Sony imx sensors. Sony Xperia Lead Camera Engineer on the development of mobile photography, Sony technology and the future. Smartphones with Sony IMX378 camera

Sony is renowned for producing quality smartphone camera sensors and is one of the world's leading suppliers of these components. Even the flagships of Samsung or LG use Sony modules, and there is nothing to say about Chinese companies. The release of the new flagship Xiaomi Mi 5S, as well as its enlarged version Mi 5S Plus, introduced the world to Sony's new product aimed at top-end devices. Smartphones were the first devices with this sensor. To understand what the novelty is, our material will help.

Specifications Sony Exmor IMX378

Based on the specifications of the Sony IMX378, this camera is a modified and improved version of the IMX377 module released last year. In general, the practice of using identical sensors adapted to the specifics of specific devices, as well as differing in housing and optics, is quite common at Sony. Successful camera models go through several "reincarnations", as was the case with the IMX145 (aka IMX175, IMX164 and IMX179) or IMX258 / 278.

The actual resolution of the IMX378 sensor is 4120x3036 or 12.5 MP. However, in 3: 4 aspect ratio the maximum resolution reaches 4024x3036 pixels, in widescreen - 4120x2168. Thus, the size of the matrix used in widescreen mode is reduced to 1 / 2.5 ", and the picture resolution is reduced to almost 9 MP.

Sony IMX378 uses a 1 / 2.3 "sensor (one of the largest among smartphones), with pixels of 1.55 microns. The actual sensor diagonal is 7.8 mm. Due to twice the area (2.4 microns2 vs.1 , 2 μm2), each pixel is capable of capturing twice as much light as standard 1.12-micrometer size elements, and in real-world conditions this advantage manifests itself in the form of improved light sensitivity (and thus detail) in low light.

In the version used in Xiaomi flagships, the optics consists of 6 lenses, and its aperture opens up to f / 2. At the same time, the actual focal length is 4.75 mm - almost 1.5 times longer than most modern smartphones (3.5 mm). Due to the increased thickness of the module, the lens is able to capture much more light.

Among other capabilities of the IMX378 camera sensor, video shooting in 4K 4000x3000 with a frequency of 30 FPS, 3840x2160 - 60 FPS, FullHD - 120 FPS and HD - 300 FPS is declared. Automatic focusing mechanism - phase, but without Dual Pixel technology.

Smartphones with Sony IMX378 camera

The Sony IMX378 sensor has not yet received distribution. The first smartphones to use this camera are the Xiaomi Mi 5S and Mi 5S Plus styles. At the moment, it is difficult to judge all the possibilities and quality of the photos that the module makes, but Xiaomi representatives have published a selection of photos demonstrating the capabilities of smartphones. The shots look very cool, but we must not forget about the tricks of the marketers. To fully appreciate the IMX378 sensor in real conditions, you need to wait until the Mi 5S goes on sale.

The second and third smartphones to receive this camera model should be the Google Pixel and Pixel XL. The heirs of the Nexus series are equipped with the Sony IMX378. DxOMark gave the camera in Pixel smartphones with Sony IMX 378 sensor the highest rating at the time of writing this review - 89 points. The Google Pixel and Pixel XL smartphones have good software from the software giant and beat even the sensational flagship in mobile photography Galaxy S7 with a maximum of 88 points from DxOMark.

At the moment, you can get a general impression of the capabilities of the new camera by analyzing images from the HTC 10, Huawei Nexus 6P or LG Nexus 5X. These devices, as mentioned in the beginning, are equipped with a Sony IMX377 camera sensor, so they should provide a similar quality of frames. However, completely projecting the opinion about this matrix onto a newer model is not the most correct decision. Also, do not forget about the camera software, which is different for each manufacturer and plays an important role in the final result.

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More banal than this axiom is the only explanation “the iPhone, it turns out, does not have a memory card slot”. But beginners continue to make mistakes when they "bite" the number of megapixels in the camera, which means they have to repeat themselves.

Imagine a window - an ordinary window in a residential building or apartment. The megapixel count is roughly the amount of glass inside the window frame. If we continue to draw parallels with smartphones, in ancient times glass for windows was the same size and was considered a scarce commodity. Therefore, when the conventional "Tolyan" said that he had 5 glasses (megapixels) in the window block, everyone understood that Anatoly was a serious and wealthy person. And the characteristics of the window were also immediately clear - a good view outside the house, a large glazing area.

A few years later, windows (megapixels) ceased to be a shortage, so their number had only to be brought to the required level, and calm down on this. Just bring it in line with the area (a vent for ventilation and a loggia, for the sake of strength, require a different number of windows) so that the camera produces a slightly denser picture than 4K monitors and TVs produce. And finally take on other characteristics - for example, to deal with clouding of glass and image distortion. Teach the cameras to correctly focus and paint the available megapixels with high quality, if you want specifics.

There are more "megapixels" on the right, but they do not give anything but "obstacles" with the same area of \u200b\u200bthe "sensor"

But people are already used to measuring the quality of cameras with megapixels, and sellers happily indulged in this. Therefore, the circus with a huge number of glasses (megapixels) in the same frame (dimensions of the camera matrix) continued. As a result, today the pixels in smartphone cameras, although not "packed" with the density of a mosquito net, but the "glass" has become too dense, and over 15 megapixels in smartphones almost always spoil rather than improve photos. It never happened, and again it turned out that it was not size that mattered, but skill.

At the same time, the "evil", as you know, is not the megapixels themselves - if tons of megapixels were spread out on a sufficiently large camera, they would be good for the smartphone. When the camera is able to unleash the potential of all megapixels on board, and not "smear" them in large bulk when shooting, the photo can be enlarged, cropped, and it will remain of high quality. That is, no one will understand that this is just a fragment of a larger image. But now such miracles are found only in "correct" SLR and mirrorless cameras, in which only one matrix (a microcircuit with photosensors, on which a picture arrives through the "glass" of the camera) is much larger than a smartphone camera assembly.

"Evil" is a tradition of stuffing megapixels into tiny cameras on mobile phones. This tradition has brought nothing but blurring of the picture and excess of digital noise ("peas" in the frame).

Sony piled up 23 megapixels where competitors put 12-15 megapixels, and paid for this by reducing the clarity of the picture. (photo - manilashaker.com)

For reference: in the best cameraphones of 2017, the main rear cameras (not to be confused with b / w additional ones) all operate as one with the “pathetic” 12-13 megapixels. In photo resolution, this is about 4032x3024 pixels - enough for a Full HD (1920x1080) monitor, and for 4K (3840x2160), too, albeit end-to-end. Roughly speaking, if a smartphone camera has more than 10 megapixels, their number is no longer important. Other things are important.

How to determine that the camera is of high quality, before looking at the photos and videos from it

Aperture - how wide the smartphone "opened its eyes"

The squirrel feeds on nuts, the deputies - on the money of the people, and cameras - on light. The more light, the higher the quality of the photo and the more detail. Only sunny weather and studio-style bright lighting lamps for any occasion of life cannot be enough. Therefore, for good photos indoors or outdoors in cloudy weather / at night, cameras are designed in such a way that they produce a lot of light even in adverse conditions.

The easiest way to get more light to hit the camera sensor is to make a larger hole in the lens. The indicator of how wide the "eyes" of the camera are, called aperture, aperture, or aperture - this is one and the same parameter. And the words are different so that the reviewers in the articles can show off in incomprehensible terms as long as possible. Because, if you don't show off, the aperture can simply be called, excuse me, a "hole", as is customary among photographers.

Aperture is indicated by a fraction with the letter f, a forward slash and a number (or with a capital F and no fraction: for example, F2.2). Why

so - a long story, and that's not the point, as Rotaru sings. The bottom line is this: the smaller the number after the letter F and the forward slash, the better the camera in the smartphone. For example, f / 2.2 in smartphones is good, but f / 1.9 is better! The wider the aperture, the more light enters the matrix and the better the smartphone "sees" (takes better photos and videos) at night. The bonus of the wide aperture is beautiful background blur when you shoot flowers up close, even if the smartphone does not have a dual camera.

Melania Trump explains what different apertures look like in smartphone cameras

Before buying a smartphone, do not be too lazy to clarify how "sighted" the rear camera is. Looked at Samsung Galaxy J3 2017 - type in the search "Galaxy J3 2017 aperture", "Galaxy J3 2017 aperture" or "Galaxy J3 2017 aperture" to find out the exact number. If in the smartphone that you looked after for yourself nothing is known about the diaphragm, two options are possible:

• The camera is so bad that the manufacturer decided to keep silent about its characteristics. Marketers are doing about the same rudeness when, in response to "what processor is in a smartphone?" answer "quad-core" and in every possible way evade not to disclose a specific model.
• The smartphone has just appeared on sale and no characteristics, except for those in the advertisement, have not yet been “delivered”. Wait a couple of weeks - usually during this time the details will come out.

What should be the aperture in the camera of a new smartphone?

In 2017-2018 even for a budget model, the rear camera should produce at least f / 2.2. If the number in the denominator of this fraction is greater, get ready for the camera to see the picture as if wearing tinted glasses. And in the evening and at night she will be "blind" and will be able to see almost nothing even at a distance of several meters from the smartphone. And do not rely on "twists" of brightness - in a smartphone with f / 2.4 or f / 2.6, evening photography with an exposure "stretched" by the software method will turn out to be a "rough smear", while a camera with f / 2.2 or f / 2.0 will take a better photo without tricks.

The wider the aperture, the higher the quality of the smartphone camera

The coolest smartphones today are equipped with cameras with an aperture of f / 1.8, f / 1.7 or even f / 1.6. The aperture itself does not guarantee the maximum quality of images (the quality of the sensor and the "glass" has not been canceled) - this, I will quote the photographers, is just a "hole" through which the camera looks at the world. But other things being equal, it is better to choose smartphones in which the camera does not "squint", but receives an image with wide-open "eyes".

Diagonal of the matrix (sensor): the more - the better

The matrix in a smartphone is not a matrix where people with complex faces in black cloaks dodge bullets. In mobile phones, this word means a photocell ... in other words, a plate onto which a picture flies through the "glass" of optics. In old cameras, the picture flew onto film and was saved there, and the matrix instead accumulates information about the photograph and sends it to the smartphone's processor. The processor formalizes all this into the final photo and stores the files in internal memory, or on microSD.

