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Leica launches 15x zoom C-Lux compact with 20MP 1″ sensor

15 Jun

Leica Camera has announced a new compact camera that will feature a 24-360mm f/3.3-6.4 zoom lens and which will be fitted with a 20MP 1” MOS sensor. Essentially a re-badged Panasonic Lumix TZ200, the Leica C-Lux will save raw and JPEG files, will offer 4K video and has a viewfinder with a 2.33-dot resolution.

Video users will be able to extract 8MP JPEGs from the camera’s 4K video feature, which will have a fastest frame rate 30fps and a best bit-rate of 100mbps. Focus and the shutter can be activated via the 3in touch-screen and the camera will have a Wi-Fi function to allow images to be sent to a smartphone or the camera to be controlled remotely.

Using a combination of electronic and mechanical shutter mechanisms a maximum exposure time of 120 seconds can be achieved via the camera’s T setting, and a longest timed shutter opening of 60 seconds will be available via mechanical operation. The electronic shutter will run from 1 second to 1/16,000sec.

The Leica C-Lux will go on sale from mid-July priced £875, and a range of accessories, including straps, jackets and pouches will follow. For more information see the Leica Camera website.

Press release

New: Leica C-Lux

The versatile compact camera with a 15x zoom, a practical touchscreen and exceptional design

Wetzlar, 15 June 2018. With the launch of the Leica C-Lux, Leica Camera AG expands its product portfolio with a versatile compact camera that unites speed, an intuitive handling concept and stylish design. Featuring a Leica DC Vario-Elmar 8.8–132 mm f/3.3–6.4 ASPH. lens and a high-performance, 20-megapixel sensor for continuous shooting at a rate of up to 10 frames per second, the Leica C-Lux adapts quickly and flexibly to every situation and effortlessly delivers high-quality pictures of subjects at any distance. Its 15-fold optical zoom with focal lengths from 24 to 360mm (35mm equivalent) offers enormous creative scope that is further expanded by 4K video recording capability. Thanks to an integrated connectivity concept, still pictures and videos can be quickly and easily shared with family and friends by a simple tap of a finger on the touchscreen display. Available in the two colours, Light Gold and Midnight Blue, the Leica C-Lux impresses not only with its precision, but also with its exceptional design and range of stylish accessories.

From the lens to the 1-inch image sensor, all components of the Leica C-Lux are precisely matched to one another and deliver brilliant pictures in RAW or JPEG format in a quality that remains equally impressive in large-format prints. With an impressive maximum ISO sensitivity of 25600, the C-Lux guarantees pictures with natural colours

and exceptional quality, especially when used for available-light photography. Thanks to its versatile zoom lens, fast autofocus and face detection, the camera also offers enormous flexibility in almost all areas of photography, and especially in spontaneous situations. The C-Lux’s fast autofocus with 49 metering points, ensures that subjects are sharply focused on in an instant, and a continuous shooting rate of 10 frames per second ensures that even the most fleeting moments will never be missed. Intuitively selectable scene modes provide valuable assistance when shooting landscapes, portraits or at night and enable users to concentrate exclusively on their subjects.

Thanks to the viewfinder’s high resolution of 2.33 megapixels, the clarity and contrast of the viewing image is outstanding at all times – even in particularly bright, ambient light. As the viewfinder covers 100% of the image field, framing of subjects is extremely precise and users have complete control of composition. The camera also offers dioptre compensation settings that allow spectacle wearers to use the viewfinder without any problems.

The 3-inch touchscreen display ensures particularly easy handling in all shooting situations. As with a smartphone, many of the camera’s functions can be controlled by simply touching the monitor screen, for instance the transfer of still pictures and videos via Wi-Fi or Bluetooth. The ‘Leica C-Lux’ app that supports this function can be downloaded free of charge and installed on iOS or Android devices. The display screen features a special repellent coating that prevents annoying marks and protects it against fingerprints.

The high-definition, 4K-resolution, digital video recording function expands the spectrum of features offered by the Leica C-Lux. Thanks to exceptional resolution – four-times higher than full-HD – and up to 30p & 100 Mbit in MP4 format, the C-Lux

delivers all the technical prerequisites for shooting your own, personal short film. What’s more, still pictures can be extracted and saved from video footage at a resolution of up to 8 megapixels.

The compact Leica C-Lux impresses not only with its technical features, but also with elegant design and a portfolio of stylish accessories. An extensive range of accessories in matching and complimentary colours is available for both versions of the camera. These include, for example, carrying straps and wrist straps for the camera in the colours taupe, blue and red. The portfolio also offers an extensive collection of premium quality camera cases, protectors and soft pouches that make the C-Lux an elegant companion for every occasion. Particularly eye-catching are the two vintage models in finely polished brown leather: a cleverly designed wrap- around vintage pouch and a vintage case with a concealed snap fastener. Also available is an outdoor bag in hardwearing, water-repellent fabric. A range of elegant cases in various styles, colours and types of cowhide completes the portfolio. Thanks to a detachable, adjustable carrying strap, two of these models can be used not only as a shoulder bag, but also as a handbag or for stowing things away in a day bag.

The Leica C-Lux will be on sale in the colour options Light Gold and Midnight Blue from mid-July 2018 at RRP £875 including VAT. The range of accessories will also be available when sales of the camera begin.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

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Does sensor size still make a difference?

