Samsung announces world's thinnest 8 megapixel cellphone module

Measuring just 8.5-mm thin, you're looking at what Samsung claims to be the slimmest CMOS camera module of its kind. The 8 megapixel module is expected to supplant the 5 megapixel job found in todays top-end cameraphones sometime in the second half of the year. Fortunately, this isn't just a case of megapixel marketing as the module also features anti-shake, a 1-cm macro, and face tracking technology. It also packs a smile shutter feature to snap that picture just as soon as a smile, or vinegar, is detected.

[Fraggle.Rock @ Mar 18th 2008 3:27AM]

8MP, anti-shake, face tracking... now we're talking, and it's taken long enough too. Can you imagine a high-end phone today sporting some lame 2MP camera - I'd be soooooo angry! :-)

[Jeff @ Mar 18th 2008 11:20AM]

problem is that at a certain point, too high a pixel-density is actually detrimental to image quality.

I can't say for this specific sensor, but at that pixel/inch, i'd bet you really won't see much an improvement over decent 2MP sensors. (the digital anti-shake / digital zoom would be a fun feature in a cameraphone, though, and would require a decently high MP sensor...)

I'd happily settle for 2MP if the quality were anywhere near the Sony U20 i had back in the day. (My Samsung m610's 2MP camera is lightyears behind where that little sony was back in 2003...)

[Tor Slettnes @ Mar 18th 2008 6:29PM]

Jeff is exactly right. The "megapixel game" has gone so far these days that you actually want to look for LOWER numbers for improved image quality. (There is a sweet spot where the gain in details from an increase is outweighed by the amount of noise in the too-small sensors; more so for slimmer optics - as seems to be the case here).

That said, the article mentioned that this is a CMOS sensor, not CCD sensor as is used in nearly every other cameraphone. While each cell in a CCD sensor captures only one of three colors (a 2x2 grid will have one red, two greens, and one blue pixel), each "bin" in a CMOS sensors captures all three. There is even some patent filed by Kodak recently (ostensibly for use in some forthcoming MOTO phone) that has a fourth, transparent light sensing per bin, used for normalization. With this in mind, the "sweet spot" is going to be a higher number.

Still, 8MP with a < 8.5mm focal length is bound to produce nothing but smear.

Looks good w.r.t. statistics that the average prosumer looks at, but will hardly be capable of producing good images.

[Wwhat @ Mar 19th 2008 1:22PM]

I'm not convinced, the more pixels the smaller the noise pixels too, and that's an advantage in looking at the pictures as well as cleaning them up.
And comparing 2 products then saying one is better and just throwing that on pixelcount is a bit tricky, because obviously a high quality 2MP will be better than a cheapo 8MP, but the same is true for the reverse situation.

[Tor Slettnes @ Mar 20th 2008 1:09PM]

@WWhat:

In theory you do have a point. The problem today is that manufacturers have taken the pixel density in most consumer cameras (and even some that are marketed to people who should know better) so high that the amount of noise (unwanted signal) has become too much for in-camera image processing (noise reduction, color reproduction, etc..) algorithms to do a good job.

This is especially true for cell phone cameras, where the push for ever-slimmer optics (shorter focal lengths) translates directly into a limit in the total CCD array size. If you go too far in cramming an ever-large number of photonic (CCD/CMOS/whatever) cells into a given sensor size (let's say a 1/2.5" CCD sensor for the sake of argument), then the amount of light (wanted signal) that is absorbed by each cell will have diminished significantly while the amount of noise (unwanted signal) has not.

In-camera image processing algorithms, while being able to take advantage of a larger number of data points to perform such things as noise reduction, color reproduction, reducing blur, etc., are now faced with a much lower quality of the total image, since signal/noise ration has decreased significantly compared to a camera with lower density (larger) photonic cells.

You don't have to take my word for it though. I think we all have anecdotal evidence about how an old digital camera of ours (in my case it was a Canon Powershot S110 with a whopping 2 megapixels) produced far superior images than a newer camera of the same class (e.g. a Casio Elixim V8 w/8 megapixels) - even after resizing the latter down by an integer factor...

(Other contributing factors in this case is that the latter uses so-called "folding optics" to achieve its slim profile with a 7x zoom; that aside, the CCD sensor size is comparable).

Oh, and I have used both a Nokia N95-3 (my main phone, currently in for repair) and a Sony Ericsson k850i (which I picked up from a local store in the meantime) for image capturing. Neither one is particularly impressive. The N95, of course, takes pretty crappy indoor/nighttime pictures, given no real flash; also, various factors (e.g. shutter speed) means that it is not too good with moving objects. The k850i tends to lose detail, even in bright daylight (though it is a bit quicker and more "camera-like" in its response..)

