Basically to understand:
As comparison with normal or phone camera, 808 can take maximum:
38MP (4:3 format)
34MP (16:9 format)
808 have this "PureView" mode, what it does is... oversample (something similar like Photoshop downsampling) the full resolution into lower resolution. E.g. 38MP --> 5MP
NOTE: You can read below my post to Agito for more information.
So, as a normal camera, it's still taking 38MP or 34MP, just like N8 taking 12MP.
With PureView, it's enhancing the photo by oversampling to lower resolution (e.g. 5MP) using Nokia's algorithm.
Now, how come the 3X zoom is lossess?
Basically Nokia want to do optical zoom 5 years back, but it will be bulky, costly, etc. you name it.
Thus, they found this solution.
In 5MP mode, with no zoom, it's at highest oversampling mode.
As you zoom, the oversampling reduces because imagine the sensor is 41MP, as you zoom, it actually utilizes the sensor area (0X zoom, you using the full area of the sensor, as you zoom, it uses less area of the sensor which is like cropping from the original full resolution).
When you're at max zoom, it will be using the 5MP area of the sensor, thus it's lossless. The quality will be like a normal 5MP WITHOUT oversampling.
If you camera with oversampled 5MP with 3X zoom 5MP (with no oversampled), you will may see some loss in quality, but it's still original 5MP.
The above, has another benefit, with conventional camera optional zoom, the aperture changes when you zoom (e.g. 3X zoom at f/5.6), BUT with above technology, the aperture didn't change at all, still at f/2.4, thus allowing in more light.
I think many people are jumping to conclusions before understanding the technology or what it is, and never tried the camera or properly review. One will sound stupid if they just simply make assumptions by just looking at the surface/cover. They should do like GSMArena, go and try and talk to the man himself, understand the technolgy and what it actually do.
http://www.gsmarena.com/d_dinning_intervie...-review-728.phpBasically, if you take a full resolution, the image quality is very normal; Their specialty is the "PureView" method, which is oversampling the full resolution into lower resolution (E.g. 38MP --> 5MP), and they're not doing pixel binning method. At least GSMArena did a very thorough interview and get a lot of information from them.
The reason they do this is to overcome the issue of introducing optical zoom into smartphones. Optical zoom will make the phone bulky, and the cost involved for the lens will be high and it's also less durable, etc.
They come up with this where you have a 41MP sensor, oversampled to 5MP, hence, you can zoom up till the max zoom which still utilizing the 5MP part of the sensor; This means, it's something like optical zoom, the only thing is, as you zoom, the oversampling reduces, when you're in max zoom, the 5MP will be like a normal 5MP quality.
Another benefit here is, the aperture is maintained compared to a conventional camera which have variable aperture optical zoom.
Now, the D800, there is option to shoot at lower resolution (e.g. 8MP), but I don't think there's any oversampling or similar applied? If there is no, imagine applying this technology which will greatly enhance the quality, image noise, etc. I think this is a NICE TO HAVE option, you can choose to have normal 8MP or oversampled 8MP.
Canon have this lossess zoom thing I think, not sure if the technology is something similar.
It's also said oversampling eliminates the Bayer Pattern problem; Below taken from White Paper:
For example, conventional 8MPix sensors include only 4Mpix green, 2Mpix red and 2Mpix blue pixels, which are interpolated to 8Mpix R, G, B image. With pixel oversampling, all pixels become true R, G, and B pixels. What’s more, based on Nyqvist theorem, youactually need oversampling for good performance. For example, audio needs to be sampled at 44 kHz to get good 22 kHz quality.
Anyway, I think this is a good and nice technology; We shouldn't look at it negatively, it would be to if it will be available as additional options in the camera, and the guy behind it is amazing too, he developed a new generation of sensor for the N9, which utilizes best of both world from 16:9 and 4:3 format.
Some Q&A from taken from GSMArena Interview:
GSMArena: If we only needed a 2MP image, for instance, we would traditionally take a full resolution shot, and then downsample it with Photoshop. Does PureView provide downsampling algorithms superior to those of Photoshop or other image editing software, effectively eliminating this step?
D. Dinning: We haven't really made that comparison. What I can say is, depending on the interpolation and downsampling you use in Photoshop, it may be possible that you'll get similar performance. But you're then handling the JPG file that was saved, so you're probably better off doing it at point of capture. I think you'll find that we probably have a different balance to what you achieve with Photoshop. How we optimize the algorithms is to retain as much of the detail as possible that we think is represented in the object, but also filter as much of the noise as possible. In Photoshop, you typically might get a sharpness that looks higher, but you might get more noise, for example. We struck a slightly different balance when we use our algorithms.
GSMArena: Let's talk about the optics. Carl Zeiss, right?
D. Dinning: Carl Zeiss, yes. The [manufacturing] precision is ten times greater than with SLR [lenses]. There are five lenses, quite small at the top, and then get progressively larger as they approach the sensor. There's also a mechanical ND filter which can be controlled in Creative mode, similar to the N8.
bro Andy comment really technical...
Mar 2 2012, 10:29 AM
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