There is only one thing to know about the matrix - it should be as large as possible. If the optics is a water supply hose, and the diaphragm is the neck of the container, then the matrix is \u200b\u200bthe very reservoir for water, which is never enough.

The dimensions of the matrix are usually measured in inhuman, from the bell tower of ordinary buyers, Vidicon inches. One such inch is equal to 17 mm, but cameras in smartphones have not yet reached such a size, so the matrix diagonal is denoted by a fraction, as is the case with the aperture. The smaller the second digit in the fraction (divisor), the larger the matrix -\u003e the steeper the camera.

Is it clear that nothing is clear? Then just remember these numbers:

A budget smartphone will take pictures well if the matrix size in it is at least 1/3 "with a camera resolution not higher than 12 megapixels. More megapixels means lower quality in practice. And if there are less than ten megapixels, good large monitors and TVs will have a photo look loose, simply because they have fewer dots than the height-width of your monitor screen.

In mid-range smartphones, a good matrix size is 1 / 2.9 "or 1 / 2.8". If you find a larger one (1 / 2.6 "or 1 / 2.5", for example) - consider yourself very lucky. The flagship smartphones have a good tone - a matrix of at least 1 / 2.8 ", and better - 1 / 2.5".

Smartphones with a large sensor shoot better than models with small photocells

Is it even cooler? It happens - look at 1 / 2.3 ”in Sony Xperia XZ Premium and XZ1. Why, then, are these smartphones not setting records for photo quality? Because the "automatic" of the camera constantly makes mistakes with the selection of settings for shooting, and the stock of "clarity and vigilance" of the camera is spoiled by the number of megapixels - they were piled up in these models by 19 instead of the standard 12-13 megapixels for new flagships, and the fly in the ointment canceled out the advantages of a huge matrix.

Are there smartphones in nature with a good camera and less harsh specifications? Yes - take a look at the Apple iPhone 7 with its 1/3 "at 12 megapixels. On the Honor 8, which has 1 / 2.9" at the same number of megapixels. Magic? No - just good optics and perfectly "licked" automation, which takes into account the potential of the camera as well as tailored trousers take into account the amount of cellulite on the thighs.

But there is a problem - manufacturers almost never indicate the size of the sensor in the specifications, because these are not megapixels, and you can be disgraced if the sensor is cheap. And in reviews or descriptions of smartphones in online stores, such camera characteristics are even less common. Even if you have chosen a smartphone with an adequate number of megapixels and a promising aperture value, there is a chance you will never know the size of the rear photosensor.In this case, pay attention to the last characteristic of smartphone cameras, which directly affects the quality.

Few large pixels are better than many small ones

Imagine a red caviar sandwich, or take a look at it if you have a hard time remembering how such delicacies look. Just as the eggs in a sandwich are distributed over a piece of loaf, the area of \u200b\u200bthe camera sensor (camera matrix) in a smartphone is occupied by light-sensitive elements - pixels. These pixels in smartphones, to put it mildly, are not a dozen, or even a dozen. One megapixel - 1 million pixels, in typical smartphones cameras of 2015-2017 such megapixels are 12-20.

As we have already figured out, keeping an excessive amount of "dummies" on the smartphone's matrix is \u200b\u200bdestructive for pictures. The efficiency of such a crowd comes out, like that of specialized teams of people for replacing a light bulb. Therefore, in the camera it is better to observe fewer sensible pixels than more goofy ones. The larger each of the pixels in the camera, the less messy the photos will be, and the video footage will become less bouncy.

Large pixels in the camera (photo below) enhance evening and night shots

The ideal smartphone camera consists of a large “foundation” (matrix / sensor) with large pixels on it. Only now, no one is going to make smartphones thicker or allocate half of the body behind for the camera. Therefore, the "building" will be such that the camera does not stick out of the body and does not take up much space, megapixels are large, even if there are only 12-13, and the matrix was as large as possible to accommodate all of them.

The pixel size in the camera is measured in micrometers and is denoted as μm in Russian or µm in Latin. Before you buy a smartphone, make sure that the pixels in it are large enough - this is an indirect sign that the camera is shooting well. Type in the search, for example, "Xiaomi Mi 5S µm" or "Xiaomi Mi 5S µm" - and you are happy with the characteristics of the smartphone camera that you have noticed. Or upset - it depends on the numbers that you see as a result.

How big should a pixel be in a good camera phone?

The pixel size in the "modern" time is especially famous ... Google Pixel is a smartphone that came out in 2016 and "showed Kuzkin's mother" to competitors due to the combination of a huge (1 / 2.3 ") matrix and very large pixels of about 1.55 microns. With such a set, he almost always gave the most detailed photographs, even in cloudy weather or in the dark.

Why don't manufacturers "cut" megapixels in the camera to a minimum and place at least pixels on the matrix? Such an experiment has already happened - HTC in the flagship One M8 (2014) made the pixels so huge that they fit into the rear camera ... four on a 1/3 "matrix! Thus, One M8 received pixels of as much as 2 microns! As a result, the smartphone "tore" almost all competitors in terms of the quality of pictures in the dark. And photos in a resolution of 2688 × 1520 pixels were enough for Full HD monitors of that time. But the HTC camera did not become an all-round champion, because the Taiwanese were let down by HTC's color accuracy and "dumb" shooting algorithms, which did not know how to "properly prepare" settings for a sensor with unusual potential.

Today, all manufacturers are "outraged" by the race for the largest pixels, therefore:

• In good budget camera phones, the pixel size should be from 1.22 microns and more
• In flagships, pixels ranging in size from 1.25 microns to 1.4 or 1.5 microns are considered good form. Bigger is better.

Smartphones with a good camera and relatively small pixels are few in number, but they exist in nature. These are, of course, Apple iPhone 7 with its 1.22 micron and OnePlus 5 with 1.12 micron - they "go out" due to very high-quality sensors, very good optics and "smart" automation.

Without these terms, small pixels ruin the quality of photos in flagship smartphones. For example, in the LG G6, the algorithms are obscene when shooting at night, and the sensor, although ennobled with good "glasses", is cheap in itself. AT

as a result, 1.12 microns always spoil night shots, except for cases when you engage in a battle with a "manual mode" instead of dull automation and fix its flaws yourself. The same picture reigns in shooting with the Sony Xperia XZ Premium or XZ1. And in the masterpiece, “on paper”, the Xiaomi Mi 5S camera, the lack of optical stabilization and the same “crooked hands” of the algorithm developers hinder the competition with the flagships of the iPhone and Samsung, which is why the smartphone copes well with shooting only during the day, and at night it is no longer very impressive.

In order to understand how much to weigh in grams, take a look at the characteristics of cameras in some of the best cameraphones of our time.

Which type of autofocus is the best

Autofocus is when a mobile phone independently "sharpens" while taking photos and videos. It is needed in order not to twist the settings "for every sneeze", like a gunner in a tank.

In old smartphones and in modern Chinese state employees, manufacturers use contrast autofocus. This is the most primitive focusing technique that focuses on how light or dark it is “right ahead” in front of the camera, like a half-blind person. That is why it takes about a couple of seconds for cheap smartphones to focus, during which it is easy to "miss" a moving object, or reluctance to shoot what they were going to, because "the train left".

Phase autofocus "catches light" over the entire area of \u200b\u200bthe camera sensor, calculates the angle at which the rays enter the camera and draws conclusions about what is on the smartphone "in front of the nose" or a little further. Due to its "intelligence" and calculations, it works very quickly during the day and does not annoy at all. It is common in all modern smartphones, except for the very budget ones. The only drawback is work at night, when light arrives in a narrow hole in the diaphragm of a mobile phone in such small portions that a smartphone "breaks the roof" and it constantly fidgets with focusing due to a sharp change in information.

Laser autofocus - the most chic! Laser rangefinders have always been used to "throw" a beam at a long distance and calculate the distance for an object. LG in the G3 smartphone (2014) taught this "scan" to help the camera quickly focus.

Laser autofocus is surprisingly fast, even in indoor or semi-dark environments

Take a look at your watch ... though, what am I talking about ... okay, turn on the stopwatch in your smartphone and see how quickly one second passes. And now mentally divide it by 3.5 - in 0.276 seconds the smartphone receives information about the distance to the subject and reports this to the camera. Moreover, it does not lose speed either in the dark or in bad weather. If you plan to take photos and videos close or at a short distance with a lack of light, a smartphone with laser autofocus will help you out a lot.

But keep in mind that cell phones are not Star Wars weapons, so the range of the laser in the camera is barely a couple of meters. Everything that is further, the mobile phone examines with the help of the same phase autofocus. In other words, to shoot objects from afar, it is not necessary to look for a smartphone with "laser guidance" in the camera - you will not get any use from such a function in general plans of photos and videos.

Optical stabilization. Why is it needed and how it works

Have you ever driven a vehicle with leaf spring suspension? On army "UAZ" cars, for example, or an ambulance with the same design? In addition to the fact that in such cars you can "beat off the fifth point", it shakes incredibly in them - the suspension is as stiff as possible so as not to fall apart on the road, and therefore it tells passengers everything that it thinks about the road surface, frankly and not "springy" (therefore that there is nothing to spring).

Now you know how the camera feels in a smartphone without optical stabilization when you are trying to take a photo.

The problem with shooting on a smartphone is this:

• The camera needs a lot of light to take good pictures. Not the direct rays of the sun in the "physiognomy", but the diffused, ubiquitous light around.
• The longer the camera "examines" the image during the photo, the more light it picks up \u003d the higher the picture quality.
• At the time of shooting and these "peepers" of the camera, the smartphone must be stationary so that the picture does not "blur". Leave at least a fraction of a millimeter - the frame will be spoiled.

And human hands are shaking. This is clearly noticeable if you raise it with outstretched arms and try to hold the barbell, and less noticeable when you hold a mobile phone in front of you to take a photo or video. The difference is that the bar can "float" in your hands within wide boundaries - just not to put it on a wall, a neighbor, or drop it on your feet. And the smartphone needs to have time to "grab" the light in order for the photo to be successful, and to do it before it deviates by a fraction of a millimeter in your hands.

Therefore, the algorithms are trying to please the camera, and not to put forward increased demands on your hands. That is, they tell the camera, for example, "so this means that 1/250 of a second you can take pictures, this is enough for the photo to be more or less successful, and to take a shot before the camera moves to the side is also enough." This thing is called exposure.

