I believe many friends have a confusion. In recent years, the pixels of mobile phones have become higher and higher, from 48 million to 50 million to 64 million pixels or even 100 million pixels. Although the pixels are so high, why do the photos taken still feel inferior? Are the photos taken by the 20-megapixel or even 12-megapixel mirrorless camera clear?
To answer this question, we must first understand the relationship between the quality and clarity of photos and "pixels". The image quality and clarity of
photos are not only related to pixels.
The higher the pixels, the clearer, and the higher the pixels, the better the image quality - this statement has become an inherent impression in the minds of many friends. In fact, the term pixel only refers to the screen size. For example, a resolution of 4000 x 6000 is a typical 24 million pixels.
We can use a picture frame as a metaphor. 4000 Regarding the amount of light entering the photo, this is related to the bottom area of the sensor.
The larger the bottom area of the sensor, the greater the amount of light entering, and the picture will naturally be clearer. For a small-sized sensor, in order to obtain the same amount of light as a large-sized sensor, one way is to lengthen the shutter time. Although my sensor is small, if you expose for 1 second and I expose for 2 seconds, then the amount of light will be the same. Almost?
This method is feasible when the sensor frames are not much different. For example, the sensor of an M43-frame camera is smaller than that of a full-frame camera, but through abnormal anti-shake, you can hold it for a longer shutter time to obtain an amount of light comparable to that of a full-frame camera.
But when it comes to mobile phones, do you know how big the gap is between the bottom area of the mobile phone’s sensor and the full-frame camera?
The largest sensor on a mobile phone is only 1 inch, and there are M43 and APS-C to reach full frame. A 1-inch sensor is the ceiling for mobile phones, but the lower limit for cameras.
In this case, the mobile phone may have to pull the shutter for 10 seconds before the amount of light can be comparable to that of the full-frame 1/50 second shutter.
It is naturally impractical to hold a 10-second shutter on a mobile phone.
This also results in the amount of light entering the mobile phone being significantly lower than that of the camera. Of course, mobile phone manufacturers naturally have solutions.
That's "computational photography". The hardware can't compare, so I use algorithms to make up for it! With multi-frame synthesis and multi-frame noise reduction, your mobile phone can take very pure night scene photos.
However, computational photography also makes the photos taken have a strong "digital flavor" - it is often said in the photography circle that they look like they were taken with a mobile phone.
For example, the criticized sharpening problem of iPhone13 is the impact of over-calculation of photography, and users cannot turn it off even if they want to. The inherent hardware limitations of
's small base, coupled with excessive computational photography, make the clarity and quality of photos taken by mobile phones inferior to those of cameras.
In addition to the sensor, the lens is also the key.
Anyone who has played photography knows that a top-level camera system is composed of a top-level body + a top-level three-dimensional lens. In a sense, the lens is even more important than the body.
A good lens has a complex lens group, with more than ten groups of lenses, and a complex coating process to eliminate the effects of glare, purple fringing , etc. The amount of light passing through the lens also directly affects image quality, sharpness, etc.
However, the plastic lenses of mobile phones cannot be taken care of so much. The 7P plastic lenses are considered the best. The amount of light entering, the control of glare, and the lens on the camera are all above and below.
Although there are now 1-inch sensors on mobile phones, the lenses that match them have not kept up. You can take a look at the Sony 1-inch sensor Black Card 7 and how big the lens module is. Look at how small the lens set on the phone is?
Summary
Through the above popular science, I believe everyone already has the answer - the clarity of a photo is not only related to pixels, but also related to the bottom area of the sensor and the quality of the lens.
If the bottom area of the sensor is not increased and the lens group is not improved, even if the mobile phone has 200 million pixels or 1 billion pixels, the image quality will not be as good as that of a 12 million pixel full-frame mirrorless camera.
