Smartphone camera developers are forced to resort to various tricks to improve the quality of their images.

[zakiyatasnim]

With the release of each new flagship smartphone model, market leaders significantly improve the quality of built-in cameras, while not actually increasing their dimensions. Unlike large SLR cameras, where manufacturers are almost not limited in the size of the matrix and optics, in smartphones the size of the camera matters . After all, consumers are unlikely to buy heavy and large gadgets in which the camera takes up the main volume. Although there have already been some attempts peru number data to make a large camera for a smartphone, although by removing it into a separate removable module. This idea was not particularly successful, since an external device sharply reduced the convenience of using the phone, and the need to pay a lot of money for an additional photo module was also not pleasing.



But building a high-quality camera into a smartphone poses many challenges. The main difficulty lies in the fact that the size of the camera in a smartphone is very small, which entails a whole list of increased production requirements. The first is that the optics must be manufactured very carefully , which with such miniature dimensions greatly complicates the task. The second is the size of the matrix. It is known that the larger the pixel and, accordingly, its area, the greater the amount of light it collects. And this means that its photosensitivity is higher and the signal-to-noise ratio is better. The smaller the pixel, the less light that reaches the sensor . For example, with a twofold decrease in the linear dimensions of the pixel, its area decreases by a factor of four, and, therefore, the number of photons that reach the photodiode decreases by a factor of four. In practice, this means a decrease in the dynamic range of the matrix. Thus, increasing the number of pixels in the matrix with an unchanged size almost always leads to a decrease in the quality of photography.

Additionally, as the pixel size decreases, the negative impact of diffraction on sharpness when the lens is stopped down is more noticeable. At the same time, a small pixel reduces the size of the scattering range, thereby reducing the depth of field.

Advantages of a super-resolution matrix
To solve the above problems, developers resort to various technological tricks. First of all, the emphasis is on the use of high-quality illuminated optics , which allows you to supply more light to the matrix. In addition, engineers use several photomodules , working in a single system, based on the principle that two lenses collect twice as much light as one.

Further, a certain revolution in improving the quality of photography was made by the development of matrices with a huge number of pixels : 48 MP, 64 MP and even 108 MP. In addition, at the output the user will still get a 12-megapixel or maximum 16-megapixel photo. Why then create a sensor with 48 MP or even more? Here engineers solve at least two problems. First, it is not yet possible to use optical zoom in a smartphone camera. To achieve approximation of the subject without reducing quality, developers either mount two independent photo modules with a standard and telephoto lens, or use digital zoom. Until recently, the latter led to pixelation of the image when zoomed in, but now, having, for example, a 48-megapixel file in the original, you can cut out a 12-megapixel fragment from it and thereby achieve a 4x zoom without loss of quality .