New digital camera chip slashes power consumption 50x

They're only in the design prototype phase right yet, but a couple of dudes by the names of Mark Bocko and Zeljko Ignjatovic at the University of Rochester have apparently worked out a way to digitize photography at each pixel of a CMOS sensor, the results of which are actually nothing less than fifty times less power consumption in taking a shot, and ten times the dynamic range of light captured — on chips expected to be smaller and less expensive than current devices. What's that mean exactly? Well, cheap, pervasive cameras for one (yay, more eyes on us at all times), but this could very well have an impact on the way cameraphones and digital cameras are built and used.

[raulr @ Dec 19th 2005 12:56AM]

This says its for CMOS technology. Good for cameraphones, but most digital cameras are CCD. And cameraphones aren't really using up much battery life because of the camera. They are still used primarily as phones, where Bluetooth, color screens, and the cellular modem eat up the battery mostly.

[surge @ Dec 19th 2005 12:56AM]

doesn't Canon already use cmos censors rather than ccds in their slrs...and has for a while

[raulr @ Dec 19th 2005 12:56AM]

I said most. Not all.

[furtim @ Dec 19th 2005 12:56AM]

The low power thing is neat, but frankly the exciting part of this is the expanded dynamic range of the image. Resolution of digital images has been on par with film for a while now (although those cameras have cost upwards of $20k), but digital cameras have still fallen short on dynamic range. Anything that cuts into that, especially if it can do it more cheaply, is very good news for photographers.

[Foof @ Dec 19th 2005 12:56AM]

Yep, Canon has been using CMOS since the D30, and they've always been benchmarks in terms of image quality and noise control. On the flipside, CMOS is cheaper than CCD tech, and is still more ubiqitous in cheapo cams like the ones typically found in cameraphones; at that level the CCD offerings always outperform the CMOS ones.

And while using the camera does suck up battery power like crazy on my V300, remember that the sensor is still powered up and running when you use the live preview as well, so that alleged 50x power savings goes to more than just the 1/30 second it takes to capture an image.

[speedbacon @ Dec 19th 2005 12:56AM]

Watch out CCD here comes CMOS. When can I get my 10 gigapixel camera?

Enhance 224176
Enhance, Stop
Move in, Stop
Pull out, Track right, Stop
Center in, Pull back, Stop
Track 45 right, Stop
Center and Stop
Enhance 34 to 36
Pan right and pull back, Stop
Enhance 34 to 46
Pull back, Wait a minute, Go right, Stop
Enhance 5719
Track 45 left, Stop
Enhance 15 to 23
Give me a hard copy right there.

[Kat @ Dec 19th 2005 12:56AM]

OOOOhhh...
Speedbacon, Bladerunner right?

anyway, that's awesome, hopefully this technology keeps advancing, I love my Canon powershot A750, but it's becoming a bit dated already. I'd like to get a nice quality camera in that price range, something with a nice optical zoom would be great too.

[Kat @ Dec 19th 2005 12:56AM]

Oops, Powershot A75 not 750.
Great pics. but the 3.2mp is feeling really low compaired to what's out now.
Oh well, I still love it.

[Asher69 @ Dec 19th 2005 12:56AM]

Niiiice Blade Runner reference. Took longer than I thought on a site like Engadget!

hehe... "'More human than human.' That's our motto."

[torkhum @ Dec 19th 2005 12:56AM]

awsome. finally something that will not drain the power supply (mainly bats) in just few shots.... i bought a cam around spring time and took about 10 pix, and the bat died on me...
i took it back and got my money...
but this is a good thing and a bright future for digi cam fans...
see pix i have taken with my new digi cam on my web site....

[Taylor @ Dec 19th 2005 12:56AM]

Battery life is cool, but what I've been waiting for all along is more dynamic range. There's one SLR that I know of that's all about dynamic range, but I'd love for it to be more common. And yeah, canon rocks the cmos, so maybe they'll get into this? That would make me happy. :) And yeah, for power consumption, 50x less for the chip doesn't mean 50x less overall, that LCD on the back probably draws more than the sensor anyway (though I don't know). Still, battery life is nice, but it doesn't give you better pictures, dynamic range does. Besides, I have an extra battery, so I'm never caught with a dead one. :)
-Taylor

[Foof @ Dec 19th 2005 12:56AM]

Taylor,

Yeah, Fuji is to be commended for making the S3 Pro more than just a megapixel game, and there are some other interesting HDR concepts in the works, one of which is by Sony. I have a feeling we're going to see something new to get excited about in the next 5 years (how about 1/30 night shots with no need for flash?)

