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iPhone 5 to have 8MP camera!

Sony chief Sir Howard Stringer may have unintentionally given away plans for an eight-megapixel camera in the iPhone 5. During an interview with the WSJ's Walt Mossberg, he claimed that the company's camera sensor plant in Sendai had seen hit by the Japanese earthquake and that shipments of sensors to Apple would be delayed. Apple has so far only sourced cameras from OmniVision, suggesting that Sony was shipping for a future model.

The same February rumor attaching an eight-megapixel sensor to the iPhone 5 had Sony taking over from OmniVision after possible chip yield issues prevented the sensor from arriving on time. Sony's current eight-megapixel sensor from phones like the Xperia Neo may be an ideal fit as it has a CMOS sensor suited to low light with little noise. Apple has often insisted on overall quality over megapixel count and would get its needs met while still seeing a sensor upgrade.

A delay may help talk of the iPhone 5 missing WWDC. Although most have blamed the delay on iOS 5, it may also help Sony get enough sensors to Apple to accommodate demand. [via 9to5]
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This is just a rumour.
 
Mr_Brightside_@ said:
This is just a rumour.
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Rumors are true sometimes you know? Someone high up in apple that is already carrying around an iPhone 5 could write a blog saying everything the iPhone 5 will have and it'd still be considered a rumor until the phone is announced.

My point is this is a better rumor than any we've gotten before this.
 
while Sony Ericsson phones have been lackluster over the past few years, the only consistent bright spot is the camera sensors they've been packing.
 
Alaerian said:
Megapixels don't mean jack. The sensor is what actually matters. Stop focusing on numbers.
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So true. The human eye can't notice a difference beyond a certain megapixel anyways, so it's all just a number.
 
Try cropping an 5mp and then crop a 21mp picture and tell me it makes no difference... ;)
 
PBF said:
So why does my iPad 2 takes crappy ass photos compared to iPhone 4's then? :rolleyes:

Sensor, huh.
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Yep. Seriously megapixel almost means nothing. You have to have a sensor with large photosites and a good quality lens. Those are more important than megapixel any day.

If you don't believe me go hang in the photography forums and ask. There are cameras that are 2 megapixels (early digital SLRs) that still take better shots than 12 megapixel point and shoots.

Not to mention in most cases more megapixels on smaller image sensors make the picture look worse by introducing noise. Higher megapixels need larger image sensors. Canon used to have a whole explanation on their site.
 
So how good are Sony sensors? Better than OmniVision I hope if Apple decided to go with them.

And yes, megapixels mean jack! I wish manufacturers would stop at 5MP, 8MP an absolute max and that's it, just work on sensors instead.

Here's Sigma's ~3.5 megapixel camera as an example...

http://www.sigma-dp1.com/sample-photo/img/SigmaDP1-008.jpg
http://www.digitalrev.com/images/features/sigma_dp1_review/imgs/sigma_dp1_review_10b.jpg
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2167/2302407956_ecd2daa8e6_o.jpg
http://www.sigma-dp1.com/sample-photo/img/SigmaDP1-015.jpg

Nothing, not even Nokia N8's overbloated 12MP camera can match this.
 
Alaerian said:
Megapixels don't mean jack. The sensor is what actually matters. Stop focusing on numbers.
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Megapixels don't determine quality, and at today's levels I agree that they "don't mean jack" for cameras with optical zoom, but for a phone camera they do matter. If one can't get close enough to a subject, such that zoom is needed to get a decent shot, then the only option on today's iPhones is to zoom digitally. On today's iPhone 4, trying to emulate a 3x optical zoom involves zooming into the middle 1/9th of the image which, for a 5MP sensor, is the equivalent of a 0.55MP sensor for the zoomed-in area of the photo.

With today's technologies, boosting megapixels for a given sensor size reduces quality significantly, so I'm not advocating huge MP sensors because the quality would then be rubbish for all photos but I'm saying that, if aliens were to land and deliver Apple an unlimited supply of 45MP sensors at the same quality as the iPhone 4's 5MP sensor, it would actually be useful to have in the iPhone 5 because it would then be possible to have a decent quality zoom function in a mobile phone camera which would make it a more viable replacement for a regular compact camera.