How optical stabilization works

What does the optostab have to do with it? So after all, he is that "amortization" with which the camera does not shake, like the body of army trucks, but "floats" within small boundaries. In the case of smartphones, it does not float in water, but is held by magnets and "fidgets" at a short distance from them.

That is, if the smartphone "leaves" a little or trembles during shooting, the camera will shake much weaker. With such insurance, a smartphone will be able to:

• To overestimate the shutter speed (guaranteed time "to see the picture before the photo is ready") for the camera. The camera receives more light, sees more image details \u003d photo quality during the day is even better.
• Capture clear shots in motion. Not during an off-road sprint, but while walking or out of the window of a shaking bus, for example.
• Compensate for shaking in video. Even if you stomp your feet very abruptly or sway slightly under the weight of the bag in your other hand, this will not be as noticeable on video recording as in smartphones without an optical stabilizer.

Therefore, an optostab (OIS, as it is called in English) is an extremely useful gizmo in a smartphone camera. You can also do without it, but it's sad - the camera should be of high quality "with a margin", and the automation will have to shorten (worsen) the exposure, because there is no insurance against shaking in the smartphone. When shooting a video, you have to "move" the picture on the fly so that the jitter is not visible. This is akin to how old movies imitated the speed of a driving car when it was actually stationary. With the difference that in films these scenes were filmed from one take, and smartphones have to calculate the shaking and fight it on the fly.

Smartphones with a good camera, which shoot no worse than competitors with stabilization without stabilization, are vanishingly few - for example, Apple iPhone 6s, the first generation of Google Pixel, OnePlus 5, Xiaomi Mi 5s and, with some stretch, Honor 8 / Honor 9.

What you should not pay attention to

• Flash... Useful only when shooting in pitch darkness, when you need to take a photo at any cost. As a result, you see the pale faces of people in the frame (for all that, because the flash is low-power), eyes screwed up from the bright light, or a very strange color of buildings / trees - photographs with a smartphone flash are definitely not of artistic value. As a flashlight, the LED near the camera is much more useful.
• Number of lenses in the camera... "Before, when I had 5 Mbps internet, I wrote an abstract in a day, but now, when I have 100 Mbps, I write it in 4 seconds." No, guys - it doesn't work that way. It doesn't matter how many lenses there are in a smartphone, it doesn't matter who released them (Carl Zeiss, judging by the quality of the new Nokia cameras, too). Lenses are either of high quality or not, and this can only be verified with real photographs.

The quality of the glass (lens) affects the quality of the camera. And the quantity is not

• Shooting in RAW... If you are not aware of what RAW is, I explain:

JPEG is the standard format in which a smartphone records photos; it is a “ready-to-use” image. Like an Olivier salad on a festive table - it is possible to disassemble it “into components” in order to transform it into another salad, but it will not work out very well.

RAW is a hefty volume on a "flash drive" file, in which in its pure form, in separate "lines" sewn in all the options for brightness, clarity and color for photography. That is, the photo will not be “covered with small dots” (digital noise) if you decide to make it not as dark as it appeared in JPEG, but a little brighter, as if you had correctly set the brightness at the time of shooting.

In short, RAW allows you to “Photoshop” a frame much more conveniently than JPEG. But the catch is that flagship smartphones almost always select the settings correctly, therefore, apart from the smartphone memory that is dirty with “heavy” photos in RAW, there will be little use of “photoshop” files. And in cheap smartphones, the camera quality is so bad that you will see poor quality in JPEG, and just as bad in RAW. Don't bother.

• Camera sensor name... They were once super important because they were the “quality mark” of a camera. The sensor (module) model of the camera determines the size of the matrix, the number of megapixels and the size of the pixel, minor "family characteristics" of the shooting algorithms.

Of the "big three" manufacturers of camera modules for smartphones, the highest quality modules are produced by Sony (we do not take into account some examples, we are talking about the average temperature in a hospital), followed by Samsung (Samsung sensors in Samsung Galaxy smartphones are even better than the coolest Sony sensors, but the Koreans are selling something absurd "on the side"), and, finally, OmniVision closes the list, which produces "consumer goods, but tolerable." Intolerant consumer goods are produced by all the other basement Chinese offices, the name of which even the manufacturers themselves are ashamed to mention in the characteristics of smartphones.

8 - a variant of execution. Do you know how it happens in cars? The minimum equipment is with a "cloth" on the seats and a "wooden" interior, the maximum - with artificial suede seats and a leather dashboard. For buyers, the difference in this figure says little.

Why, after all this, you should not pay attention to the sensor model? Because with them things are the same as with megapixels - Chinese “alternatively gifted” manufacturers actively buy expensive Sony sensors, trumpet “super-quality camera in our smartphone!” At every corner ... and the camera is disgusting.

Because the "glasses" (lenses) in such mobile phones are of terrible quality and transmit light a little better than a plastic soda bottle. The aperture of the camera is far from ideal (f / 2.2 or even higher) because of the same bastard "glasses", and no one is engaged in adjusting the sensor so that the camera selects the colors correctly, works well with the processor and does not disfigure the pictures. Here's a good example of the fact that the sensor model has little effect:

As you can see, smartphones with the same camera sensor can shoot in completely different ways. So don't think that the cheap Moto G5 Plus with the IMX362 module will shoot as well as the HTC U11 with its amazingly cool camera.

Even more annoying is the "noodle" that Xiaomi hangs on the ears of customers when it says that "the camera in Mi Max 2 is very similar to the camera in the flagship Mi 6 - they have the same IMX386 sensors! They are the same, only smartphones shoot in very different ways, the aperture (and therefore the ability to shoot in low light) is different in them, and Mi Max 2 cannot withstand any competition with the flagship Mi6.

1. The additional camera "helps" to take photos at night, the main one and is able to shoot b / w photos. The most famous smartphones with such camera implementations are Huawei P9, Honor 8, Honor 9, Huawei P10.
2. The secondary camera allows you to "shove in the unstoppable", that is, it takes pictures with an almost panoramic angle of view. The only supporter of this type of camera was and remains LG - starting with the LG G5, continuing with the V20, G6, X Cam and now the V30.
3. Two cameras are needed for optical zoom (approximation without loss of quality). Most often, this effect is achieved by the simultaneous operation of two cameras at once (Apple iPhone 7 Plus, Samsung Galaxy Note 8), although there are models that, when enlarged, simply switch to a separate "long-range" camera - ASUS ZenFone 3 Zoom, for example.

How to choose a quality selfie camera in your smartphone?

Best of all - based on examples of real photos. Moreover, both during the day and at night. During the day, almost all selfie cameras give good photos, but only high-quality front cameras are capable of shooting something legible in the dark.

It is not necessary to study the vocabulary of photographers and delve deeper into what this or that characteristic is responsible for - you can simply memorize the numbers "so much is good, but if the number is higher, it's bad" and pick up a smartphone much faster. For an explanation of the terms, welcome to the beginning of the article, and here we will try to derive the formula for a high-quality camera in smartphones.

I do not want to understand the characteristics! Which smartphone to buy with good cameras?

There are countless smartphones made by manufacturers, but there are very few models among them that are good at photography and video.

The once ambitious smartphone makers said they would soon push compact cameras out of the market. It happened before our eyes. Today everyone knows that a camera, even in an inexpensive smartphone, shoots no worse than a soap dish. Next stage - catch up on the quality of a DSLR... While this does not sound entirely realistic, but new smartphones prove that this goal will also be achieved sooner or later. There are a lot of decent models on the market that allow you to create photos of very, very high quality. We analyzed the existing offer and selected smartphones with the best camera of 2018 for our readers. Looking ahead, we note that all these camera phones are very, very expensive, but the cameras in them are really luxurious.

When it comes to evaluating a camera, the question arises, how to understand that it is cool in one smartphone, and worse in another. First of all, you need to look at the technical specifications:

• number of megapixels... Forget the more is more rule. This is no longer the case, but marketers and salespeople continue to mislead users for some reason. When it comes to a tiny (compared to a DSLR) camera in a smartphone, a large number of megapixels can even cause harm. 12-13 megapixels with a head is enough to create wonderful pictures... It is good that many companies realized this and focused their attention on improving other parameters;
• diaphragm... The camera needs light to get a good shot. It enters the matrix and forms the image. Light passes through the aperture, and the wider the aperture blades are open, the more chances you have to get a clear, beautiful picture even in less than ideal conditions. In the specifications, the aperture is denoted as f / 2.0 or F2.0. The lower the number, the better. For example, a camera with f / 2.2 and f / 1.9 will shoot equally well in the daytime, but in the evening with a module with f / 1.9 it will take better pictures. Today, the standard even for inexpensive smartphones is f / 2.0, and flagships are equipped with modules onf/1.8 and evenf/1.6. By the way, a wide aperture, even in the absence of a second module, will allow you to create macro shots with a bokeh effect;
  
• matrix diagonal... The bigger it is, the better. That's all the average user needs to know. It is not necessary to go into details. The diagonal of the matrix is \u200b\u200bdenoted by a fractional number, and the smaller the exponent under the fraction, the better. For example, a 1/3 "camera is fine for the budget class, 1 / 2.9" and 1 / 2.8 "for the midrange, and 1 / 2.5" for flagships, but exceptions are common. Recently, manufacturers prefer not to indicate this characteristic at all;
• pixel size... A lot of stupid pixels can not lead to an improvement in photo quality, but, on the contrary, can cause blurriness and noise. Therefore, it is better to let the matrix have fewer larger pixelsthan a lot of small ones. The manufacturers usually indicate the pixel size. For budget and medium-sized smartphones, this figure should be 1.22 microns or more, in flagships - at least 1.25 microns, or better - 1.4 and even 1.5 microns;
• autofocus type... Autofocus can be contrasting (the most primitive, used in very cheap smartphones), phase (works quickly during the day, problems are possible at night) and laser... The latter is the most modern and accurate, always works quickly;
  
• optical stabilization - a guarantee of high-quality pictures of dynamic scenes. The opportunity is invaluable when shooting video and will come in handy for all those who often have their hands shaking;
• number of lenses... Many people think that the more the better. No. It is better when the lenses are of high quality, but this can only be judged by test shots;
• camera sensor manufacturer... The modules from Sonyas well as from Samsung (the company makes sensors for itself better than those that sell to the outside). Slightly worse, but acceptably remove sensors from OmniVision... The most popular are Sony sensors, which are labeled as IMX and a three-digit number in the characteristics of the camera, for example, IMX The first number indicates the generation, the second indicates the class of the photosensor (the more the better), the third indicates the version;
  
• additional main camera executed in several versions. Option # 1 is a black-and-white sensor that captures light better and allows you to create better images in low light conditions. Option # 2 - a camera with a wide angle of view to squeeze as much of the landscape into the frame as possible. Option number 3 - the second camera is used for zooming.