[Ewoks FTW @ Mar 18th 2008 3:28AM]

the real question is... WILL IT BLEND???

[stunta @ Mar 18th 2008 3:33AM]

No, the REAL question is... CAN YOU BE ANYMORE CLICHE???

[paul34 @ Mar 18th 2008 3:38AM]

Ewoks FTL

[IndiaTech @ Mar 18th 2008 4:29AM]

Ryan says, the next idiot to ask "Will it blend?" or "Can it play Doom?" on Endgadegt gets an Atomic Wedgie.

[kyle allen @ Mar 18th 2008 3:37AM]

yay! now my blurry pictures will be even more detailed and storeage consuming. its a wonderfull age we live in.

[gfar @ Mar 18th 2008 4:45AM]

Duh...everyone knows that it's _only_ the megapixels that count, it doesn't matter if it's behind a cloudy plastic lens or not.

[Kev50273 @ Mar 18th 2008 3:48AM]

Darn, my Nokia N95-3 was just as awesome as it gets a second ago. Oh well, guess it will take time for these to make their way into phones.

Second thought: how small does this make digital cameras?

[King Mustard @ Mar 18th 2008 4:21AM]

Don't worry, the N95 has guaranteed it's place as the best 5 MP camera phone in most publications. Well, as long as it's not in low-light conditions.

Regarding this module - I'm impressed. Let's hope the actual quality of photos are good, though.

[Jeff @ Mar 18th 2008 11:22AM]

"Let's hope the actual quality of photos are good, though."

i hope so, but i imagine it's no better - just more numbers in the Megapixel-coldwar without any real regard to image quality.

[BloodyGerman @ Mar 18th 2008 4:40AM]

Funny, megapixels and size is the only thing which seems to count for cellphone cameras?

There are other features of interest: pixel size, sensor size, maximum aperture, focal length...
Why is it often impossible to find info on the sensor size of cell phone cameras?

[MattNL @ Mar 18th 2008 4:44AM]

remember that 8mp doesnt say anything about the lens quality. Without a good lens you still get a crap picture... I'd prefer a good quality 3mp lens.

[Joe @ Mar 18th 2008 6:32AM]

Forget lens quality, we know nothing of the chips quality. All we know is how big it is.

[MattNL @ Mar 18th 2008 6:44AM]

True, chip quality is also very important.. they should do something about that first before they get any more mp. But hey, they don't want to bring their camera sales in danger, so they pretend to put better camera's in their phones and people go "WOW! 8MP im so totally gonna buy that one".

As long as people fall for that, they will keep this up. I wonder how many MP it takes before the masses realize that still have bad pictures. But hey, now they at least can print their noisy pictures on the side of a building.

[seanchk @ Mar 18th 2008 4:44AM]

That picture is a bit misleading, it makes it appear a lot thinner than 8.5mm

Its an amazing bit of tech, but lets hope that someone can come up with a decent flash system to go with it, otherwise whats the point.

And who cares if it does 2 or 5 mega pixels if the shutter speed is so slow you need rock steady hands to get a non blurry image...

[Jeff @ Mar 18th 2008 11:26AM]

No kidding.

I'd be much more excited about a tiny 1MP chip that had good high ISO with little noise.

I'm thinking we're going to start seeing things like low-noise-high-ISO chips start making their way into the prosumer DSLR market this year, but it'll probably be a few years before the stupid megapixel race calms down in the mobile industry and people start actually getting decent image quality out of mobile sensors.

[Will @ Mar 18th 2008 5:12AM]

I guess we'll see this in America in about 5 years. Pepsi Perfect will probably be perfected by then.

[Broken_Haiku @ Mar 18th 2008 5:21AM]

Ohh yay, now I am just dying to see someone slap an actual lens on this baby.

[Daza @ Mar 18th 2008 5:30AM]

Great news, the 10mm macro is also really impressive. I think it will only be until we see cameras rival small P&S for camera quality. Still won't put me off my new Canon IXUS purcahse though :)

[Wolfticket @ Mar 18th 2008 6:09AM]

Can I get some noise!!!

[Kizorblade @ Mar 18th 2008 6:30AM]

"snap that picture just as soon as a smile, or vinegar, is detected."

Oh Thomas. How you crack us up

[iGuy @ Mar 18th 2008 6:58AM]

Is mr. Steve Jobs already been notified about this technical wonder?

[iczer2 @ Mar 18th 2008 8:17AM]

8MP huh? I'm sure those pictures will look fine at oh, high-noon, but in anything darker than the sun being directly overhead, that ISO 25 camera module will take such craptacular pictures it won't be worth it.