28 May

We’ve seen huge breakthroughs in the computational photography techniques in the latest smartphones, as well as the launch of some excellent small sensors in more traditional cameras. Does that mean that bigger is no longer necessarily better?

To answer that question, let’s look at why big sensors tend to produce better image quality and what smaller-sensored cameras and smartphones are doing to close the gap.

Benefits of larger sensors

The three main benefits that prompt people to move to larger sensors are the ability to blur the background with shallow depth-of-field, exhibit less noise in low light situations and the ability to capture a wider dynamic range between the brightest and darkest areas of the image. Since these all primarily stem from getting more light, it presupposes that you have a lens with a wide-enough aperture to let in enough light, but this is usually possible. Collectively, these three factors mean that large sensor cameras can usually produce better-looking images. They can’t make up for the photographer, of course, but if used by the same person, the bigger sensor usually ‘wins.’

Computational photography allows small sensors to imitate the effects of a larger sensor, while leaps forwards in sensor performance can help small sensors produce better-looking images. But do these advances mean you no longer need a larger sensor?

Computational photography

The most visible example of computational photography in widespread use are the portrait modes in the latest smartphones. These use a variety of techniques but fundamentally they make some attempt to assess the depth in the scene, then apply differing amounts of blur at different depths, to simulate shallow depth-of-field.

The results aren’t always totally convincing and won’t necessarily satisfy the kind of demanding photographer that looks for particular character to the out-of-focus rendering (bokeh) of their lenses. However, as processing power and machine learning continue to improve, the results will only get better. And for many applications, will quickly exceed the threshold of being considered ‘good enough’ for an increasing number of people.

This image was taken using Portrait mode on a modern smartphone. As well as simulated shallow depth-of-field, computational photography has added artificial lighting effects to the subject’s face.

Computational photography can also help with low light and high dynamic range scenes. Again, it’s increasingly common for smartphones to be able to shoot multiple shots, then combine them. The processing is getting sophisticated enough that this can even be done with moving subjects, without the user even necessarily realizing that this is what their phone is doing.

Because most noise in photography comes from the randomness of light, shooting the same scene again and again helps to average out this randomness, just as rolling a die repeatedly helps you get a clearer picture of whether it’s weighted.

The results will start to rival the output of
larger sensors

The same can be done in good light, sampling the scene several times (sometimes with different exposures), to extend the dynamic range beyond what could be achieved in a single exposure.

Unlike the shallow depth-of-field effect, which is simulated, these multi-shot techniques directly compete with larger sensors, since they allow the image to be constructed from more light. At which point, the results will start to rival the output of larger sensors, so long as the combination of images and movement cancellation is clever enough.

More advanced sensors

We’ve seen some very good small sensors in recent years, whose performance can narrow the gap with those above them. The adoption of technologies such as back-side illumination have allowed sensors to become more efficient (capturing more of the light that’s shone on them). Again, since most of the benefits of larger sensors come from them generally receiving more light during any given exposure, an increase in efficiency can help smaller sensors narrow this gap.


G1 X Mark III ISO 500 F3.2 (F5.2 equiv) 1/30th	G7 X Mark II ISO 160 F2 (F5.5 equiv) 1/30th

The Canon G1 X Mark III offers an APS-C sensor to the G7 X Mark II’s 1″ sensor, but the latter uses a more efficient BSI design.

This only goes so far. Partly because these technologies are also likely to have some benefit when they ‘trickle up’ to larger sensor sizes. This widens that gap back to the extent you’d expect, just based on the size difference. Also, the gaps between most popular sensor sizes are proportional to at least two-thirds of a stop, which is more of a difference than technology advances tend to compensate for.

Small sensor advantages

There are also areas in which small sensors offer an advantage over large ones, with readout speed being the most obvious one. In general it’s quicker to read out the data from small sensors, which brings a series of benefits. The most obvious is that it allows improved video quality, either through being able to read all the pixels, enabling more detailed capture, or simply through a reduction in rolling shutter.

The RX100 V’s stacked CMOS sensor with DRAM incorporated into the chip allows faster readout, which boosts video and autofocus performance.

The other advantage, of course, is that it makes it quicker and easier to offer many of the computational photography benefits discussed earlier in the article.

There are ways to improve the readout speed of large sensors too, such as the stacked CMOS sensor that ‘trickled up’ from Sony’s smartphone and 1″-type sensors to the full frame a9. This incorporates readout circuitry and RAM into the sensor to allow faster readout. But this comes at a considerable cost premium, as these chips are extremely complex and time-consuming to make, making it difficult for large sensors to match some of the capabilities of smaller chips.

Convenience of small sensors

The other potential advantage of small sensors is that they allow cameras to be smaller. This tends to means lenses with smaller physical apertures, which is one of the main things that hold the image quality of small sensors back, but the trade-off is cost and convenience. So, although you can buy mirrorless cameras with large sensors, it’ll be the ones with smaller sensors that will provide the smaller overall package, most of the time.

For all the bluster you sometimes encounter with people claiming to be committed enough that they always carry a full DSLR kit around with them, most people find it’s easier to carry a small camera with you. And you know what they say about the camera you’ve got with you…

Is bigger still better?

Overall then, for conventional, single-shot photography, there’s no substitute for making a photograph using more light, and it’s usually easier to give a large sensor more light since it has a larger area to capture light. In that sense, bigger sensors are still better. However, that’s not the same as saying ‘you need a bigger sensor.’

