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How Big Are Cellphone Camera Sensors Anyway (And Other Interesting Facts)

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Whatever it is you want to know about cellphone camera sensors, you’ll probably find it in DP Review’s absurdly in-depth article on the subject. It details not only the common misconceptions about megapixels, but also many real world differences. And it contains the diagram shown at the top of this post, showing the size differences between the sensors in various phones, measured in pixels.

1080p FaceTime Could Be Coming To The iPhone 5S

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While the rear camera in the iPhone continues to improve by leaps and bounds — and we can expect the iPhone 5S to continue that trend — the front FaceTime camera improves at a far more glacial pace. In an age of selfies, the iPhone 5’s front facing camera isn’t that much better at offering the sort of fidelity of resolution necessary to deeply inspect our blackheads and pores than the iPhone 4 was.

That’s probably about to change though. Omnivision — maker of the iPhone 5’s front-facing camera sensor — have just announced the OV2724, which crams a full 1080p sensor (or 2MP, compared to the current camera’s 1.2MP sensor) into a tiny cube small enough to go into the next iPhone. And it even shoots at 60 frames per second and offers some impressive dynamic range to boot.

It’s going into production this summer. With decent yields and some luck, that should make it ready for the iPhone 5S when it lands in fall.

Source: Omnivision
Via: Gizmodo

Ricoh GR Compact With Big Ol’ APS-C Sensor

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Back in the 1980s and 1990s, all compact cameras looked like the Ricoh GR. they might not have been as sleek-looking, but they had big finger grips, a giant full-frame sensor (35mm) film and a fixed wideangle lens.

Now, proving that large sensors are the new black, the GR is packing a DSLR-sized APS-C sensor into its tiny body.

Why Do Photos Taken With The iPhone 4S Look Like Rubbish On The Retina MacBook Pro?

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The new Retina MacBook Pro is the most pixel-loaded Apple device yet, with more than five million of the little blighters spread over 220 pixels per inch. That’s a lot of tiny dots, but believe it or not, it only translates to a mere five megapixels. And since the iPhone has had a 5 megapixel camera since 2010, pictures taken on an iPhone 4 or iPhone 4S should be able to take full advantage of the Retina MacBook Pro’s 2880 x 1800 resolution display.

So why is it that photos taken with an iPhone 4 or iPhone 4S look so crappy on a Retina MacBook Pro? That’s what Instapaper developer Marco Arment wants to know, and so do we. We have a theory though.

Nikon D800 Has Best Sensor Ever Made, Beating Even Hasselblad

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Thinking about a medium format camera? The Nikon D800 might be just the thing
Thinking about a medium format camera? The Nikon D800 might be just the thing

Nikon’s D800 is the best camera in the world, according to camera and lens rating supremo DxOMark. Or rather, it has the best sensor DxOMark has ever analyzed. With a score of 95, it even beats out its big brother, the Nikon D4. It even has an “unmatched quality-to-price ratio,” being the cheapest of the top eight cameras on DxOMark’s charts.

The New iPad Has The iPhone 4 Camera Sensor

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The new iPad shares a camera sensor with the iPhone 4
The new iPad shares a camera sensor with the iPhone 4

We suspected as much, but the inquisitive engineers at Chipworks have confirmed that the camera inside the new iPad is indeed the same one found in the iPhone 4. The optics, as we already knew, come from the iPhone 4S’ camera.

Chipworks says that “It is very likely that Apple has recycled the 5MP back illuminated CMOS image sensor from the iPhone 4,” — the Omnivision OV5650.

How Nokia’s Amazing 41-Megapixel Phone Works

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The 808's sensor is the big one at bottom-right, next to typical phone and compact camera sensors. Photo Nokia
The 808's sensor is the big one at bottom-right, next to typical phone and compact camera sensors. Photo Nokia

BARCELONA, MOBILE WORLD CONGRESS 2012 — Yesterday, Nokia announced its crazy new 41 megapixel camera phone, the PureView 808, and the world chuckled. Just how big is the damn phone, I wondered, when Cult of Mac Deputy Editor John Brownlee woke me up and told me the news. But last night I spoke to a Nokia engineer, and it turns out this camera is pretty smart after all.

First, while the sensor does indeed contain 41 megapixels, it doesn’t snap 41MP photos. Instead, the sea of noisy data collected from those pixels is combined in software to get 5MP photos. Why? It started with the desire to design a better zoom.