It also happens that a camera with seemingly ideal parameters makes, to put it mildly, not very good pictures. This means that the manufacturer did not pay enough attention automation, optics and software algorithms... It is advisable to personally evaluate sample photos in different shooting conditions before buying. It often happens that with a rather mediocre set of characteristics, a smartphone takes excellent pictures - this means that the developer was not too lazy to finish the software shell. But when a manufacturer takes a good sensor, but kills it with lenses or problems in the software, it is very offensive.

From theory to practice. We found the best camera phones, selected the best among them and prepared a rating for you. The analysis used sample images, as well as the opinion of an authoritative resourceDxOMark, which tests cameras according to its own algorithm and gives them marks in points. Go!

Smartphones with the best camera 2018

Samsung Galaxy S9 Plus

Just a few weeks ago, the new flagship from Samsung was presented atMWC 2018. The model received a very cool camera and has already been named a smartphone with the best camera in the world... Both the Galaxy S9 Plus and the slightly more compact Galaxy S9 received main module with variable aperture... Nobody has done this before. Yes, we tried, but Samsung was the first to bring the idea to life. What gives us aperture with variable value fromf/2.4 to a / 1.5? This feature brings the smartphone camera close to the DSLR and allows it to adapt to any shooting conditions. When it's light, the aperture blades close to keep the frame out and convey depth, which is especially important when shooting landscapes. When it's dark, the petals open as far as possible to let light in. Tests show that at night the device shoots, indeed, much better than all other smartphones, even better than the main competitor - iPhone X. The resolution of the matrix is \u200b\u200b12 megapixels, there is optical stabilization and phase autofocus.

Samsung Galaxy S9 Plus, unlike Galaxy S9, received additional main camera with a resolution of 12 megapixels and an aperture of f / 2.4. The second module is required for 2-card optical zoom... The pixel size of the main camera is 1.4 microns, in the additional one - 1 micron. The smartphone can shoot video in slow motion, got a portrait mode and superbly copes with all shooting scenarios. The front camera with 8 megapixels also knows how to blur the background and takes excellent pictures (f / 1.7 aperture, 80-degree viewing angle).

We can talk about the Galaxy S9 + for a long time, since this one of the most advanced smartphones available today.He received an 8-core Exynos 9810 processor with a frequency of 2.7 GHz: very powerful, but such resource-intensive applications, where this "stone" would show itself 100%, have not yet been invented. The screen received a diagonal of 6.2 inches, made using Super AMOLED technology, resolution 2960 * 1440. RAM in stock 6 GB, the main - 64/128/256 GB, there is a slot for memory cards up to 400 GB. The model received protection from moisture and dust according to the IP68 class, is equipped with a face and retina scanner, and is able to make AR Emoji - an analogue of Animoji in the iPhone. Add stereo speakers, fast charging (battery capacity 3500 mAh) and chic looks, and we get, perhaps, the best smartphone for today. The 6/64 version costs about $ 1200.

Apple iPhone X

Apple smartphones always have good cameras. The jubilee and revolutionary iPhone X has only confirmed this rule. Before (and after) the Galaxy S9 +, the camera in the iPhone X will serve as an example for comparison. Apple traditionally pays attention to software optimization, but the hardware is fine. Rear camera - dual, both modules received 12 megapixels. One is an f / 1.8 wide-angle lens, and the other is an f / 2.4 telephoto lens. Both modules have optical stabilization... There is a portrait mode, 2x optical zoom. The camera performs well in all shooting scenarios, but falls short of the Galaxy S9 + at night. The front module received a resolution of 7 megapixels, an aperture of f / 2.2, and can use the screen backlight as a flash.

The main feature of the new iPhone is the "bangs" on top. The attitude towards it is ambiguous, so we will not comment on this feature. Let's just note that following Apple, many Chinese companies have stamped iPhone X clones at very different prices. The AMOLED screen received a diagonal of 5.8 inches and a resolution of 2436 * 1125, the highest contrast and brightness. A smart processor, protection against water and dust according to the IP67 standard, face recognition technology and other more or less useful features make the gadget smartphone dreams... The dream (64 GB version) costs about $ 1350.

Google Pixel 2

The flagship from Google differs not only in compact size, but also in conservatism, and this is not a minus at all. The company did not embrace fashion trends such as dual cameras and an elongated screen. Nevertheless, the smartphone creates excellent photos, and many experts believe that this is the best camera phone at the moment. The main module received a resolution of 12.3 megapixels (aperture f / 1.8, pixel size 1.4 microns, matrix diagonal 1 / 2.6 "), phase and laser autofocus, optical and electronic stabilization. Everything is perfect on paper, and in fact it is not worse. The camera is good for any scene, the pictures are really gorgeous - amateur photographers should appreciate.

The front camera received a resolution of 8 megapixels, f / 2.4 aperture, a pixel size of 1.4 microns and a matrix diagonal of 1 / 3.2 ”. The characteristics, frankly, are not so hot, but the front camera shoots very well. In addition, background blur is also implemented here. In general, the pictures are excellent in any conditions. Videos can be shot in 4K at 30fps, in FullHD at up to 120fps, and in HD at 240fps.

As for the main parameters, the smartphone received a 5-inch AMOLED display with a resolution of 1920 * 1080, protective glass Corning Gorilla Glass 5, nimble Snapdragon 835 processor up to 2.45 GHz, IP67 water and dust resistant. The battery capacity is small (obviously, for the sake of compactness) - 2700 mAh, but the fast charging function should save. The smartphone is equipped with 4 GB of RAM, main memory - 64 or 128 GB. The pluses include the presence of stereo speakers, an active noise cancellation system and a bunch of chips from the manufacturer. There is no 3.5mm jack. The device costs about $ 800: a lot, but better than the competitors.

Huawei Mate 10 Pro

Another confident contender for the title of the best camera smartphone. The device received a glass body, a giant screen, a smart processor, an enviable autonomy and a dual camera, which becomes the object of our interest. The main camera duo from Leica is positioned vertically. The color module received a resolution of 12 megapixels, an additional monochrome module - 20 megapixels. Aperture for both camerasf/1,6 , contrast, phase and laser autofocus, optical stabilization, there is a 2x hybrid zoom. The smartphone is great at taking photos in low light conditions, not to mention simpler shooting scenarios such as landscape, portrait and macro. The background is blurred perfectly, the pictures are clear and reproduce colors correctly. The front module received an 8 megapixel sensor with an f / 2.0 aperture and a fixed focus. He copes with his tasks at the level.

Huawei has installed an 8-core HiSilicon Kirin 970 processor with a frequency of up to 2.36 GHz in its flagship and neural computing module... Thanks to this solution, the smartphone will be much faster and more efficient to cope with applications that use artificial intelligence technology. 6 inch OLED screen with a resolution of 2160 * 1080, protective glass, 4000 mAh battery with fast charging function, waterproof IP67 -here everything is so perfect that it's already boring... The disadvantages are only the easily soiled case (glass) and the price. There are versions with 4 and 6 GB RAM, the main memory can be 64/128/256. The "simplest" 4/64 GB phone costs $ 630, which compares favorably with more expensive fellow camera phones.

HTC U11 and HTC U11 Plus

The HTC U11 came out in the summer of 2017 and won over fans of mobile photography by capturing great shots in the dark and delivering superb detail when shooting tricky subjects such as threads and hair. The questions were only about design, so in the fall the company released the HTC U11 Plus. The camera module remains the same, but they worked on the appearance: whether it got better is a big question, everything is subjective.

The main camera in both models received a resolution of 12 megapixels and diaphragmf/1.7 , pixel size - 1.4 microns, there is optical image stabilization. All this means that day and night you will be able to get a photo of excellent quality, with a spectacularly blurred background. Post-processing lovers will love the fact that smartphone can shoot inRAW... Naturally, there is a manual mode - the user himself can adjust all the shooting parameters. The front 16MP module with f / 2.0 aperture and no autofocus allows you to create very decent selfies. In general, the device deserves to be in the ranking of smartphones with the best camera.

Htc U11 received a body made of glass and metal, a 5.5-inch screen with a resolution of 2560 * 1440, Corning Gorilla Glass 5 protective glass and a 3000 mAh battery. The 8-core Snapdragon 835 with a frequency of up to 2.45 GHz is responsible for the performance, there are versions with 4 and 6 GB of RAM, and 64/128 GB of the main one. The fingerprint scanner is sub-screen, among the chips is a body compression sensor and a physical activity tracking sensor. The price for version 4/64 is about $ 660.

Htc U11 Plus received, as is now commonly called, a full-screen 6-inch display with an aspect ratio of 18: 9. The changes also affected the battery: in the new version its capacity is 3930 mAh. Version 4/64 costs $ 790.

Apple iPhone 8 and Apple iPhone 8 Plus

Yes, the eighth iPhones are criticized for their outdated design, but they still buy, because in terms of technical characteristics, they are almost perfect. The new iPhones differ from the sevens with a glass body, a faster processor and an increased amount of memory. The rest has not changed, and the cameras began to shoot even better. In the Plus version, the main camera is double, in the younger one it remains single.

iPhone 8 Plus received two main camera modules 12 Mp. One of them is wide-angle with f / 1.8 aperture, the other is telephoto lens with f / 2.8 aperture. there is double optical zoom, portrait mode, stage lighting mode, and the wide-angle lens has received optical stabilization. iPhone 8 equipped with only one 12MP f / 1.8 lens, there is no optical zoom. The cameras work quickly, produce decent quality images, and they are not afraid of the darkness. The 7MP f / 2.2 front camera produces decent results.

The eighth iPhones look solid. The younger version received a 4.7-inch screen (resolution 1334 * 750), the older one 5.5 inches (1920 * 1080). Both versions are powered by a 6-core A11 Bionic processor, equipped with 3 GB of RAM, the main one can be 64 or 256 GB. Powerful and beautiful apples are traditionally not cheap - fashion gadgets after all. iPhone 8 - from $ 790, iPhone 8 Plus - from $ 1060.