Even though a larger sensor may be able to produce a better result, smaller sensors are getting better and better all the time

Improvements in sensor tech, the availability of large sensor compacts with bright lenses (that help get more light to their sensors), and advances in computational photography allow better images than ever before from small sensors.

At which point, we come back to the question of what’s ‘good enough.’ Which isn’t so much about accepting limitations, but more about being able to attain a quality you’re happy with for what you’re trying to achieve. So even though a larger sensor may be able to produce a better result, smaller sensors are getting better and better all the time, exceeding ever higher ‘good enough’ thresholds such that you may reasonably conclude that you don’t need any further improvement.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

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Making Sense of Lens Optics for Crop Sensor Cameras

20 May

If you have been considering getting a new camera or have been considering upgrading a camera, you have probably heard all about crop sensor cameras but what does it mean? How does crop factor affect lens selections? When you are considering systems, often it is not just the camera bodies you must consider, but the selection of lenses for that system as well.

Sensor Optics and Equivalences

Crop Sensor Optics

Most new photographers often start out with crop sensor cameras because they are usually less expensive. But as you become more advanced does it make sense to upgrade to a full frame system? If you are thinking about upgrading is there a reasonable upgrade path?

For example, should you buy full frame lenses to use with your crop sensor body? It seems so confusing and to be fair, it is a little complicated and the simple rules of thumb don’t tell the whole story. Rather than look at the differences in camera sensors themselves (they are all pretty good), let’s try to make sense of the lenses themselves.

Making Sense of Lens Optics for Crop Sensor Cameras - different lenses

Similar focal length lenses – the Olympus micro 4/3rds 40-150mm f/2.8 (80-300mm equivalent) and Canon’s 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 (for full frame).

Lens sizes

If you are looking at lenses you will see many different focal lengths and apertures. Even from the same manufacturer for the same camera body, there are often different aperture and focal length combinations. Since an important part of photography is optics, how can you begin to compare lenses for different size sensors? How do the lenses relate to the camera body you are looking at?

Making Sense of Lens Optics for Crop Sensor Cameras - two lenses for comparison

Nifty 50mm (full frame on the left) and micro 4/3rds 25mm (50mm equivalent) on right.

Going further, how do different size crop sensors affect lens optics? Is an f/2.8 lens on a crop sensor camera actually f/2.8 lens or is it something else? What about bigger format cameras? Why do the smaller apertures (f-stops) seem so big but the images so gorgeous with great background separation and bokeh?

This all relates to lens optics and crop sensor equivalences, one of the great mysteries of photography that most photographers don’t really understand.

Lens Optics Basics

To understand lens optics you need to understand what a lens does to the light coming into it. The light coming through a lens actually inverts, flipping the image upside down. The light then projects onto the digital sensor after passing through the lens.

Making Sense of Lens Optics for Crop Sensor Cameras - diagram of lens focal length

Focal length and image flip onto the sensor.

Most lenses are defined by the focal length and maximum aperture. The higher the focal length, the closer distant objects seem. So, for example, sports and bird watchers typically want much larger focal lengths to get in close.

Lower numbers widen the field of view to make more things fit within the image (wide angle lenses) and are often the tools of the trade for landscape photographers. In 35mm equivalents, a 200mm lens is a long lens and a 20mm lens is a very wide lens.

Making Sense of Lens Optics for Crop Sensor Cameras - aperture diagram

Relative aperture size illustration.

The aperture f-stop number represents the size of the iris or hole in the lens. A lens will be rated based upon the largest aperture the iris can open. The more light you let in, the slower the shutter speed you will need. Because of this property, larger maximum aperture lenses are called faster lenses. For example, an f/2.8 lens is considered pretty fast and an f/5.6 lens (think kit lens) would be considered pretty slow.

Optical Math

Let’s keep the geeky math minimal, but it really helps understand lens optics.

Focal length is not a measurement of the actual length of a lens, but a calculation of an optical distance from the point where light converges to form a sharp image on the digital sensor at the focal plane in the camera. Aperture, on the other hand, is the size of the hole created by the iris in the lens. Aperture is geometrically related to the focal length of the lens. For example, an f/2.8 lens on a 100 mm focal length lens is 100 divided by 2.8 = 35.7 mm. As the lens focal length dictates the size of the aperture, it is independent of the size of the sensor but dependent on the focal length.

Making Sense of Lens Optics for Crop Sensor Cameras - similar lenses

Utility lenses covering a similar range – the Canon 24-105mm f/4, and the Olympus 12-40mm Making Sense of Lens Optics for Crop Sensor Cameras f/2.8 (24-80mm equivalent).

Zoom lenses may have more than one aperture because the iris doesn’t get bigger as the lens gets longer. Since it is a math relationship, the longer focal length with the same iris opening makes the aperture smaller. More expensive zoom lenses have the same aperture for the entire range but that is a bit of an engineering feat as the iris must get larger as the lens zooms to a longer focal length.

Camera Sensor Format Refresher

In the golden age of film photography, there were multiple formats dictated by film stock. One of the more common sizes was 35mm film dictated by sprocket film stock that was 34.98 ±0.03mm (1.377 ±0.001 inches) wide. Back in the film days, there were multiple formats too, with larger and smaller film stock available that also affected lens sizes and performance.

When digital sensors were originally developed for still cameras, larger sensors were prohibitively expensive, so smaller sensors were used. There is a wide range of sensor sizes and this variety of sensor sizes affects the mechanics of how lenses on cameras operate.

