So, you think mobile photography will never surpass or even on par with DSLR imaging prowess? Well, think again. Samsung has just announced a break through in mobile imaging with the industry’s first 108 megapixel image sensor for smartphone. One-hundred-and-eight! Holy cow. That’s a resolution that is equivalent to that of a high-end DSLR camera. And let me remind you that it is a smartphone image sensor.
The sensor was developed in partnership with Xiaomi and apparently, it will be first adopted by Xiaomi. This is absolutely bonkers. It will the dawn of the end of DSLR if this keeps transpiring. Granted, for now, it may not have the image processing of a DSLR, but hey, now that 108 MP is a reality, you just to admit that someday, just someday, it will get to get to DSLR level and possibility even surpassing it.
Anywho, the 1/1.33-inch sensor, called Samsung ISOCELL Bright HMX, promised to deliver exceptional photos even in extreme lighting conditions.
“Being the first mobile image sensor to adopt a large 1/1.33-inch size, the HMX can absorb more light in low-lit settings than smaller sensors and its pixel-merging Tetracell technology allows the sensor to imitate big-pixel sensors, producing brighter 27Mp images. In bright environments, the Smart-ISO, a mechanism that intelligently selects the level of amplifier gains according to the illumination of the environment for optimal light-to-electric signal conversion, switches to a low ISO to improve pixel saturation and produce vivid photographs. The mechanism uses a high ISO in darker settings that helps reduce noise, resulting in clearer pictures.”
That’s not it even. The sensor is capable of videoing, without losses of field-of-view, at resolutions up to 6K (6,016 x 3,384 pixels) at 30 fps. 6K recording on a smartphone. Lets just take a moment for that to sink in. And all these are not a fantasy dream; it is very real. So real that mass production for the Samsung ISOCELL Bright HMX is set to begin later this month. This means, it likely you will see it in a smartphone within this year.
Images: Samsung.
