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Smartphone manufacturers have taken image capture very seriously in mobile devices over the past few years. Traditional point and shoot camera photography has now largely been replaced by modern mobile photography. In the nascent days, mobile photography allowed users to simply capture candid, landscape shots; innovation, however, has now bolstered functionality to image filtering, editing, tweaking camera settings and even adjusting lens aperture based on varied lighting conditions.
From the grainy images that we used to get earlier, progression in smartphone camera now allows camera enthusiasts to capture remarkable photographs with vibrant colour and refined details. In this article, we discuss some of those recent innovations that have galvanized mobile photography to a whole new level offering discernible output.
Low-light capture has been a weak point for most smartphones, but courtesy of Samsung’s new dual aperture mode, users can now capture enhanced images in low-light conditions as well. The mode implemented on Samsung’s latest flagship handsets, Galaxy S9 and S9+, enables the camera to oscillate between two different apertures (f/1.5 and f/2.4) depending on the lighting condition. The cameras on these devices feature combined aperture settings to retain balanced exposure in the shots. The variable aperture opens up to a wider f/1.5 unit to let in more light while capturing photos in dimly-lit condition. Meanwhile, in brighter conditions the aperture closes to f/2.4 to retain balance and produce nice and detailed images. The Galaxy S9 series comes with “Super Speed” Dual Pixel to better support the dual aperture mode.
Smartphone cameras now have the ability to create artificial depth of field which is gained via complex image processing. Commonly known as Portrait mode now allows a user to capture photos with shallow depth of field. Google Pixel 2 series, for instance, uses computational photography technique and HDR+ to enhance image quality. The feature functions by capturing a series of images that are underexposed and combine the frames to reduce noise in the shadows and balance the contrast resulting in a better image with high dynamic range. Further Google’s ‘machine learning-based foreground-background segmentation’ tries to analyse the pixels belonging to the foreground and that of the background. The dual-pixel autofocus further produces depth mapping to create visually appealing portrait shots with sharp foreground and blurred background.
Super slow-mo video functioning has improved in the past years. While earlier slow-mo footage used to produce a huge amount of data in a clip and caused slow transfer through the ISP and into the storage, the issue has been fixed. Smartphone manufacturers began embedding a layer of DRAM into the sensor stack thereby allowing smartphones to capture more frames per second. Devices are now capable of recording super slow mo 720 clips at 960 frames per second. Samsung, for instance, has introduced 12MP ISOCELL Fast 2L3 on Galaxy S9 series that utilises the proprietary stack of fast DDR4 memory. The three stack setup is basically required to store the massive amount of frames and process them quickly. While smartphones are now capable of recording slow-mo videos at incredible frames per second, users need to take few points in consideration while capturing it, for instance, the lighting condition, timing, and stability.
Also Read- Samsung Galaxy S9+ review: The best Android flagship, best camera too
Another notable aspect of modern mobile photography is the capability to record 4K footage. A lot of smartphones these days support video recording and playback at 4K resolution. Notably, Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 800 was the first chipset that offered the ability to capture 4K videos. 4K resolution basically offers high-res image quality, more detailed and sharp picture and large projection surface visibility. Ideally to record 4K videos, camera sensor should have more than 8MP unit and of course suitable processing hardware as well. While some devices now come with a single H.264 or H.265 codec (video compression format) to encode 4K videos, certain high-end smartphones like iPhone X, Samsung Galaxy Note 8 let you select between H.264 and H.265 codec. The ‘fused video stabilisation’ further allows recording impressive 4K footage. Sony has also implemented the 4K movie-recording ability to its advance Motion Eye camera to capture video with brilliant contrast, detail and true-tone colours.
While earlier Pro mode was limited to only adjusting White balance and ISO, you can now tweak shutter speed, exposure levels and aperture. With the advancement in technology, smartphones now operate like a mini DSLR to adjust contrast, improve composition, tweak ISO and exposure level. Pro mode usually incorporated in native camera app expands the probability to capture the perfect shot in varied lighting conditions. Adjusting the white balance makes the image appear more natural, while ISO dictates the level of sensitivity to light. Some phones even allow manually focusing on a subject, applying real-time filters and looking for a preview of the shot.
Also Read- Nokia 7 Plus review: The no-nonsense Android smartphone
While smartphone cameras earlier used to offer digital zoom, OEMs have pushed the boundaries incorporating optical and lossless zoom on their devices. While digital zoom only allowed enlarging an image on the screen and cropping it to fit in, it reduced the image quality significantly. Optical zoom, however, enables taking shots closer without compromising the quality of the image. Since it allows the camera lens to adjust magnification, smartphones with optical zoom are able to retain detail much better than digital zoom.
Lossless zoom meanwhile offers more refined detail while zooming into a scene without upscaling images to the desired resolution. The feature is not new, in fact it was implemented on the Nokia Lumia 1020’s giant sensors and Sony Xperia Z1 and Z1 Compact as well. With abundance of pixels, lossless zoom basically increases up the zoom to x-times instead of upscaling beyond the resolution of the camera and maintains clarity. Chinese OEM, Oppo last year introduced 5X lossless zoom, the dual camera zoom system has a periscope-style setup. Interestingly, Oppo has put OIS on telephone lens instead of wide-angle lens on its new 5x dual camera zoom system. With such implementation, the images will remain clear and stable while zooming in on them.
AI-driven features on smartphone camera have slowly become a standard that we are witnessing in these portable computers now. While ‘password-based’ authentication seems to be less effective, smartphone makers have started relying on AI-driven facial biometric system for better security. While the leading tech companies have emphasized on mobile photography technology, some have begun leveraging AI and even design AI-powered chipset for their phones. With AI, the cameras on the phones are able to identify scene, objects and even adjust settings automatically. The AI enhances the images captured on the phone by adding vibrancy and detail. Smartphone manufacturers have also forayed into 3D scanning technology. Oppo Find X and Xiaomi Mi 8 Explorer are among those smartphones that utilise dot projector, illuminator, front camera sensor to support the feature. The AI-enhanced 3D camera intelligently maps the face to personalise images.
Also Read- Oppo Find X comes with motorised camera module and it is no surprise
3D mapping on smartphones meanwhile dates back to the year 2014 when Kickstarter introduced LazeeEye, a prototype add-on. Google brought the feature with Project Treble the same year which was aimed to create detailed indoor maps. The special sensor basically uses depth perception and spatial awareness, making over a quarter million measurements every second.