When a sensor is close to the size of 35mm film stock, it is called full frame. Anything smaller is called a crop sensor. Anything bigger is generally called medium format although there is a lot of variability in sizes larger than full frame. Sensors not only vary in size but also geometry.

Crop sensor relative sizes

Sensor sizes

Generally speaking, a full frame sensor is in the shape of a rectangle that is roughly 36mm x 24mm which is a length to width ratio of 3:2 covering an area of 862mm sq. Conversely, a micro 4/3rds crop sensor is 17.3mm x 13mm (ratio of 4:3) covering an area of 224.9mm sq. A Nikon/Pentax APS-C crop sensor is 23.6mm x 15.7mm (ratio of 3:2) covering an area of 370mm sq, whereas a Canon APS-C sensor is 22.2mm x 14.8mm (ratio of 3:2) but only 328.5mm sq. Larger formats (bigger than full frame) tend to be square.

Many times the crop factors are calculated by the size of the diagonal distance from corner to corner of the sensor. For example, a full frame sensor is twice the diagonal as a micro 4/3rds sensor, therefore the crop ratio is 2x. For a Nikon APS-C crop sensor the ratio is 1.5x and for a Canon APS-C crop sensor, it is 1.6x.

Making Sense of Lens Optics for Crop Sensor Cameras - sensor footprints and sizes

Comparison of the sensor footprints

Square versus Round

Lenses are round whereas sensors are rectangular or square. So, all cameras cut off part of the image because the round lenses project a circular image on the sensor which is a rectangle. This means that the edges of the image circle are cut off.

Camera manufacturers design their lens/camera combinations so that the entire sensor gets great coverage from the image circle (this is called covering power). This can create problems when you have a mismatch between the sensor size and the size of the sensor for which the lens was made.

Making Sense of Lens Optics for Crop Sensor Cameras -

Image circle with full frame and micro 4/3 frame overlaid

So, How Does Crop Factor Affect Images?

There are lots of factors that affect your images. The sensor size does affect images, but so does focal length and aperture size but those are physical properties of the lens and are not affected by the crop factor. At least not directly.

To illustrate the effect of crop sensors on light gathering and focal length, a series of test images were set up (these are not overly scientific but more illustrative). Using an Olympus EM1 Mark II (Micro 4/3rds sensor – 2 times crop factor) and a Canon 5D Mark IV (full frame).

Making Sense of Lens Optics for Crop Sensor Cameras - Olympus camera

Olympus EM1 Mark II, micro 4/3rds camera

Making Sense of Lens Optics for Crop Sensor Cameras - Canon camera

Canon 5D Mark IV full frame camera.

To illustrate the focal difference conversion and the light gathering conversion, the cameras were set up side by side using only the focal length conversion. The geometry of the sensors is not exactly the same so they have been cropped to match each other (8×10 ratio).

Making Sense of Lens Optics for Crop Sensor Cameras - two cameras shooting the same scene

Camera size comparison (full frame on the left, micro 4/3 on the right)

Both cameras were targeted at the same vista.

Making Sense of Lens Optics for Crop Sensor Cameras - side by side cameras

Test setup side by side cameras.

Rules of Thumb Versus Reality

Focal lengths are commonly converted into equivalents for full frame sensors to give the same the field of view by multiplying the focal length by the sensor’s diagonal ratio. For example, a 25mm lens on a micro 4/3rd sensor is the equivalent of a 50mm lens on a full frame camera (crop factor is 2:1).

A Canon EFS (crop sensor) lens to match a 50mm lens is 31mm. This works in reverse too. If you put a full frame lens on a crop sensor camera body, the focal length is multiplied (the same 50mm lens becomes like a 75mm lens on a crop sensor). This rule of thumb works.

Editor’s note: The optics are not the same, but this is a generally accepted method of understanding crop sensors.

Making Sense of Lens Optics for Crop Sensor Cameras - two photos of a bridge

At 24mm equivalents – same shutter speed and ISO, full frame on left and Micro 4/3 on the right (both at f/4, ISO200, 1/160th).

Aperture and Depth of Field

Another rule of thumb that doesn’t work so great is to add a stop or two for the aperture (depending upon the crop). Why doesn’t it work? Well, there is more at play here.

The aperture affects the light gathering ability of a lens but with a crop sensor camera, the smaller sensor causes the depth of field (area in focus) to be larger. What that means is that an f/2.8 lens at 200 ISO sensitivity should have very close to the same shutter speed on any camera body (there are variations in light meters from one camera body to another). So an f/2.8 lens is always an f/2.8 for light gathering.

Making Sense of Lens Optics for Crop Sensor Cameras - two bridge photos side by side

At 70mm equivalents – same shutter speed and ISO, full frame on the left and Micro 4/3 on the right (both at f/4, ISO200, 1/80th).

To make things more complex is the look of an image. The bokeh on a crop sensor will never be quite as good as a full-frame sensor because the extra area of a full frame sensor changes the depth of field (the amount of the image in focus) relative to a crop sensor. This is not a function of the lens as much as the sensor size. This can be pretty subtle but it is a factor, particularly for portraits.

At 200mm equivalents – same shutter speed and ISO, full frame on the left and Micro 4/3 on right (f/4, ISO 200, 1/30th).

At 200mm equivalents – same shutter speed and ISO, full frame on the left and Micro 4/3 on right (f/4, ISO 200, 1/40th).