Note also that the year before last iPhone 7 andiPhone 7 Plus also shoot at the level, namely the iPhone 7 Plus set the fashion for dual main cameras.

Samsung Galaxy Note 8

Last year, the company's line of phablets was replenished with the Galaxy Note 8. This year, obviously, an updated version will be released, but in the meantime, the G8 can confidently fight for the title of the best camera phone. However, the camera is not the only advantage of the gadget, but very, very significant. Both main cameras received resolution 12 megapixels and optical stabilization.It was the first smartphone in which both main modules are equipped with optical stabilization. One of the cameras is wide-angle with an aperture of f / 1.7, the other is a tele-camera with an aperture of f / 2.4. They work together to create great shots in any conditions and effectively blur the background. Thanks to the function dynamic focus you can change the focusing subject after shooting. Photos are effective. The good news is that 4K video is really high quality. The front camera with its 8 megapixels and f / 1.7 performs quite well.

The giant display with a diagonal of 6.3 inches impresses with a high-quality picture. The device comes to our market with the Samsung Exynos 8895 processor: in the AnTuTu tests, the device gains more than 170 thousand points. This is power! RAM in the size of 6 GB and built-in 64/128/256 GB is enough for the eyes. It should be noted separately sound quality and multifunctional unsinkable stylus. By the way, the smartphone itself has received protection from moisture and dust according to the IP68 standard. The battery capacity, however, is only 3300 mAh. Someone may not like the soiled glass case, as well as the price, but it's time to get used to the fact that the flagships cost about a thousand "green" ones and are a fashion item. This model, for example, is perfect for business people who need to work a lot with documents and spreadsheets. For the version with 64 GB, they are asking now from $ 900 to $ 1050.

ASUS Zenfone 5Z and ASUS Zenfone 5

The recent MWC exhibition held in Barcelona introduced us to a lot of interesting new products. ASUS has introduced a whole series of new smartphones. If Zenfone 5 Lite just got an elongated screen, then 5 and 5Z are very strongly resembleiPhone X with his bangs, but they are much cheaper. The Zenfone 5Z and Zenfone 5 are slightly different in terms of hardware, but the cameras are the same. Rear module - double... The main camera received a Sony IMX363 sensor, a resolution of 12 megapixels, an f / 1.8 aperture, optical stabilization and phase autofocus. The auxiliary module with 8 megapixels received a viewing angle of 120 degrees. In theory, the camera should be good at handling different scenes and make an effective blur. The front module is more modest: 8 megapixels and the same viewing angle of 120 degrees.

Zenfone 5 received a screen with a diagonal of 6.2 inches with an aspect ratio of 19: 9 and a resolution of 2264 * 1080. On board is a smart Snapdragon 636 processor and 4 or 6 GB of RAM, 64 GB of main memory, it can be expanded. The developers say that the smartphone uses software with the makings of artificial intelligence, and its forces will be directed towards more economical energy consumption, improving the quality of shooting.

Zenfone 5 Z externally exactly the same, but inside it hides a slightly more powerful Snapdragon 845. There are 4, or 6, or 8 GB of RAM !! The latest version is generally impressive. Main memory stock - 64/128/256 GB. Prices will start at $ 590 (Zenfone 5 will obviously be cheaper), with sales starting in June.

LG V30 +

Recently everyone praised the camera inLg V30 ... We do not argue, it is really cool, but the new product, which came out just recently, promises even better quality of shooting. As befits a flagship, it uses dual main camera... One of them has a resolution of 16 megapixels, diaphragmf/1.6 , the second - 13 megapixels, f / 1.9 and a viewing angle of 120 degrees. As a result, excellent photo quality in any shooting conditions, the ability to create photos with maximum scene capture, and the presence of optical stabilization will allow you to achieve excellent results even when shooting in difficult conditions. Cameras received glass lenses CrystalClear, which minimize the scattering of light when transferring it to the matrix. The front camera with its 5 megapixel and f / 2.2 shoots acceptable.

The filling of the smartphone is top-end. It is a powerful modern 8-core Snapdragon 835 processor, 4 GB of RAM and 128 GB of internal (expandable up to 2 TB). The screen is made using OLED FullVision technology, has a diagonal of 6 inches and a resolution of 2880 * 1440 pixels. There is protection against water and dust IP 68 and the function of fast charging, the battery capacity is minimum sufficient - 3300 mAh. The device looks futuristic, it costs about $ 900.

Xiaomi Mi Note 3

The new flagship from a well-known Chinese company received the same pair of cameras as in the more expensive Xiaomi Mi 6... Both main cameras received a resolution of 12 megapixels, one of them has an aperture of f / 1.8, and the other - f / 2.6. the first one is wide-angle, the second camera has a telephoto lens, so you can zoom in on the picture without losing quality and create bokeh. In most shooting scenarios, the camera behaves perfectly, practically not inferior to more expensive counterparts. The front module with a resolution of 16 megapixels will delight lovers of taking selfies.

A smart Snapdragon 660 processor is located in a beautiful glass case. The manufacturer decided to save money on the screen. Well, how to save money. Not to say that the display is bad, but today they are also installed in devices of a lower price segment. The screen is made using IPS technology, has a diagonal of 5.5 inches and a resolution of 1920 * 1080. The fingerprint scanner is conveniently located under the display. The 3500 mAh battery can charge quickly and provides acceptable autonomy. The smartphone is sold in 6/64 and 6/128 GB versions. If you need a smartphone with a good camera up to 20,000 rubles ($ 350), then take a look at version 6/64. A device with twice as much memory will cost 1.5 times more.

Vivo X20 Plus

Rounding out our top camera phones is the flagship from Vivo. Now everyone is actively discussing that the company's updated smartphone Vivo X20 Plus UD will be the first in the world in which the fingerprint scanner will be built into the screen and will be located at the bottom of the display. While everyone is just waiting for the new product to appear on sale, it is known that the cameras in the new smartphone will be the same as in the Vivo X20 Plus.

The model is equipped with dual main camera: the first module with a resolution of 12 megapixels and an aperture of f / 1.8, the second has a modest resolution of 5 megapixels. An additional module is required to blur the background. The front module also has a resolution of 12 megapixels and f / 2.0. The authoritative resource DxOMark rated the device's camera at 90 points out of 100, which is a good result.

The device received a Super AMOLED display with a diagonal of 6.43 inches and a resolution of 2160 * 1080, an 8-core Snapdragon 660 processor, a sufficiently capacious 3905 mAh battery and an acceptable 4/64 GB of memory. The device costs about $ 540. There are cheaper alternative - Vivo X20... This smartphone is equipped with the same cameras, but has a slightly smaller screen (6.01 inches, the same resolution) and a smaller battery (3245 mAh), but the processor is the same, and the price is about $ 460.

(Careful, many letters!)

Once again, for those who are always right by nature and not having read many letters, they begin to broadcast their undeniable wretched truth. I'm not a fan of Lumia, I understand perfectly well that this is a dead-end branch and there can be no prospects for development. But what was achieved on this platform in the past, objectively (based on a comparison of real images) is still ahead in all respects (sensor, high-quality light glass, color, sharpness throughout the frame, BB, depth of field, no shake due to optical stabilizer) , the presence of sophisticated post-processing software and excellent 4K video, evaluated on high-quality 4K TV, replaceable batteries, finally, which is important for heavy use for photos) when compared with any "photo flags" on Android with all their sophisticated dual cameras with zooms and pseudo-side ...

Whenever I get my hands on a new smartphone, which is positioned by the manufacturer as a device with certain “steps forward”, I compare its photo properties and 4K video with the Lumia 950XL smartphone - an unsurpassed benchmark (appeared on the market in October 2015). Previously, the benchmark was Nokia Lumia 1520 (announced back in October 2013), but it died untimely, although, I'm sure, it could remain so in the future. Pictures from both devices have been successfully and repeatedly used for printing in magazines and other glossy printing publications.

Microsoft became the “flagship killers” of the Lumia 950XL, Lumia 950 and Lumia 1520. Not only Nokia was buried, but also Windows Mobile, and with them the advanced technologies in the field of mobile photography ...

If you didn't know that there is a standard ...

For several years now I have been trying to find at least something commensurate in the camp of devices on the Androd platform. But, making comparisons, I come to the same disappointing conclusion that androd doesn't have a single decent smartphone that can compare in photo and video quality with Lumia 950XL. Moreover, it seems that things are only getting worse. Especially these marketing bias towards dual cameras with pseudo-telephoto, pseudo-side or (as it were) variable aperture (Samsung Galaxy S9 +)! Manufacturers are trying to advertise their "achievements" with data on increasing the aperture (up to f / 1.7 and even up to 1.6) or the pixel size of the sensor, while hiding other important parameters, such as the quality and resolution of optics or the elaboration of processing algorithms, but, often, and the type of sensor used. By the way, "mobile" concepts of focal length and aperture are ambiguous. In DSLRs it is easier: only a few manufacturers of "bodies" and "glasses", mostly full frame or APS-C. Based on these things, you already understand the rest. In mobile photography, it is very difficult to present and compare concepts such as aperture, sensor size / type, ISO, focal length, etc. Here you can forget "mirror" skills and representations ...

What kind of sensors are used on Android?

Almost all cameras on Androd devices are based on numerous and rather mediocre Sony sensors. There are also sensors from Samsung (ISOCELL) and OmniVision, but they are, by and large, also quite dull in quality.

Formats

It is important to imagine that some sensors are designed for shooting in the basic 16: 9 format, and others in the 4: 3 format, although both will provide the same resolution, say, 16 megapixels. At the same time, you can shoot in non-mainstream formats, but the resolution will be only about 12 megapixels, obtained by a crop of 16 megapixels, which phone manufacturers usually do not report.

By the way, in the Lumia 1520 sensor, shooting in these formats is arranged somewhat differently. Here the 4: 3 format is 4992 x 3744 pixels (18.7 Mp), and 16: 9 is 5376 x 3024 (16.25 Mp). Thus, the Lumia 1520 sensor has a usable size of 5376 x 3744 pixels (20.1 megapixels). This is the so called multi-aspect sensor. Lumia 950 / 950XL: 4: 3 - 4992 x 3744 (18.7 megapixels) and 16: 9 - 5344 x 3008 (16.1 megapixels). The name of the sensors in these Lumia (and who makes them) is not known, they are made using PureView technology developed by Nokia and Carl Zeiss (f / 1.9 aperture, 1 / 2.4-inch matrix diagonal). Then this business was continued (buried) at Microsoft and now the Chinese are picking up again in collaboration with Carl Zeiss ...

