HTC One boasts about its new fancy 'UltraPixel Camera'. It claims the camera as an end to the Megapixels war. This technology sounds very promising. UltraPixels!
Halt! Wait a second! What is 'UltraPixel' anyway?
The pixels in an UltraPixel sensor are bigger than the pixels in other competing cameras. That's how the name goes as 'UltraPixel'.
Image sensors are covered in photo diodes that convert light into electricity, which is processed and recorded as data. Each pixel in your photo represents one photosite on the sensor. When you take a picture, the camera's shutter flies open for a fraction of a second letting photons pour in. Bigger photosites can capture more photons, and thus, capture more data. The difference is especially pronounced in conditions where the light is too dim.
Bigger pixels on an identical surface means fewer pixels. Both the HTC One and Lumia 920 have a 1/3-inch sensor, but Lumia 920 has 8.7-megapixels compared to the HTC One's 4MP. That's why the HTC One has larger 2-micrometers pixels whereas the Lumia 920 only has 1.4-micrometer pixels.
More data means more quality. You need enough pixels that you can view the image at a reasonable size on screens. Think about how ridiculous a 100 x 100 image would look on the HTC One's 1920 x 1080 screen. But then again, most cameras output photos way larger than what most people will ever need. The 4-megapixel camera on the HTC One outputs 2688 x 1520 images, and that's really dangerously small if you want to zoom to 500% (A 500% zoom will crack your image) or crop or edit your images. At the end of the day all you're doing is uploading photos to Facebook and Instagram anyway, right?
(The Hubble is 0.8 megapixels and its image sensor is HUGE. The Mars Rovers (Curiosity and Spirit) are only 1 megapixel each, yet can fill an IMAX screen.)
The resolution of a camera's image sensor is only one of many factors that affect image quality. The lens, image processor, auto-focus and metering all have to work well, too.
We'll have to wait and see how the rest of the camera's technology performs before we declare it as the KING!
Halt! Wait a second! What is 'UltraPixel' anyway?
The pixels in an UltraPixel sensor are bigger than the pixels in other competing cameras. That's how the name goes as 'UltraPixel'.
Image sensors are covered in photo diodes that convert light into electricity, which is processed and recorded as data. Each pixel in your photo represents one photosite on the sensor. When you take a picture, the camera's shutter flies open for a fraction of a second letting photons pour in. Bigger photosites can capture more photons, and thus, capture more data. The difference is especially pronounced in conditions where the light is too dim.
Bigger pixels on an identical surface means fewer pixels. Both the HTC One and Lumia 920 have a 1/3-inch sensor, but Lumia 920 has 8.7-megapixels compared to the HTC One's 4MP. That's why the HTC One has larger 2-micrometers pixels whereas the Lumia 920 only has 1.4-micrometer pixels.
More data means more quality. You need enough pixels that you can view the image at a reasonable size on screens. Think about how ridiculous a 100 x 100 image would look on the HTC One's 1920 x 1080 screen. But then again, most cameras output photos way larger than what most people will ever need. The 4-megapixel camera on the HTC One outputs 2688 x 1520 images, and that's really dangerously small if you want to zoom to 500% (A 500% zoom will crack your image) or crop or edit your images. At the end of the day all you're doing is uploading photos to Facebook and Instagram anyway, right?
(The Hubble is 0.8 megapixels and its image sensor is HUGE. The Mars Rovers (Curiosity and Spirit) are only 1 megapixel each, yet can fill an IMAX screen.)
The resolution of a camera's image sensor is only one of many factors that affect image quality. The lens, image processor, auto-focus and metering all have to work well, too.
We'll have to wait and see how the rest of the camera's technology performs before we declare it as the KING!
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