Full Frame Lenses on Crop Sensor Cameras

Lenses tend to last much longer than cameras with good lenses lasting as long as two or three camera body iterations. So many people go by the adage of investing in glass. So if you are using a crop sensor body that will accept full frame lenses, why not buy full frame lenses until you are ready to buy the full frame body? The answer is not necessarily because it may not be as sharp as your crop lenses even if the lens seems nominally the same size.

Full frame lenses are more expensive than crop lenses but you are often paying for other features including weather sealing and better more durable construction. Because of large differences in sensor sizes, getting full frame lenses on a crop sensor means you are only using the very center portion of the lens but the detail is more concentrated on that area. This can challenge the optical quality of the full frame lenses.

They are often better quality but not enough better to account for the size differences between the sensors. So unless you know you are upgrading your camera imminently, you may not want to use the full frame lenses on crop bodies.

Another consideration is that you have to use the crop factor in reverse. On a Canon crop body (1.6 crop factor) a 24mm lens becomes a 38.4mm lens. This means that you can’t get as wide of an angle of view on a crop body with wide lenses.

A full frame lens on a crop body will increase the focal length by the crop factor

Conclusion

There are lots of misconceptions regarding lenses when comparing them across sensor sizes. Understanding the basic function, light gathering capabilities, and geometric relationships can help you compare lenses within camera systems and across sensor sizes.

There are great lenses available for all camera systems that can produce fantastic results. Lenses are as important at the camera body. So when choosing a system, make sure you have the lens selection you need for your particular style of photography.

The post Making Sense of Lens Optics for Crop Sensor Cameras appeared first on Digital Photography School.

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OnePlus 6 smartphone launches with bigger image sensor and OIS

17 May

Sticking to its usual 6-month product cycle, Chinese manufacturer OnePlus today announced its latest flagship device, the OnePlus 6. Compared to its predecessor, the OnePlus 5T, the new model is a fairly incremental update.

It comes with the newest Qualcomm top-end chipset, the Snapdragon 845, and the screen size has been boosted to 6.28-inch while, thanks to a new 19:9 aspect ratio, more or less maintaining the overall dimensions of the predecessors. The body also now covered with Gorilla Glass at front and back, and while there is a headphone jack, there’s no memory expansion port.

The specifications of the dual-camera are very similar to the 5T, but at 1/2.6″ the 16MP sensor in the main camera is a touch larger and now equipped with optical image stabilization. The lens aperture remains at F1.7. The 20MP secondary imager measures 1/2.8″ and also comes with an F1.7 aperture. The equivalent focal length is 27mm and PDAF is the AF system of choice.

As before, image data from the secondary sensor is computationally merged with the main camera image for advanced digital zooming, as well as better detail and lower noise levels.

The background-blurring portrait mode now works on front and rear cameras, and in video mode you can capture footage at 4K resolution. A 720p/480fps slow-motion option is on board as well.

These are solid but not specifically exciting features and specifications. However, as is typical with OnePlus, the new model will be competing on price by offering high-end specifications at a lower price point than the more established competition.

The base model with 6GB of RAM and 64GB of storage is $ 530, a $ 580 middle option offers 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage, and a new premium version that expands storage to 256GB will set you back $ 630.

The new models will be available in North America and Europe starting May 22nd.

Press Release

Presenting the OnePlus 6 – The Speed You Need

6.28” Full Optic AMOLED Display with 19:9 aspect ratio, and Qualcomm® Snapdragon™ 845 deliver immersive viewing experience and smooth performance in a sleek flagship smartphone

London – May 16, 2018 – OnePlus today announced its latest premium flagship device, the OnePlus 6

The OnePlus 6 – the first in OnePlus’ line of flagships to feature an all-glass design – is the company’s most sophisticated handset to date.

With a 6.28-inch Full Optic AMOLED 19:9 display – OnePlus’ largest-ever screen – the OnePlus 6 offers an immersive viewing experience, while keeping a similar form factor to that of the OnePlus 5T.

Combining new technology from Qualcomm® with OnePlus’ engineering, the OnePlus 6 is the fastest handset the company has ever produced.

“With the OnePlus 6, we challenged ourselves to deliver an external design as smooth and elegant as the work we’ve done inside the device,” said OnePlus Founder and CEO Pete Lau. “We’re proud of what we’ve accomplished, and we hope our users are too.”

Fast and Smooth Experience

Addressing a common pain point among smartphone users, OnePlus is committed to ensuring its phones remain as fast and smooth as the day they came out of the box. OnePlus achieves this goal through a combination of powerful hardware and intelligent software which work seamlessly together.

The OnePlus 6 is powered by one of the most powerful processors on the market, the Qualcomm® Snapdragon™ 845, which improves performance by 30%, while being 10% more power efficient.

Coupled with the Adreno 630, which is 30% faster than the previous generation, the OnePlus 6 is a powerhouse for everything from streaming HD video to playing graphically intense games.

With up to 8 GB of LPDDR4X RAM, the OnePlus 6 effortlessly switches between multiple apps running at the same time without a single second of lag, allowing users to multitask with ease. The OnePlus 6’s dual-lane storage, based on UFS 2.1, ensures faster app loading and read/write speeds.

Bolder Design

As with any OnePlus device, the OnePlus 6 is beautiful and functional in equal measure – now, with more screen than ever before. To provide users with as much screen real estate as possible, OnePlus designed the navigation bar so that it can be replaced with gesture control, freeing up even more viewing space for a cleaner look.