Best of worst

According to Chip magazine as of November 2017, the next five are considered the best in the camera test - HTC U11 (color hereinafter in the text, the most acceptable devices on Android are marked - "Best of the worst"; there will be practically no reviews of Samsung due to their price politicians), Google Pixel 2, Samsung Galaxy Note 8, Google Pixel 2 XL and Apple iPhone X. The national rating of the resource kimovil.com for the same period gave the following list of smartphones with the best photo properties (in descending order): ZTE Nubia Z17, Apple iPhone 8 Plus , Sony Xperia XZ Premium, Sony Xperia XZs, HTC U Ultra, Oppo R11s Plus, Oppo R11s, Samsung Galaxy S8 Active, Samsung Galaxy S8, Samsung Galaxy S8 +, Vivo Xplay 6, OnePlus 5T, HTC U11, Xiaomi Mi Note 3, Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge, Samsung Galaxy S7, Samsung Galaxy Note 7, OnePlus 5, Apple Iphone X, Apple iPhone 7 Plus, Samsung Galaxy S7 Active, Google Pixel 2 XL, Google Pixel 2, Nubia Z17S, Asus ZenFone 3 Zoom ZE553KL, Xiaomi Mi6 , HTC U11 +, Apple iPhone 7, Apple iphone 8, Nokia Lumia 1020, Nubia Z17 Mini S, Samsung Galaxy S6, Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge, Oppo R9s, Oppo R9s Plus, Samsung Galaxy S6 edge +, HTC 10, LG G5, LG G5 SE, Google Pixel XL, Sharp Aquos S2, Nubia Z17 Mini, Nubia Z17 Lite, Archos Diamond Alpha, LG V20, HTC 10 Lifestyle, Asus ZenFone 3 Deluxe, LG G6, etc. Meizu is not on the list at all.

Many smartphones have sensors with the default aspect ratio of 4: 3. For example, OnePlus 3 / 3T, Xiaomi Mi5, Asus ZenFone 3, ZTE Nubia Z11, Nubia Z11 mini, Nubia Z11 Max, LeEco Le Pro 3, Huawei Mate 8, Oppo R9 Plus and others use a sensor Sony IMX 298 Exmor RS, from which, by default, shooting is performed in the specified 4: 3 format with a size of 4640 x 3480 pixels (16.1 Mp), and 16: 9 frames are obtained by cropping a 4: 3 frame - 4640 x 2610 (12.1 Mp). The diagonal of this sensor is 6.521 mm (1 / 2.8 inches). The total number of sensor pixels - 4720 x 3600, effective - 4672 x 3520, active - 4656 x 3496. Quite good pictures, perhaps, only in the ZTE Nubia Z11 (hole f / 2.0), although this model is already outdated and disappears from the shelves. On the plus side, the 4-axis optical stabilization is. Despite the fact that the same sensor is installed on the other smarts listed above, the footage from them is not so acceptable.

Relatively new sensor Sony IMX 398 (release - October 2016) "16 megapixel class" is installed so far only on smartphones by BBK Electronics (it owns the brands OPPO, OnePlus and Vivo; this company "holds" the Chinese market, not Xiaomi or Meizu). Sensor resolution - 4608 x 3456 pixels. The default is 4: 3 frames. Sensor diagonal - 6.4 mm (1 / 2.8 ″), pixel size - 1.12 microns. Used in Oppo R9S / Oppo R9s Plus cameras (f / 1.7, no OIS), OPPO F3 Plus (f / 1.7, OIS), OPPO R11s Plus (f / 1.7, no OIS) and OnePlus 5 / 5T (dual camera - main camera with Sony IMX 398, f / 1.7, no optical stabilization). In addition, in June 2017, the OPPO R11 and R11 Plus smartphones were presented, on which there are high-resolution cameras both in the self-modules and in the main module. In particular, a dual module of the main camera is used - 16 MP (Sony IMX398, wide-angle lens, f / 1.7, PDAF) and 20 MP ( Sony IMX350, telephoto lens, f / 2.6, 1 / 2.8 ″, 1 μm). The front 20MP camera is equipped with an f / 2.0 aperture lens.

On the contrary, if the main shooting format in the phone is landscape (16: 9), then the 4: 3 aspect ratio is obtained by a 16: 9 crop. Let's say, on such smartphones as LG G5, LG G4 (H815) or ZTE Nubia Z9 / Max / mini with a sensor Sony IMX 234 Exmor RS the main frame in 16: 9 format has a pixel size of 5312 x 2988 (15.9 Mp), and in 4: 3 it will be already cut on the wide side - 3984 x 2988 (11.9 Mp). The total size of this matrix is \u200b\u200b6.433 x 4.921 mm, and the diagonal of the working area is 1 / 2.8 inches, which is equivalent to 6.521 mm, the pixel size is 1.12 microns. The full resolution of the sensor is 4720 x 3600 pixels, i.e. - 16.99 megapixels, some of them are used, apparently, for electronic image stabilization, etc., therefore the so-called effective resolution is 4672 x 3520 (16.44 megapixels), and only 4656 x 3496 are available for shooting (the number of active pixels) or 16.28 megapixels, however, not all of them are used. Of the entire line of smartphones on this sensor, only the LG G5 and LG G4 (H815) can be considered good in terms of photo properties. However, the G4 is practically no longer on sale, and the G5 is not a super novelty either. The shots with the G5 when shooting with the main camera (f / 1.8) have good color rendition and white balance, medium dynamic range, sharpness is overestimated (programmatically), focusing is not always confident and fast. For some reason, LG decided to shoot wide-angle shots with a second 8-megapixel camera with a dark hole f / 2.4, although it is clear that in a wide-angle frame there is more information and there should be more megapixels too.

A smart phone with a sensor might be a good choice Sony IMX 318 Exmor RS on board. This sensor has a 1 / 2.6 ″ format (which is slightly less than the IMX 260 - 1 / 2.4 ″, used, in particular, in the Galaxy S7). This sensor model was introduced in early 2016 and was one of the first to implement a fast hybrid autofocus (0.03 s) and a built-in 3-axis digital stabilizer for video. Pixel size 1 μm. The basic format is 4: 3, i.e. when shooting in 16: 9 aspect ratio of the frame in pixels will be lower (crop). Such sensors are used on Asus ZenFone 3, Asus ZenFone 3 Deluxe (f / 2.0, OIS), Asus ZenFone 3 Ultra (f / 2.0, OIS), Nubia Z11 mini S, Nubia Z17, Xiaomi Mi Note 2 and others. It is important to have high-quality lenses and well-developed software. Examples of photos show that the best option on this sensor in terms of sharpness, detail, color and dynamic range will be the Nubia Z17, and the worst is the Asus ZenFone 3. On the Nubia Z17, the main camera in the dual module is the camera with the sensor Sony IMX 362 (seemingly) at 12 megapixels with f / 1.8, and telephoto - Sony IMX 318 with 23 MP and f / 2.0. In terms of cameras, it is identical to the frameless Nubia Z17S - also Sony IMX 362 at 12 Mp (f / 1.8) and Sony IMX 318 at 23 Mp (f / 2.0) for 2x optical zoom. This approach is not entirely clear - it would be more logical to use a higher resolution camera in wide-angle mode, for telephoto - 12 megapixels will suffice. This is not an isolated incident. Both devices have no optical stabilization. On the Xiaomi Mi Note 2, you can also get good shots. It uses one Sony IMX 318 sensor. The maximum resolution of the obtained photos in 4: 3 format is 5488 × 4112, which corresponds to 22.56 megapixels. Aperture f / 2.0. There is no optical stabilization. Everything would be fine, but the device itself, unfortunately, has several significant unpleasant properties (rounded screen, specific firmware, etc.).

Minus CMOS sensor Sony IMX 362 is a low resolution - only 12 megapixels. Otherwise, it is quite good in color, sharpness and dynamic range. Of course, a lot depends on the luminosity and quality of the optics, as well as on the diligence of the software writers. It is on board smartphones Xiaomi Redmi Pro 2, Asus ZenFone 3 Zoom ZE553KL, Lenovo Moto G5 Plus, Lenovo Moto Z2 Play, HTC U11 / HTC U11 +, Sharp Aquos S2, Meizu M6 Note, Asus ZenFone 4 ZE554KL, Coolpad Cool M7, above described by Nubia Z17 / 17S and Archos Diamond Omega. It is the HTC U11 with f / 1.7 that performs well in the camera test (otherwise it is terrible, especially in design). Even the budget Meizu M6 Note, in the presence of not the best glass (but, f / 1.9) and the absence of optical stabilization, shows acceptable results. You can take it. It's just a mystery to me: why, again, they took out the microUSB connector from the dust and didn't install USB-C. And the gold Chinese colors are unnerving ... Quite good daytime photos from the Sharp Aquos S2 (according to the version). It has a dual camera: the main one with IMX 362, f / 1.8 glass (reported - f / 1.75) and optical stabilization; the second camera is 8 megapixels. But in low light - poor watercolor. In March 2018, a balanced "middling" of the new Meizu E3 line with a dual main camera - 12 MP (Sony IMX362 sensor, Dual Pixel, f / 1.9, no OIS) + 20 MP module ( Sony IMX350, f / 2.6). A double zoom is implemented here - 1.8x (optical) and 2.5x (without loss of quality). Of the advantages - finally USB Type-C, screen - 5.99 ″ LCD IPS, stone - Qualcomm Snapdragon 636, battery - 3360 mAh, AnTuTu - 112.478. It is worth taking a closer look and waiting for the tests of this smartphone.