I saw an article somewhere about some research project with concave sensors where the curvature of the sensor itself was being varied to give genuine optical zoom within a much thinner unit that a traditional telescoping lens arrangement so if that ever makes it out of the labs then that is another alternative for getting genuinely useable zoom options into the thickness of a mobile phone.

If the sensor quality is good then I'm perfectly happy with 2MP photos for my holiday snaps with maybe 3MP as a high end luxury version so, to get a digital equivalent of a 3x optical zoom on a 2MP camera needs a raw resolution of 18MP and for my 3MP luxury option it's 27MP. The technology is nowhere near that yet but, for the reasons I gave above, I can see a use for high quality sensors of that resolution in a camera unless/until concave variable geometry sensors come along and solve the problem or some fieldishly clever retracting lens assembly that can retract fully into the iPhone 4 body when not in use can be created.

- Julian
 
You can not say that megapixels do not matter. Good image ability comes from a blend of both sensor and lens. The sensor must have enough pixels for decent resolution while not crowding too many on the same sensor so you loose the ability to collect clean noiseless images. You also need a decent lens to get a coherent image onto the sensor. I see not reason for Apple not to use a 8mp sensor, it would cost under $10 for them to buy it but 8mp sensors capture a lot of information and make BIG files that today's carriers just do not want to deal with!

No matter what you have for a plan today, we will all be charged more for the bandwidth we use. We can thank our president for allowing the FCC to pass new regulations for all the carriers to allow than to be able to charge more for those who use more.
 
PBF said:
So why does my iPad 2 takes crappy ass photos compared to iPhone 4's then? :rolleyes:

Sensor, huh.
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HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Seriously? You have a tablet computer, and you're saying it has a bad camera? Really?

HAHAHAHAHAHA

IT NOT A CAMERA. Its a computer. If you want nice and pretty pictures, I suggest you research and then purchase a nice camera that is designed to take said pretty pictures.

Please, I"m not trying to slam you or your opinion. I'm merely trying to point out that you're complaining about an orange that doesn't taste like a steak.
 
People should focus more on sensor size then MPs. Packing more Mega pixels into a tiny sensor actually reduces the image quality not improves it. The larger the sensor the more light it can take in.

I like the iPhone 4 camera, apple can keep the MPs but improve upon what they already have. More does not equate to better.
 
maflynn said:
People should focus more on sensor size then MPs. Packing more Mega pixels into a tiny sensor actually reduces the image quality not improves it. The larger the sensor the more light it can take in.

I like the iPhone 4 camera, apple can keep the MPs but improve upon what they already have. More does not equate to better.
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I agree. The sensor at it current concentration on pixels could be improved along with a better lens and we would get better images without using more bandwidth. The camera were never meant to replace your digital camera but really intended for general snapshots of which I think it does remarkably well!
 
Vitruviux said:
So how good are Sony sensors? Better than OmniVision I hope if Apple decided to go with them.

And yes, megapixels mean jack! I wish manufacturers would stop at 5MP, 8MP an absolute max and that's it, just work on sensors instead.

Here's Sigma's ~3.5 megapixel camera as an example...

http://www.sigma-dp1.com/sample-photo/img/SigmaDP1-008.jpg
http://www.digitalrev.com/images/features/sigma_dp1_review/imgs/sigma_dp1_review_10b.jpg
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2167/2302407956_ecd2daa8e6_o.jpg
http://www.sigma-dp1.com/sample-photo/img/SigmaDP1-015.jpg

Nothing, not even Nokia N8's overbloated 12MP camera can match this.
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Agree a good Sensor means way more then MP. Nice examples what camera model were these shot from?
 
So many people repeating the same Apple talking point about megapixels.

What's wrong the benefit of both higher image quality and a megapixel bump? Again, the image sensors on Sony-Ericsson phones tend to be of very good quality.
 
Bonsai1214 said:
you think you can notice a difference between a 5mp 3x5 and a 3mp 3x5? i very much doubt that.
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I agree...At the sizes/res, that most users view their photos in, you can't tell the difference.
Of course if you increase the size of the photo, the difference is readily apparent.
 
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