OnePlus has experimented and innovated with glass to deliver its boldest design to date. Donning an allglass design, the OnePlus 6 facilitates better transmission of radio waves, providing users with up to 1 gigabit of download speed. Due to its strength and malleability, OnePlus used Corning Gorilla Glass 5 on both the front and the back of the device, shaping it with slight curves to create an uninterrupted look and feel.

OnePlus’ meticulous attention to detail is reflected in each of the OnePlus 6’s color variants: Mirror Black, Midnight Black and a limited-edition Silk White. For the Mirror Black and Midnight Black variants, OnePlus embedded a thin layer of film underneath the glass to create a sense of depth as light and shadow move on the device. A jagged texture was etched onto the film of the Midnight Black to produce a subtle S-shaped line when the phone is reflected in light. The limited-edition Silk White uses pearl powder to create a subtle shimmering effect.

High-speed Dual Camera with Optical Image Stabilization

The OnePlus 6’s dual camera system features a 16MP main camera, supported by a 20MP secondary camera. With an f/1.7 aperture, the 16MP main camera has been bolstered by a 19 percent larger sensor and OIS for outstanding performance in a range of lighting conditions. With Advanced HDR, OnePlus’ improved High Dynamic Range algorithm, the OnePlus 6 brings out shadows and enhances lighting in photos.

Portrait Mode will be available on the OnePlus 6’s front camera as well as its rear. Using AI, the front camera is able to apply a depth of field effect to selfies. Newly added bokeh effects, including circles, hearts and stars offer new ways for users to customize their portraits.

The OnePlus 6 marks the introduction of OnePlus’ Slow Motion mode, which can capture high-definition video frame-by-frame with astonishing detail, ensuring users never miss the action.

Android Refined – OxygenOS

OnePlus’ operating system, OxygenOS, offers a refined Android experience that is faster, cleaner and more customizable than other Android experiences.

Like its approach to hardware, OnePlus’ approach to software is centered around an experience that is refined, efficient and minimalistic. New features are vetted by OnePlus users through channels like the OxygenOS Beta Program and only added once OnePlus is confident the features can improve the way users use their phone.

A Day’s Power in Half an Hour

The OnePlus 6’s fast charge – a favorite feature amongst OnePlus users – offers one of the fastest charging solutions on the global market. A half-hour charge gives the OnePlus 6 enough power for the entire day.

Price and Availability

The OnePlus 6 in 64 GB, 128 GB and 256 GB storage options will be available on oneplus.com in North America and in Europe on May 22nd starting from USD 529 / EUR 519 / 469 GBP. The limited-edition Silk White with 128 GB of storage will be available for purchase on June 5th.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

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CMOS image sensor sales at all-time high

11 May

Industry analysts IC Insights report that CMOS image sensor sales will be at an eighth straight record-high level this year, with worldwide revenues growing 10% to $ 13.7 billion. This comes after a 19% increase in 2017.

The growth is due to a spread of digital camera applications to vehicles, machine vision, human recognition and security systems, but demand is also driven by more advanced smartphone cameras using multiple sensors.

Smartphone cameras accounted for 62% of CMOS image sensor sales in 2017, but this number is forecast to decrease to 45% in 2022 as demand in other sectors, such as automotive, is expected to grow faster.

Overall, CMOS image sensors accounted for 89% of total image sensor sales in 2017 by value. This is a noticeable increase from 74% in 2012 and 54% in 2007. In terms of units shipped, CMOS imagers represented 81% of all image sensors sold in 2017, making CMOS by far the most utilized image sensor technology and also suggesting CMOS sells at a premium, compared to its rival technologies.

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Phase One iXM 100MP aerial camera uses world’s first BSI medium format sensor

05 May

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The Industrial arm of Danish camera manufacturer Phase One has launched an aerial camera that uses the world’s first backlit medium format sensor. It’s called the iXM 100MP, and it’s almost certainly the first camera to use this sensor from Sony that we told you about back in November.

The iXM 100MP is part of a new iXM system of cameras and lenses designed to be used attached to drones or manned aircraft. A 50-megapixel version, the iXM 50MP, has also been launched, but the iXM 100MP uses backside illumination to boost the light sensitivity of the sensor and to improve its dynamic range.

The two cameras use 4:3 ratio sensors measuring 33x44mm, and both offer XQD storage as well as HDMI-out to allow realtime preview. USB-C and 10G Ethernet ports provide the means to connect directly to on-board storage and control in larger craft, to synchronize an array of cameras for 3D capture, and to speed up mapping work.

The system incorporates four new lenses designed specifically to work with these sensors. The RSM range use leaf-shutters with a shortest opening of 1/2500sec, and which can work at a rate of three frames per second. The shutters are guaranteed for 500,000 actuations, and the lenses have been designed to operate at a wide range of temperatures and altitudes without loss of quality.

Two of the news lenses—a 35mm and an 80mm—have fixed focus, while a further 80mm and a 150mm use motorized focus with focusing determined either before the flight or in the air using a remote control. The focusing versions are aimed at those carrying out structural inspections at different distances rather than those mapping from a constant height.

Here’s a quick first look at the iXM Camera Series:

The iXM cameras and their RSM lenses are expected to ship in June 2018, with lenses costing $ 10,000/€8000 and the cameras priced at $ 40,000/€32,000 (iXM 100MP) and $ 21,000/€17,000 (iXM 50MP). While the price of these models might put them beyond the range of most photographers, it is worth getting excited about the prospect of a 100MP BSI sensor entering the regular still photography market sometime soon. Fingers crossed.

