An interesting tech exposé from mobile phone maker Oppo. Key technologies due to land are a new RGBW sensor, a true zoom module, 5-axis stabilisation, and improved under glass selfie cam.
It gives an insight into the pressures traditional camera makers face from the 'bottom' end of the market. The Director of Imaging makes the points that camera equipped mobiles are the goto imaging device that is always on you, and smaller and lighter than digital cameras.
Having recently acquired a Samsung S21 Ultra, primarily to upgrade my mobile's battery and cameras, I have become familiar with this high $ device's limitations. Apart from the usual sensor size and lens speed compromises, the biggest disappointment has been the IQ results from 'in-between' digitally extrapolated focal lengths.
It features (off the top of my head) an ultra wide-angle lens of 13mm (~0.6x), a 'normal' lens of 26mm (weird seeming standard of ~28mm of the mobile phone industry that deems this focal length as normal to the eye or 1x) , a mild telephoto of 72mm (or ~3x), and a telephoto of 260mm (10x). There are also 'hot buttons' for 30x , and 100x 'zoom' which are digitally extrapolated. You can also 'zoom' to any length between 0.6x and 100x by digital means.
I have to say that results outside of the 4 fixed focal lengths are mostly disappointing (loss of IQ) to downright poor (psychedelic artefacts at the longer end). It would be extremely useful to preserve that IQ across the entire focal range (well at least out to 30x , with mild drop off after that). I often wish to take a shot at the 35mm photographic norm of 50mm focal length - this means a 2x interpolation - rarely as good as you want.
The Oppo 'real zoom' tech (between 85mm - 200mm) promises a handy step forward. I think this technology holds exciting promise. In an idealish mobile setup, I could wish for a 1" 50mm fast aperture, an ultra wide-angle lens, a 24mm - 72mm real zoom, and a 72mm - 210mm real zoom, and a ~333mm telephoto. If the sensor sizes could be at least 3/4" to 2/3" , and the digital zoom of the long telephoto much improved, and the computational processing improved, then you'd get an awful lot of photography done.
Well worth watching the video in this article link.
To celebrate 'World Photography Day,' Chinese smartphone manufacturer Oppo revealed a collection of new and improved technologies it plans to bring to its devices in the future.
m.dpreview.com
Faced with this unrelenting pressure of mobile phones from 'below' and Canon and Sony from 'ahead' - Nikon has been scrambling to flesh out the mirrorless lens range. With limited resources, this seems to have put the 61MP Z8 on the back burner, along with it's DSLR twin D880. This has also meant no D850 II or D550 either. Pretty big holes and profits going begging in the video capable DSLR world ......
This leaves Nikon focusing (see what I did there ?! 😉 ) on the ~45 - ~50MP Z9 , something of an all things to all people R5/A1 style camera. One that will have to be better than both.
Chosun 🙎♀️