On relatively old "bodies" Meizu MX6 (f / 2.0, no OIS), Meizu Pro 6s (f / 2.0, OIS), Meizu Pro 6 Plus (f / 2.0, OIS), Meizu M3X (f / 2.0, no OIS) , Huawei Honor 6X and Huawei Nova, as well as fresh Huawei Mate 10 Pro (f / 1.6, OIS), Motorola Moto Z2 Force (f / 2.0, no OIS), Meizu Pro 7 (f / 2.0, no OIS), Meizu Pro 7 Plus (f / 2.0, no OIS), Xiaomi Mi Max 2, Xiaomi Mi MIX 2, Xiaomi Mi6 and Xiaomi Mi Note 3 use a 12MP CMOS sensor (3968 x 2976 pixels) Sony IMX 386 Exmor RSannounced in summer 2016. The standard aspect ratio here is 4: 3. None of the smartphones with this sensor can be recommended as acceptable in terms of photo properties. The lack of optical stabilization with a hole of f / 2.2 on the shovel Xiaomi Mi Max 2, presented in May 2017, gives very mediocre results in all modes. Xiaomi Mi Note 3 seems to be equipped with light glass with an aperture of f / 1.8 (on the second camera it is worse - f / 2.6) and optical stabilization, but practically does not differ from Xiaomi Mi6: they both give mediocre frames, both in sharpness and color and dynamic range. Especially in low light. Also chromatic aberration. So, the camera from Xiaomi Mi Note 3 is praised in vain ... Meizu Pro 7 Plus shows some better photos during the day due to good glass, but when the illumination decreases (especially in the evening or indoors), "watercolor" begins. Introduced September 2017 Xiaomi Mi MIX 2 aboutequipped with the same sensor (the only rear camera on the device) with optical stabilization and f / 2.0 optics. It is no better than "fellow sensor". Good color and accurate exposure, but lacks detail, oversharp, noise and watercolor in low light.

Only the flagship smartphone LG G6, released in early 2017, turned out to be quite a compromise. Together with the innovative FullVision 5.7 ″ screen (with a diagonal of 18: 9 or 2: 1), which occupies almost the entire surface of the front side of the smartphone, the device received a far from new Qualcomm Snapdragon 821 processor and a dual camera with a 2015 sensor - Sony IMX 258 13 megapixels. This sensor has a diagonal of 5.867 mm (1 / 3.06 ″), the total number of pixels is 4224 x 3192, effective - 4224 x 3144, active - 4208 x 3120, while the real image in 4: 3 format is even smaller - 4160 x 3120, and in 2: 1 (18: 9) - 4160 x 2080 (test frames from the LG G6 US997 version are 4160 x 2340 pixels). One camera provides wide angle 125 °, the other 71 °. The optics of the main camera with an aperture of f / 1.8, the second with f / 2.4. Photos do not shine with detail - instead of them "watercolors" with significant oversharp, night shots are very dull and noisy. The budget smartphone LG Q6 / Q6 / Q6 + with a FullVision screen, presented in the summer of 2017, has a single rear camera, apparently with the same 13 megapixel sensor (LG does not disclose the brand, although some sources indicate the installation of LG's own sensor) and optics with f / 2.2 aperture. In 4: 3 format, frames have the same size 4160 x 3120 pixels, and 18: 9 images are also obtained by cropping a 4: 3 frame (total 9.7 megapixels). The G6 has optical stabilization, the Q6 does not.

It was a shame to put such a sensor on the flagship G6, of course, the footage from it does not cause any delight. By the way, on a very successful, but budgetary Xiaomi Redmi Note 4X, the same Sony IMX 258 sensor looks more logical and quite sufficient, so users rate the quality of photos from its camera much higher than the owners of the LG G6.

The same sensor is also used in smartphones Sony Xperia XA, Xiaomi Mi 5s Plus, ZTE Nubia z17 mini (f / 2.2), ZTE Nubia z17 miniS (f / 2.2, there is OIS), UMIDIGI S2 (dual - 13 MP on the Sony IMX 258, the second at 5 megapixels) and, most likely, in the Nokia 8.

Sony IMX 351 Exmor RS... The sensor has a resolution of 16 Mp, diagonal 5.822 mm (1 / 3.09 ″), the total number of pixels - 4688 x 3648 (about 17.1 Mp), effective - 4688 x 3512 (16.46 Mp), active - 4656 x 3496 (16.28 Mp), grain - 1 micron. Installed on Asus ZenFone 4 Selfie Pro (one main camera, f / 2.0, no OIS) and LG V30 / V30 +. In the new LG V30 and LG V30 +, the dual module of the main camera has the following composition: a standard camera based on Sony IMX351 with 71 ° coverage (f / 1.6, OIS), the second camera is 13 MP with a Samsung S5K3M3 sensor (size 1/2 , 9 ″, 120 ° wide angle camera, f / 1.9). By the way, Samsung S5K3M3 is also used in the Xiaomi Mi6 photomodule (together with the main camera with a Sony IMX 362 sensor). The shots from the LG V30 / V30 + leave a strange impression: it seems that the wide-format photos (here the S5K3M3 is involved) were taken with a 12-megapixel sensor, and then interpolated to 13 megapixels - watercolors are everywhere and soap around the edges. It's a shame that LG is heading in the wrong direction with a volatile and intrusive market, like many other smartphone makers with “good” cameras. The last decent was the LG G4, and the subsequent LG G5, LG G6 and LG V30 / V30 + were largely flop and deceiving in terms of photo properties. The same Sony IMX351 Exmor RS sensor is installed on other variations of the family - LG V30S and LG V30S Plus (f / 1.6, OIS, announced in February 2018).

Sensor Sony IMX 378... It has a large grain. It was introduced in September 2016. Standard size - 7.81 mm (1 / 2.3 ″), pixel - 1.55 microns. The aspect ratio is 4: 3, allows you to make frames of 4048 x 3036 (4056 x 3040) pixels, which is about 12.3 megapixels. In general, the sensor is one of the most acceptable in the Sony lineup, but only 12 megapixels, which is not enough! Installed on the pretentious-expensive Google Pixel and Pixel XL (with OIS), as well as on Xiaomi Mi5S (without OIS), BlackBerry KEYone, Huawei P10, Huawei Honor 9 and HTC U Ultra (f / 1.8, OIS). The HTC U Ultra smartphone delivers photos that are slightly below the quality of the Google Pixel. The colors are normal, there is little noise, the sharpness is good, you can shoot with manual settings in RAW. At night, the footage is not as good, but acceptable. Xiaomi Mi5S: color, dynamic range and sharpness are at their best. A good alternative to the overpriced Google Pixel. A significant disadvantage is that there is no optical stabilization, so when shooting in low light conditions, the automatic system raises the ISO to reduce the shutter speed, from which we get strong noise and watercolor. Frame resolution is exactly 4000 x 3000 pixels. Huawei Honor 9 has a dual camera - 20 megapixels in b / w (monochrome) + color 12 megapixels (with an IMX378 sensor, f / 2.2, OIS, frame size for some reason 3968 x 2976 pixels - apparently "eats up" the stabilizer) ... Phase + laser autofocus. Similar tricks are traditional for Huawei, similar in Huawei P10 and P10 Plus. Two sensors are used for color shooting with a final resolution of 20 megapixels ("synthetic" image using the technology of combining data from a black-and-white sensor and data received from a color sensor), as well as for zoom and "portrait". Evaluation of the images shows that "chemistry" with color and resolution does not give a positive result.

Sony IMX 380 - the next google sensor. It stands only on Google Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL (frames are 4032 x 3024 pixels). Sensor resolution - 4096 x 3040 pixels (12.4 Mp), standard size - 7.81 mm (1 / 2.3 ″), pixel - 1.55 microns. Announced in October 2017. I will not talk about the pictures in detail - they seem to be quite good, the hole is f / 1.8, but their resolution of the "12 Mp class", as already noted above, does not provide wide opportunities for post-processing, which often implies alignment and cropping, which further reduces the frame size. Well, the price tag is unfriendly (XL - almost 60,000 rubles at the end of 2017 and will not get cheaper), Googlephones are such "apples" in the camp of Android devices ...

Sony IMX 377 - one more "coarse-grain" sensor "class 12 Mp". Its resolution is about 12.35 Mp, the sensor size and pixel size are the same - 1 / 2.3 ″ and 1.55 µm. It was installed on expensive LG Nexus 5X, HTC 10 and Huawei Nexus 6P. From them, frames are obtained with a size of 4032 x 3024 pixels. Not a bad quality of photos for its time, but the devices are already outdated and there are only used ones ...

More pixels are better!

In the segment of smartphones with high-resolution sensors, there are few proposals. But in vain. Previously, "multi-pixel" sensors were used more widely - this refers to Sony IMX 318 Exmor RS (23 megapixels), which was discussed above, and to the Sony IMX 230. However, their time is running out. More or less modern sensors Sony IMX 300 and Sony IMX 400 are installed only on Sony devices. This is bad.

An interesting, high-quality and inexpensive device at one time was LeEco LeMax 2 (X820), presented in April 2016. It is equipped with a 5.7-inch IPS display with a resolution of 2560 x 1440 pixels, a Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 processor, 4 or 6 GB of RAM , 32, 64 or 128 GB of internal memory, a 3100 mAh battery with support for Qualcomm QuickCharge 3.0 fast charging, a USB-C connector and a 21.5-megapixel main camera with sensor-based optical stabilization Sony IMX 230 Exmor RS (hole f / 2.0). The sensor is not new at all - it was released in April 2015. It has the following parameters - CMOS, diagonal of 7.487 mm (1 / 2.4 ″). The total number of pixels is 5408 x 4112 (about 22.24 Mp), effective - 5360 x 4032 (21.61 Mp), active - 5344 x 4016 (21.46 Mp). LeEco LeMax 2 (X820) images are 5312 x 3984 pixels (21.16 megapixels) in 4: 3 format and 5312 x 2988 - in 16: 9 format (crop, almost 15.9 megapixels). Good color and detail, quite acceptable pictures at ISO value up to 800. There is HDR and panorama at 2512 pixels in height. 4K video at 30 fps with a stream of only 41 megabits (from experience I can say for sure that this is not enough; you need at least 51 megabits!). The downside is also that there are no optical and digital stabilization when recording video (in the standard application). Unfortunately, LeEco has burst and the smartphone is not updated. Many other smartphones were released with the same "ancient" sensor: Sony Xperia Z3 +, Huawei Honor 7, Sony Xperia XA Ultra, Sony Xperia M5, Meizu Pro 6, Meizu Pro 5, Lenovo Vibe X3, Lenovo Moto Z Force, BlackBerry Priv, BlackBerry DTEK60, Blackview P6000, Motorola Droid Turbo 2, Motorola Moto X Play, Motorola Moto X Force, Motorola Moto X Style, LeEco (LeTV) Le 2 Pro, LeEco (LeTV) Le Max X900, LeEco (LeTV) Le Max Pro X910 , LeEco (LeTV) Le S3, as well as a lot of little-known "Chinese" on the Russian market.