For more information on the iXM range see the Phase One Industrial website.

Press release

Phase One Industrial Innovates UAV-based Aerial Imagery – Launches iXM Metric Cameras and Motorized Lenses

Phase One Industrial today launched the iXM series: a breakthrough aerial camera platform driven by the world’s fastest medium-format imaging sensor. Engineered for UAV-imaging missions, the iXM 100MP is a high-productivity metric camera with a range of high-resolution lenses. The iXM is ready for integration with a wide
range of UAV platforms, including Phase One’s DJI Matrice 600 Pro solution.

The iXM 100MP metric camera incorporates the first medium-format sensor with backside-illumination technology, enabling high light sensitivity and extended dynamic range. Fast, highly responsive, robust, and weatherproof (IP53 compliant), the iXM 100MP delivers superior quality aerial imaging and flexible operation to satisfy diverse mapping, surveying, and inspection applications.

Also today, Phase One announced four new specially developed RSM lenses – with focal lengths ranging from 35mm to 150mm – to seamlessly fit the new sensor’s 3.76?m pixel size and 33×44 mm frame size, ensuring image sharpness across the entire FOV. The lenses are available with either fixed-focus or motorized-focus functionality.

The fixed-focus 35mm and 80mm lenses provide superior image radiometric quality, high ground resolution, and large coverage – perfect for surveying applications.

The motorized-focus 80mm and 150mm lenses are ideal for a wide range of inspection applications, including electricity poles, wind turbines, bridges, and other private-sector or government structures.

Motorized-focused lenses, having no external moving parts, enable a number of new uses for inspection applications where the focusing distance can be predefined based on flight planning, or by the operator, using a wireless remote control. With the motorized lens, the camera captures sharp and highly detailed images of multi-distance or 3D objects.

The cameras’ RSM lenses incorporate a new leaf-shutter technology, which supports 3 fps capture – with a speed of 1/2500 sec – while guaranteeing 500,000 actuations. The lenses are thermally stable to ensure consistent focus over a wide range of temperatures and flight altitudes. With optics designed to exploit the full benefits of the new sensor technology, the lenses provide with greater productivity, flexibility, and reliability, offering superb image quality.

The new iXM platform adds XQD high-speed storage technology to handle the sensor’s extremely fast frame rate. Also on all cameras, HDMI output from actual exposure provides UAV operators simple and outage-free feedback of actual view, exposures, and camera status in overlays. In addition, the new platform includes USB-C and 10G Ethernet for versatility of connectivity to large UAVs and aircraft.

For complete technical specifications, please see http://industrial.phaseone.com/landing/The_New_iXM_Series.aspx

“Working with our UAV partners, we see a fast-growing market driven by great potential for time and cost savings over traditional inspection and surveying methods,” said Dov Kalinski, General Manager of Phase One Industrial. “With its new technology, design, and capabilities, the iXM 100MP promises to help start a new era in inspection missions with UAVs. Phase One Industrial continues to push technical boundaries to equip drones and larger UAVs with superior imaging technology – engineering advanced systems, cameras, and software – to help achieve that potential.”

Availability and Pricing

The iXM 100MP and iXM 50MP metric cameras are available today for advance order – from Phase One Industrial partners worldwide – with delivery in June 2018.

Pricing for the:

iXM 100 MP camera: 32,000 Euro/40,000 USD
iXM 50 MP camera: 17,000 Euro/21,000 USD
Lenses: 8,000 Euro/10,000 USD

For more information regarding purchase options and partner locations, please contact us at: https://industrial.phaseone.com/Contact.aspx

About Phase One Industrial

Phase One Industrial is a division of Phase One A/S that researches, develops, and manufactures specialized industrial camera systems and imaging software solutions. The company focuses on specific applications such as aerial mapping and surveying, ground and aerial inspection, agriculture, machine vision and homeland security.

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Canon shows off its latest CMOS sensor tech in new promo video

18 Apr

Canon isn’t only in the business of making DSLR, mirrorless and point-and-shoot cameras. It’s also in the business of making the CMOS sensors inside those cameras—arguably the most important component. And in order to showcase what its achieved with its latest lineup of CMOS sensors, Canon USA has created a little promotional video.

The video showcases a variety of sensors seen across Canon’s product line, from the extreme low-light full-frame sensor it showed off earlier this year, to more industrialized CMOS sensors made for surveillance and security purposes.

The video description from Canon USA:

This video showcases Canon variety of sensors. For several decades Canon has been developing and manufacturing advanced CMOS sensors with state-of-the-art technologies for exclusive use in Canon products. These sensors are a critical driving force behind many of our successful product lines, ranging from consumer products all the way up to high-end business and industrial solutions.

The video does seem a touch overly dramatic for what it is, and may even come across as a bit cheesy at times (why are they showing new sensor tech inside a Canon EOS 1D that came out in 2001?). Nonetheless, it’s an interesting watch that gives a good overview of the work Canon has been putting into its CMOS sensors in recent years—technology that will hopefully impact the Canon DSLRs and mirrorless cameras of the future.

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Tiny micro-camera sensor is self-powered by light

13 Apr

University of Michigan engineers Euisik Yoon and Sung-Yun Park have developed a nearly microscopic image sensor that doesn’t require an external source of power. Measuring less than a millimeter across, this prototype camera could be placed just about anywhere – it only requires a light source to harvest energy. The technology is detailed in a study recently published in IEEE Xplore.