Seriously people. If you want to take 8MP pictures that matter get yourself at minimum a point n' shoot or a DSLR that has both the lenses and the electronics to make a shot worth talking about. Phone cameras a crap, pure and simple.

The camera market has nothing to worry about except for idiots that believe that the megapixel rating is the end all, be all of shot quality.

[iczer2 @ Mar 18th 2008 8:30AM]

I found out elsewhere that the ISO on this thing is set to 1600. So then instead of keeping it low to reduce the noise (like the aforementioned ISO 25) they instead bump it up to 1600 to work in low-light environments.

Can we say ridiculously grainy photos?

[Jeff @ Mar 18th 2008 11:28AM]

on a sensor that size, even a 1600 ISO will have poor low-light performance.

so, not only worthless anytime other than noon, but also super-grainy.

i'd love to be proved wrong.

[Lucas Ferreira @ Mar 18th 2008 8:24AM]

Ok, you say that MP is not the main issue, I agree...

But it is not what the average consumer take in account when they buy... People compare cameras in the MP basis only, so 8 MP would sell more

[Bethany @ Mar 18th 2008 8:29AM]

I agree with many of the posts above. 8MP is nice and all, but I'm perfectly happy with a really good 3-4MP lense. I can't wait to see a phone one day with optical zoom and a real flash.

[sully @ Mar 18th 2008 9:57AM]

To be albe to have that it would have to be far bigger than I would like a phone to be, mostly to handle the lens protection. Cell phone cameras are not meant to replace actual cameras, improving quality is great, but I've always seen cell cameras as a way to get some sort of documentation when it is completely unexpected. The first thing that comes to mind for me is minor car accidents.

[Evan @ Mar 18th 2008 8:32AM]

God, they assume consumers are gullible morons! The sensor's sensitivity decreases as the number of pixels increase (because each pixel is smaller can can collect fewer photons), but they don't care about image quality, all they care about is advertising "8 MegaPixels".

[MPman @ Mar 18th 2008 9:27AM]

--quote on--
"Samsung CMOS image sensor : Samsung Electronics announced an 8.4 megapixel (Mp) CMOS image sensor (CIS) with a 1.4 um pixel design at Samsung’s fourth annual Mobile Solution Forum. The new CIS chip provides a high signal to noise ratio (SNR), a key measure of overall image quality. Samsung achieved the high-resolution level by implementing advanced light sensing features and minimized noise levels. Notably, an extended photo diode technology was implemented to achieve higher light sensitivity and saturation levels, resulting in an enhanced fill factor. Furthermore, it provides the same image quality as the charge-coupled device (CCD) image sensors currently used in most digital cameras and camcorders."
--quote off--
http://www.letsgodigital.org/en/13715/cmos_image_sensor/

[Jeff @ Mar 18th 2008 11:44AM]

MPman: CMOS is nothing new, and Evan is still right.

you could have a 10 billion megapixel camera (1 petapixel?), but unless the sensor was the size of a theater-screen, you're going to loose fidelity, because you're cramming MORE pixels into LESS space, therefor reducing the accuracy of each pixel.

I'm sure that we'll be able to efficiently reduce the size of sensors without killing image quality, but i've yet to see it (most manufacturers of consumer mobile devices are just racing for higher MP counts right now, because that's what'll sell devices: the average consumer still thinks "More MP always = better!")

[Poom @ Mar 18th 2008 9:16AM]

Improve the picture quality of pictures from cameraphones before you start increasing the megapixel... The 5MP cameraphones right now still cannot be compared to digital cameras at all.

[Wwhat @ Mar 19th 2008 1:25PM]

You have to put the whole thing in a tiny space, for the lowest cost possible, and the lens is like 2mm, how are you going to compete with a real camera really?

[Poom @ Mar 21st 2008 5:29AM]

What I said is they should prioritize on different perspectives if they want to develop cameras on cellphones. I didn't say they suck for not making things better than they are now.

[Cyon @ Mar 18th 2008 9:35AM]

My best guess is Samsung/Pentax's compact cameras, DSLRs, and mobile phones will use these Samsung sensors.

http://reviews.photographyreview.com/pma2008/2008/02/07/pentax-k20d-and-samsung-gx-20-twins-separated-at-birth/

[OneLove @ Mar 18th 2008 10:39AM]

welcome to the $1000 cell phone.

[silverblackvoid @ Mar 18th 2008 12:24PM]

i dont want a camera in my phone. what i really want is a ethernet port. plz samsung plz!

[Wwhat @ Mar 19th 2008 1:27PM]

Your pleading might work better in the form of a youtube, get a camera and start pleading.

[Ian @ Mar 23rd 2008 4:58PM]

wow