Unfortunately the sensor Sony IMX 300 (5984 x 4144 pixels, ~ 25 Mp, diagonal 7.87 mm - 1 / 2.3 ″, pixel size - 1.08 μm), released in September 2015, is available only on smartphones of the same company - peculiar and expensive Sony Xperia Z5 Premium, Sony Xperia Z5, Sony Xperia Z5 Compact, Sony Xperia X Performance, Sony Xperia X, Sony Xperia X Compact, Sony Xperia XZ, Sony Xperia XA1, Sony Xperia XA1 Ultra, Sony Xperia XA1 Plus. The sensor is interesting in that it is multidimensional, similar to the sensors in the cameras of the Lumia 1520 and 950 / 950XL smartphones. Neither when shooting in 4: 3, nor in 16: 9 format, the dimensions of the sides of the frames in pixels are not repeated (not obtained by cropping). For example, on the Sony Xperia XA1, the frames are of the following dimensions: 5520 x 4144 pixels (22.9 Mp) in 4: 3 format, 5984 x 3376 pixels (20.2 Mp) - in wide format. The glass is quite dark - f / 2.0, while there is also no optical stabilization. A lot of shake. The screen is only 5 ″ (1280 x 720): Sony probably thinks that it is convenient to look at the highres on this. Color: lacks warm shades. Detailing is excellent due to the resolution of the sensor. In low light, as always with Sony - watercolor and soap. Processor - MediaTek. The battery is 2300. This is a masterpiece of February 2017, and not some old stuff! The price tag is infuriating. In comparison, the "old" Sony Xperia Z5 with the same sensor still looks better, however, it also lacks optical stabilization and a "dark" hole f / 2.0. The price tag infuriates even more ... Sony Xperia XZ shows the same parameters as XA1; no optical stabilization and only f / 2.0.

Sony IMX 350... Sensor 20 MP. Diagonal - 6.475 mm (1 / 2.78 ″). Pixel size - 1.0 μm, aspect ratio 4: 3, active pixels - 5184 x 3880. Smart OnePlus 5 is equipped with a dual main camera, consisting of a wide-angle module with a 16-megapixel Sony IMX 398 matrix and a telephoto module with Sony IMX 350. Front camera - 16 Mp with Sony IMX 371 sensor. The Xiaomi Mi 7 device was rumored to have a dual camera with 19 Mp (f / 1.7) sensors, further it was reported that the main camera will have a 12-megapixel Sony IMX 380 sensor and a 20-megapixel Sony IMX350. On the ZTE Axon M, one module was planned with a Sony IMX 350 sensor (f / 1.8, no OIS). OPPO R11 and R11 Plus smartphones have a dual main camera module - 16 MP (Sony IMX398, wide-angle lens, f / 1.7, PDAF) and 20 MP (Sony IMX350, telephoto lens, f / 2.6, 1 / 2.8 ″ , 1 μm). The smart Meizu E3 presented in March 2018 is equipped with a dual main camera - 12 MP (Sony IMX362 sensor, Dual Pixel, f / 1.9, no OIS) + 20 MP module (Sony IMX350, f / 2.6), implemented zoom 1.8x (optical) and 2.5x (no loss of quality).

Sony IMX 376 - an uncommon sensor with a resolution of 20 megapixels (4: 3 format, 5120 x 3840 pixels). It is installed mainly in self-modules of such Chinese smartphones as Vivo V5, Vivo V5 Plus and Vivo V5S (f 2.0), Vivo X9 and Vivo X9 Plus (here are dual front cameras, one of which is with Sony IMX 376, f / 2, 0). Sensor included OnePlus 5T - there is a dual main camera: 16 MP (Sony IMX398, 1.12 microns, f / 1.7) + 20 MP ( Sony IMX376K, 1 micron, f / 1.7, monochrome module for shooting in low light). No OIS!

Relatively new sensor Sony IMX 400 also got high resolution in pixels. It is multi-faceted and also only applies to the Sony Xperia XZs, Sony Xperia XZ Premium, Sony Xperia XZ1 and Sony Xperia XZ1 Compact. In particular, the best of the worst in this series - Sony Xperia XZ Premium - is equipped with "glass" with optical stabilization and f / 2.0 hole. The shots taken under standard conditions seem to be good at first glance, but due to the optics with insufficient resolution and / or unfinished software, the quality of the images is very poor - watercolor with sharpening. The dynamic range is narrow. In low light, loud noises. The maximum resolution in 4: 3 mode is 5056 x 3792 (19.2 Mp), and in 16: 9 it is 5504 x 3096 (about 17 Mp), while the IMX 400 itself contains 5504 x 3792 pixels (20.9 Mp). The Sony Xperia XZ1 and Sony Xperia XZ1 Compact also lack OIS. In general, as follows from the statements of Sony officials, to do wrong is their credo, which they are proud of and promise to continue to do so: do not install OIS, make scary remnants of plastic and on-screen control buttons in the presence of just a huge beard on the bottom of the case.

Omnivision

Not very well-known company Omnivision also produces high resolution sensors. They are not widely spread.

A year ago, the company introduced new 20-megapixel and 16-megapixel sensors - OV20880 and OV20880-4C (5184 x 3888 pixels) and OV16885 and OV16885-4C (4672 x 3504 pixels) with second generation PureCel Plus-S technology for lower noise, low light performance and HDR support. There is no information yet on the use of these sensors in smartphones. previous version OV16880 was involved in LeEco (LeTV) Le S3, Xiaomi Mi Mix, LeEco (LeTV) Le 2 X620, LeEco (LeTV) Le 2 X520, Xiaomi Mi Max, Oukitel K6000 Plus and the new Vivo V7 + (f / 2.0, no OIS). Judging by the available pictures taken with the Xiaomi Mi Mix and Xiaomi Mi Max, the “masterpieces” are quite average in all respects.

Previously, the company offered the Omnivision sensor OV23850 ... It was announced at the end of 2014. Its resolution is about 23.8 megapixels (when shooting video - 5632 x 4224, and working resolution when shooting photos - 5648 x 4232 pixels or cropped 5648 x 3184 pixels, i.e. 17.9 megapixels ). Captures images in an aspect ratio of 4: 3, size - 1 / 2.3 ″. The only smartphone with him on board is the unknown "Chinese" Gionee Elife E8 (released in May 2015), which has OIS, and the aperture is f / 2.0.

Another 21.4 megapixel photo sensor OV21840, intended for smartphones of the top segment. The release states that "the sensor features proprietary PureCel-S technology that captures photos and videos with quality comparable to DSLR cameras." However, to date, there is no evidence that it was installed on at least one smartphone. The sensor uses its own technology, thanks to which the sensing and processing elements are located separately one after the other. The sensor supports phase detection autofocus, photo and video recording in HDR mode. Sensor size 1 / 2.4 ″. The number of active pixels is 5344 x 4016. The sensor is capable of recording video with a resolution not higher than QHD at a frequency of 30 frames per second in HDR mode.

OmniVision announced two sensor models in early 2017 - OV12A10(color) and OV12A1B(monochrome)... True, "class 12 Mp". These 1 / 2.8-inch sensors with a resolution of 4096 x 3072 pixels and a pixel size of 1.25 microns are designed for use in dual cameras. Omnivision sensor OV12A10 found application in the newfangled Xiaomi Mi A1, released in September 2017, and in its "twin" - Xiaomi Mi5x. They have a dual camera - the main one with an aperture of f / 2.2 and a focal length of 26 mm, the second with f / 2.6 and 50 mm. This realizes 2x optical zoom. There is HDR. No optical stabilization. Daytime photos are surprisingly acceptable quality considering what was captured with OmniVision. Good dynamic range. You can take it. The Omnivision OV12A10 sensor is also found on the Xiaomi Redmi 5 and Xiaomi Redmi 5 Plus smartphones presented in December 2017 (both with f / 2.2 and without OIS), and possibly also on the Xiaomi Redmi Note 5 (announced in February 2018). ). Examples of photos from them are also quite good in daytime conditions, in poor lighting - porridge and shake (because there is no stub and a dark hole).

From the line of high-resolution sensors of this company, which would be installed on "non-Samsung" smartphones and would be worthy of attention, I know only one type - S5K2T8... He stands (it seems to be he) only on ZTE Axon 7... This is not officially advertised. Resolution - 20 megapixels, size - 1 / 2.6 ″. The aperture on the ZTE Axon 7 is f / 1.8, there is OIS. The frames have a resolution of 19.9 megapixels (5952 x 3348 pixels), although the resolution of the sensor itself is 5976 x 3368 pixels. For some reason, the smartphone was positioned as a musical flagship. For me, he's more of a photo flagship among other "androids"! Good detail, color and white balance. In normal lighting conditions, the footage is of quite acceptable quality - no nasty soap, noise or ragged watercolors. In poor light, it's no longer a masterpiece. There is blur at the edges of the frames due to the wide-angle lens and the light hole (\u003d shallow depth of field). In my opinion, the disadvantage may be the standard aspect ratio for this sensor - 16: 9. This ratio is more suitable for landscape photography. The installed sensor is not multi-aspect and 4: 3 images will be cropped from 16: 9: examples of photos show that they have a size of 4352 x 3264 pixels, about 14.2 megapixels (it's strange why it was necessary to "sprinkle" both on the narrow and on the wide sides ?!) ...

The S5K2T8 sensor is not listed anywhere in the Samsung lists and is possibly a version of the S5K2T7 sensor, which, however, has an aspect ratio of 4: 3 and a resolution of 5184 x 3880 - 20 megapixels.

A weak non-removable battery can severely limit the duration of the "field" use of a smartphone for filming - you definitely need a power bank.

It is a pity that the smartphone was very expensive "during its lifetime" (released in May 2016); now it is already somewhat outdated, although it is still on sale - as of December 2017, it cost from 23 rubles for the 4 / 64GB version. I can recommend for purchase for lack of something radically better on androids! The purchase and use of this smart showed that the phenomenon of significant soap / blur in the left side of the pictures, which was repeatedly complained about in the ZTE Axon 7 thread on w3bsit3-dns.com, is apparently all-round; was also present in the purchased copy. Perhaps this is due to an incorrect factory installation of the camera module - the same thing previously happened on other smartphones, including some MS Lumia 950XL (version with one SIM card).