This isn’t the first self-powered image sensor project, however earlier explorations of the technology had limitations. One previous example involved embedding photovoltaics into a sensor for harvesting the energy to power it, which reduced the amount of light available to produce the image.

When put to the test, the sensor was able to capture 15 images per second

The prototype created by Yoon and Park differs, instead sensing the image and harvesting energy simultaneously without reducing the sensing area. This is made possible by placing a second diode, which acts as a photovoltaic, beneath the photodetector. When exposed to daylight, some photons pass through the initial photodetector diode, where they then reach the second diode and are converted into electricity to power the sensor.

With this arrangement, the sensor’s pixel area is almost fully dedicated to capturing the image while the “waste” photons are grabbed to power the camera. When put to the test, the sensor was able to capture 15 images per second at the quality shown below.

The number of frames that can be captured per second depends on the amount of available light. Full, sunny daylight at 60k lux provided enough power to capture 15 frames per second, though normal daylight at 20k to 30k lux produced enough energy for half that rate at 7.5 frames per second.

Eventually, as IEEE Spectrum notes, the proof-of-concept prototype could be refined to improve its efficiency in lower lighting conditions. The engineers could also choose to embed other components, such as a tiny wireless transceiver, to create a complete wireless camera capable of being placed and operated nearly anywhere.

Via: TechCrunch

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Samsung explains the sensor tech behind the Galaxy S9’s super-slow-motion mode

05 Apr

Samsung published a couple of technical blog posts today, providing some detail on the stacked sensor technology used in the new Galaxy S9 and S9 Plus smartphones, and specifically how this tech is used to power the devices’ super-slow-motion mode.

This mode can record 960 frames per second at HD resolution for a duration of 0.2 seconds, which translates into 6 seconds playback time at 30 fps—32 times slower than standard video. The resulting videos can be reversed, exported as GIFs and edited in other ways.

To achieve the blistering fast frame rates, Samsung has adopted similar imaging technology to what we’ve previously seen on some Sony devices. The S9 sensor offers faster sensor readout-times, bandwidth and video processing of the application sensor than on previous Galaxy generations by using a three-layer stacked sensor design that consists of the CMOS image sensor itself, a 4x faster readout circuit, and a dedicated DRAM memory chip for buffering:

In addition to slow-motion, the stacked sensor helps reduce rolling shutter effects in video mode, and counter camera shake through frame-stacking methodologies.

“We were able to achieve a readout speed that is four times faster than conventional cameras thanks to a three-layer stacked image sensor that includes the CMOS image sensor itself, a fast readout circuit, and a dedicated dynamic random-access (DRAM) memory chip, which previously was not added to image sensors,” explained Dongsoo Kim. “Integrating DRAM allowed us to overcome obstacles such as speed limits between the sensor and application processor (AP) in a high-speed camera with 960fps features.”

You can see some of the Samsung super-slow-motion video results in the video below. Samsung’s article on the technology is available on its blog, where you’ll also find an interview with the team behind the new sensor.

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Canon shows off full-frame sensor that shoots 100fps Full HD in ‘exceptionally low-light’

03 Apr

At CES 2018, Canon unveiled three specialized CMOS sensors: an ultra-high resolution 120MP APS-H sensor, a 5MP Global Shutter sensor, and a 19?m Full HD sensor capable of shooting 100fps Full HD in extremely low light. Each does something special—offering high resolution, global shutter, and high-sensitivity, respectively—and now, a few months later, Canon is showing off these sensors in a series of demo videos.

The first video featured the 120MXS sensor, which can shoot a mind-boggling 9.4fps at 120MP resolution. Now Canon USA has released the second video in the series, demoing its full-frame 19?m Full HD sensor made for shooting slow motion in extremely low light:

The 35MMFHDXS CMOS sensor, capable of shooting 100fps Full HD in ‘exceptionally low-light environments.’

The sensor is called the 35MMFHDXS, and in many ways it’s the polar opposite of the 120MXS. It only contains 2.2 effective megapixels, but each of those pixels is a whopping 19?m x 19?m in size, allowing them to capture a lot of light. This, combined with new pixel and readout circuitry that helps reduce noise, is what allows this full-frame sensor to capture Full HD at 100fps even when shooting in very little light.

You can see what this means in the video up top, or read Canon’s own description of the 19?m Full HD sensor below:

The 35MMFHDXS CMOS sensor delivers high-sensitivity, low-noise imaging performance, enabling the capture of Full HD video even in exceptionally low-light environments. The sensor’s pixels and readout circuitry employ new technologies that reduce noise, which tends to increase as pixel size increases. High sensitivity and increased well depth have been achieved through a larger pixel size of 19?m x 19?m (square) with proprietary device design technologies. The 35MMFHDXS CMOS sensor is available in RGB, RGB+IR or Monochrome.

Sample video screenshot. Credit: Canon

These new specialized CMOS sensors now have their own landing page on Canon’s website, where you can dig into the specs and read a full white paper on each of them.

As with the 120MXS, we probably won’t see this 35MMFHDXS sensor in standard, consumer-facing Canon cameras anytime soon; however, the technology Canon is developing to create these “advanced CMOS sensors with state-of-the-art technologies” will no doubt trickle down into the sensors the company will use in its DSLR and mirrorless cameras of tomorrow.

Check out the demo video above, and then head over to the Canon landing page to learn more.

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