OmniVision brings RAW shooting to mobiles with new 5 megapixel sensor
By Darren Murph 
posted February 15th 2010 12:59PM
posted February 15th 2010 12:59PM
posted February 15th 2010 12:59PM
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omg, the mobile phone year just started!!!
@rhezaganteng
+1, sir.
The iPhone is going to fall far behind unless they include something like this, a 720p amoled, and some sort of hdmi/displayport/hd audio out. Call it the iPhone HD. Or they if they could pull off light peak by then (unlikely) it could do any/all of those things. But then it still won't have a fucking micro sd slot. But it will have a micro sim! (useless innovation.)
@The Dead Marxist Trio LOL you and your expectation of a 1280 x 720 resolution screen on an iPhone!
Did the lenses suddenly get better, too?
How does it help to have RAW files if the image quality is still limited by such tiny lenses?
@Tagbert
Yeah , but until now there was no reason to use bigger lenses because the sensor is minuscule anyway.
Now maybe someone will put bigger lenses and maybe optical zoom on our next phones; or maybe Nikon , Canon & C. will add phone capabilities to their DSLRs, after all the touch screens are already there.
The viewfinder could double as BT headset and around the lens there would even be place for a retro rotary dialer.
I bet they would sell like hotcakes.
Or maybe not?
@Tagbert This is true, they need to start improving the quality of the optics more or these improved sensors won't see much benefit. Smart phones are the devices for this decade, with improved optics/sensors/software, they will make consumer point-n-shoots and camcorders obsolete.
@Tagbert Ditto. I'm a little sad to see Engadget jump on this pronouncement as if it were a real technical advance instead of just a marketing trick.
It's meaningless. 99% of DSLR users don't take advantage of RAW. Camera phones-- there's no point. It's a gimmick meant to fool the less technically savvy. Real improvements in optics are what's needed for camera phones, not useless gimmicks.
@Tagbert
Actually, tiny lenses are easy and cheap to grind accurately, so the optical quality is already excellent.
...But they dont let in much light, so this is a definite improvement in quality. (can do pixel binning to double the low-light sensitivity)
RAW is "The real kicker", really? I'd be much more pleased with the 1080p@30 than I would with a bunch of RAW image files..
@FORDY
I agree. This might be nice for cheap digicams but on a phone, do you really want to do extensive photo editing? The video modes sound useful.
@FORDY I agree. I've been wrong before, but I just don't see RAW being a big deal. How do MOST people use the camera on their phone? They snap a quick picture and send it via MMS to someone, or they post it to Flickr or some other hosting site immediately. Do they really see people composing photos on the phone, taking the pic, downloading to a computer with workflow software like Lightroom or Aperture, editing, and then posting?
I think that improving the lenses is a way higher priority than adding a chip that gives me the option to fill up my SD card 10 times faster.
lmao This should go in the iPhone along with better lens. Now that would be one hell of an improvement over the previous camers. Would be funny if they put Aperture on the iPhone!
I could care less about shooting in RAW with a camera phone, but I am all for "best-in-class low light sensitivity". Shooting in low light is where my Touch Pro 2 really struggles.
iPhone 4G?
@ashleythehottiest
Some people try really hard to be hated and you are one of them
@eternity0022 PLEASE give me a reason why.
@ashleythehottiest
This news doesnt have anything to do with iphone and yet its name comes up even if the news is about f****** refrigerator.
Not every technology is about to be used in iphone, get over it. Im sure ur iphone 4g will come with a 3 mp, no autofocus camera.
Just stop mentioning its name or ill throw up on the screen
Noise? Lens? Seems they keep focusing on the wrong thing.
Okay, I thought the difference between being able to do raw was just the camera firmware. All sensors technically do raw, then the camera's software converts to jpeg or whatever.
Most (every?) sensor output data is in RAW format.
Then comes several processing algorithms (de-mosaicing, white balance, gamma, color correction...) to transform it to a viewable image.
I could be wrong, but I don't think that this one sensor brings more raw-shooting abilities than any other CCD or CMOS sensor.
Mostly because that's software-related.
@curio
you're right curio.
@curio Absolutely correct. Every sensor outputs some kind of RAW data that then must be turned into a viewable bitmap format such as jpg or tif or whatever.
Thus, this 5MP sensor is distinguished by it's ability to do what every other sensor is able to do? Wow.
The other thing about RAW is that it takes a lot more storage space and then has to be processed later to give you finished photos. How many people are going to do this on a cell phone camera?
Next, it's completely up to the handset or camera maker to decide whether to implement RAW file availability to the end user. They of course could do this now with any handset if they saw a demand for that, which they unfortunately don't.
ugh.. WHHYYYY
The important part of this article is the FPS on the high resolution video. 720p @ 60fps is a dream in mobiles. No device currently or even planned comes anywhere close to that-- they are all 24 or 30 and they all drop frames and have shit audio quality. This is something to look forward to at least :) RAW is lame with tiny lens though.
Smartphones? Heck, my dedicated handheld camera can't shoot in Raw unless you hack the software.
Also, it is curious that Raw is 'new'. Maybe earlier chips automatically threw out data to compress the image before sending it to the main CPU?
The light sensitivity is probably the bigger news here.
For all that have said it, I collectively agree:
RAW??
10 x bandwidth going to the SD card
Am I shooting a wedding with this phone or something?
Low light and larger sensor is allll that matters, and THANK YOU for it. Forget the larger RAW files. People with DSL-R's rarely even use the setting.
The title of this post is totally misleading. The fact that this sensor outputs RAW is nothing special.
as i recall from various reviews, the original international version of the phone i'm currently using, the motozine zn5, had raw as a default output option on its camera..i'm glad so many people are pointing out the more important benefits of this sensor, i.e. the video and low-light capabilities, which are all something sorely needed in cameraphones. some better saturation in these situations would be nice, too..