. I much prefer to use RAW files and adjust my images manually

 

[BabaYaga]

I have a Nikon D800 full frame 36.3MP camera. I bought many pro lenses including the 70-200mm 2.8. I took some amazing photos once I learned how to use the camera and lenses. It's hard to look at photos that don't have a nice bokeh.

Here is a comparison of sensor sizes.
https://I.pinimg.com/736x/f6/3d/1b/f63d1b52a14b0da79a990f250cf8bf56.jpg

Adding pixels just makes each pixel smaller so it sees less light. It's not a good thing.
https://ninakirienkoblog.files.wordpress.com/2019/08/sensors-and-pixels.png

How big of a photo do you want to take?
https://ninakirienkoblog.files.wordpress.com/2019/08/print-size-with-legend.jpg

200MP in a tiny camera sensor will look terrible. Imagine increasing the screen size without increasing the resolution.

To each his own. If you are satisfied with the photos of your phone, that's great. Having taken 1000s of photos with my camera, I see the difference. What bugs me the most is that I have to shell out $1k for phone upgrades due to these 'cameras' and other stuff I am forced to buy. I hate throwing away money.

 

[PurpaFur]

200x digital zoom? How is digital zoom a selling point? I can digitally zoom 200x on any camera or existing picture by just zooming in after. But WHOAAAAA BIG NUMBER GOOD!!!!