[sean @ Dec 19th 2005 12:56AM]

Would you really want a smaller image gathering surface? I would think you would build this the same size as the standard CCDs now and reap the increased light gathering power.

[EM @ Dec 19th 2005 12:56AM]

Improvement of the dynamic range of chips is, IMO, the bigger deal here. Typical photo chip 1:1,000, human eye about 1:10,000 at a given light level.

I'll believe it when I see it.

[AH @ Dec 19th 2005 12:56AM]

More dynamic range--I'd like to see a camera 10 years from now that only requires a flip of a switch (rather than major surgery) to go from normal visual light to infrared

[Daniel @ Dec 19th 2005 12:56AM]

This is why I love technology, to see advancements like this is amazing.
Not just twice as much but 50 times less power used, the future just gets better and better.

[js @ Dec 19th 2005 12:56AM]

These chips may be less expensive, but the pseudo-pricing of cameras might prove that wrong otherwise.

[noimagination @ Dec 19th 2005 12:56AM]

Folks, stop thinking Still-camera.
Think about this, along with next generation flash memory (a phone with 8 or 16 Gigs of space) + hardware H.264 compression. Think HD camcorder-phone with a voice recorder that can always be on, worn as a medalion taking pictures every few seconds of your whole life(if you want that). (from: http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1040_22-5887450.html)
"Samsung plans to begin mass-producing 16GB flash-memory chips by the end of next year and points to a 32GB prototype on the horizon."
Now I know what you're all asking "what about the lens" (cameraphone lenses are typicaly thier very weak point) well, with liquid lenses you'll have the potential to have a very high quality adjustable, cheap lens http://www.varioptic.com/en/

[Revrant @ Dec 19th 2005 12:56AM]

But I hate cellphones...half my family does due to the retardation experienced by those who feel a need to use them all of the time. So I don't care if they're used in cellphones, however I do care that they're used in consumer level web/digital cameras like the Logitech ClickSmart 820 where this kind of thing would *really* matter, I don't think there's enough good lower price dual usage cameras out there, this kind of thing would encourage it.

[sean @ Dec 19th 2005 12:56AM]

Why do they say "50x less" power? Does that mean you take the power originally consumed, multiply by fifty, and then subtract from the original amount? That would make it negative (fusion power!). Don't they mean it only takes 1/50th of the power?

[Foof @ Dec 19th 2005 12:56AM]

I don't have any problems with "50x less," but then again, I are not a English prof.

[Lenord @ Dec 19th 2005 12:56AM]

I agree with the previous excitement about dynamic range. That was the only dissapointing surprise about switching from film to digital for me, and still something that I try to work around (in landscapes, usually by bracketing a few exposures of a scene and combining them in something like Photomatix).

But, on the digital SLR end of things, the power consumption could be nice for a fairly limited range of things, like astrophotography or nightime photography. Any time you're taking exposures longer than 20 minutes or so, you run the risk of draining any normal camera battery.

Also, didn't know I was the only Nikon lover on engadget.

[TZK @ Dec 19th 2005 12:56AM]

Most if not ALL CMOS DSLRs are CMOS.

But whether this effects the camera sector depend sont he quality.

[Charlie Taylor @ Dec 19th 2005 12:56AM]

#14

Current sensors already see infrared light, but most cameras have an infrared filter in front of the sensor to block these as it produces unpleasing results without it. The 'major surgery' you refer to is the removal of this filter. Increasing the dynamic range of a sensor wouldn't change this.

[Nobuyuki Idei @ Dec 19th 2005 12:56AM]

"Most if not ALL CMOS DSLRs are CMOS"

So, let me see if I understand you correctly: Some CMOS DSLRs may not use a CMOS?

[Robbie @ Dec 21st 2005 7:50PM]

Stanford University developed this technology about 10 years ago, and a company called Pixim brought it to market. They ultimately could not make it in the camera market because this technology is lagging the pixel count of CCD technology, and consumers ultimately bought solely on MP. The company chose to focus on security cameras instead.



I hope that the consumer market is educated enough to look beyond pixel count as an indicator of a camera's quality.