GH5 Phones sensor VS Camera sensor (sort of kinda related)

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wwjd

Well-known member
Can someone with the knowledge explain to me how smartphones can get a 4K image out of a sensor probably no bigger than my pinky nail??
I'm just unable to wrap my head around the logic of how THAT works, but it takes full frame to get 6k and 8k?
I know the quality is not there yet, but awfully close, so how do they fit all those pixels in that small a space and end up with ANYTHING useable??
 
Smartphones have 1 important benefit and 1 drawback. You can share the image right from the camera. The quality is not close because the image has no shallow depth of field to separate subject from background; makes it crunchy.
 
I don't think you it takes full frame to get 6k or 8k, pretty sure M43 can do that, in fact the GH5 is 6k.
 
Tiny little photosites, that's the only way to get a real resolution that high. Could the larger sensors do the same and give us massive resolution, of course, but they would have all the drawbacks of tiny little photosites. There will be a limit to how much resolution a phone can provide because the photosites will be too small, or the sensors are going to get bigger. Not sure how accurate this is anymore, but might be interesting https://www.ephotozine.com/article/complete-guide-to-image-sensor-pixel-size-29652
 
4K video consists of a stream of 8-megapixel images. Theoretically, all a camera sensor needs is an 8MP sensor and internal processing that can combine 24, 25 or 30 of them per second into a video stream. Modern cellphone cameras have cameras with much higher pixel count than 8MP, so getting images with the necessary resolution is no problem. However, you have the small sensor vs. large sensor conundrum. Small sensors use small lenses, but generally have poor light-gathering capabilities and do not have the desirable depth-of-field features of a larger sensor. Larger sensors use big heavy lenses and are generally better in low light. But that bigness will cost you.
 
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Samsung 108 MPX Isocell 1/1.33 sensor has pixels sized of .8 of a micron.

Fuji GFX50 50 MPX medium format sensor has pixels ~ 5.1 microns in size.

The key in cellphone sensors development lies in the ability of the manufacturers to constantly keep decreasing the size of pixels, so to cram as many as possible onto a die. This is why smartphones went from having a 2 MPX data collector in their infancy to 108 mpx of today (Xiaomi Mi10).

PS. Of course, with the smartphone bodies getting larger and larger, there's more space to cram in the sensor. Also, most smartphones have several camera modules, one of them being a low pixel count (8-12 MPX) low light specialist.
 
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