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Apple Researching Groundbreaking Image Sensor Tech to Achieve Dynamic Range on Par With Human Eye
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As a Camera Pro, I can tell you the past few years apple camera software has become absolute rubbish. My iPhone 11 Pro did a better job in color grading and HDR than iPhone 16 Pro I have. A true shame. The only reason I have it is because I am in their ecosystem
Sony just announce something similar few days ago... Are they related? The article said they are competing...
ymcinema.com
Sony Unveils Smartphone Sensor With 17 Stops of Dynamic Range: Meet the LYT-828 - Y.M.Cinema Magazine
Sony's new LYT-828 sensor brings unprecedented 17-stop dynamic range to smartphones, merging cutting-edge HDR with ultra-low noise
ymcinema.com
Sony just announce something similar few days ago... Are they related? The article said they are competing...
Sony Unveils Smartphone Sensor With 17 Stops of Dynamic Range: Meet the LYT-828 - Y.M.Cinema Magazine
Sony's new LYT-828 sensor brings unprecedented 17-stop dynamic range to smartphones, merging cutting-edge HDR with ultra-low noise
Why can they do great cameras without the HUGE warts the iPhones have?
According to the article you linked, while the Sony is 17 stops Apple's is 20 stops.Sony just announce something similar few days ago... Are they related? The article said they are competing...
Sony Unveils Smartphone Sensor With 17 Stops of Dynamic Range: Meet the LYT-828 - Y.M.Cinema Magazine
Sony's new LYT-828 sensor brings unprecedented 17-stop dynamic range to smartphones, merging cutting-edge HDR with ultra-low noise
They can't be related that much if both Sony and Apple have patented their respective sensor designs.
Now that is classic Apple-style innovation! The QuickTake was one of the first consumer digital cameras on the market, and was released in 1994. The Apple CEO at the time was Michael Spindler, and while he was bad for Apple in terms of profits, at least he released a few highly innovative products, unlike that clueless and mediocre CEO Tim Cook, who is just a bean counter.
Time magazine described the QuickTake as “the first consumer digital camera” and also ranked it in its “100 greatest and most influential gadgets from 1923 to the present” list. That’s something Cook could never do because he’s focused on giving customers as little as he can get away with in order to maximize profits.
The QuickTake 100/150 was a Kodak camera with Apple external design and branding.
The QuickTake 200 was a Fujifilm camera with an Apple logo on it.
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Won’t matter with Apple’s garbage image processing.
It’s why I’ve switched over to Adobe Indigo as my go to camera app, the photos coming from that app and its custom image pipeline is amazing.
It’s why I’ve switched over to Adobe Indigo as my go to camera app, the photos coming from that app and its custom image pipeline is amazing.
Hmmmm... not really.
The S/N on the small sensors, with very tiny photodiodes, is not that good. A lot of signal processing goes on to hide the noise is shadow areas of the image, giving the impression of more dynamic range than is really there.
That’s all cool and all but Apple still give us bare minimum storage on their devices AND cloud storage 👀😒
I know a lot of people in here don't know about cameras and sensors in the light, but there is not a chance in living hell that apples going to be the company who randomly fixes this sensor issue.
Regardless of your level of zealotry which runs high in Apple related forums, let me emphasize again that this is not happening.
Some folks are going to be reading this thinking that apple is going to somehow outperform the legion of sensor-related companies that have been on the market forever who just don't know what they're missing out on and somehow apple is going to point in the right direction. RIIIGHT.
What is likely their focused on is going to be a huge level of AI processing to fake their way towards this supposed dynamic range level.
Also stack sensors are much more expensive than the regular garden variety. No way apple is going to take that hip just to bring consumers a better technology. Nope.
Regardless of your level of zealotry which runs high in Apple related forums, let me emphasize again that this is not happening.
Some folks are going to be reading this thinking that apple is going to somehow outperform the legion of sensor-related companies that have been on the market forever who just don't know what they're missing out on and somehow apple is going to point in the right direction. RIIIGHT.
What is likely their focused on is going to be a huge level of AI processing to fake their way towards this supposed dynamic range level.
Also stack sensors are much more expensive than the regular garden variety. No way apple is going to take that hip just to bring consumers a better technology. Nope.
Yeah a lot of these people read too many Mac related marketing news and just the surface of articles, they don't have a clue about how sensors work.
If you're writing in here that a iPhone camera produces 12 to 13 stops of dr, there's already pretty much no hope for them.
Will it be able to take a good picture of the moon? That will be the ultimate test.
Apple has filed a patent for a new type of image sensor that could give future iPhones and other Apple devices the ability to capture photos and videos with dynamic range levels approaching that of the human eye.
The patent, titled "Image Sensor With Stacked Pixels Having High Dynamic Range And Low Noise," was first spotted by Y.M.Cinema Magazine and describes an advanced sensor architecture that combines stacked silicon, multiple levels of light capture, and on-chip noise suppression mechanisms to reach up to 20 stops of dynamic range.
For comparison, the dynamic range of the human eye is estimated to be around 20 to 30 stops, depending on how the pupil adjusts and how light is processed over time. Most smartphone cameras today capture between 10 and 13 stops. If Apple's proposed sensor reaches its potential, it would not only surpass current iPhones but also outperform many professional cinema cameras, such as the ARRI ALEXA 35.
The patent outlines a stacked sensor design made up of two layers. The top layer, called the sensor die, contains the parts that capture light. The layer underneath, the logic die, handles processing, including noise reduction and exposure control.
Currently, Apple uses sensors made by Sony across the iPhone lineup. Those sensors also use a two-layer design, but Apple's version includes several original features and takes up less space.
One of the most important parts of the sensor design is a system called a Lateral Overflow Integration Capacitor (LOFIC). This allows each pixel in the sensor to store different amounts of light depending on how bright the scene is, all in the same image. With this, the sensor can handle extremely wide lighting differences, such as a person standing in front of a bright window, without losing detail in the shadows or highlights.
Another part of the design focuses on reducing image noise and grain. Each pixel has its own built-in memory circuit that measures and cancels out heat-related electronic noise in real time. This is done on the chip itself, before the image is saved or edited by software.
Patent filings cannot be taken as evidence of Apple's immediate plans, but they do indicate areas of active research and interest for the company, as well as what it is considering developing for future devices.
Article Link: Apple Researching Groundbreaking Image Sensor Tech to Achieve Dynamic Range on Par With Human Eye
Doesn't matter how much range you have if it's still a tiny, noisy sensor with all kinds of filters/AI sharpening/crap baked into the image no matter what, and the lenses are equally tiny and sometimes misleading (digital zoom instead of optical zoom and the UI doesnt tell you which is which).
There's a reason why NOBODY uses iphones for professional work outside of instagram content or apple paying somebody to use an iphone for their shoot. Despite all the press and marketing and whatever specs they brag about each year, the image quality is still noisy and muddy because a) tiny sensor and b) AI sharpening/filtering you can't turn off, even in RAW
That's the inherent issue with camera phones and why they'll never compete with an actual cinema camera that's super35 or full frame size.
IMO, they should just sell a $999 Magsafe Pro Camera Module that the phone slides into, which has its own S35 sensor, canon RF or PL lens mount, a massive built-in battery, 3.5mm audio in/out for mics and monitor, Cfast slots, SDI or HDMI out, and multiple USB-C ports for charging and data. This would undercut and takeover the entire prosumer market overnight. It would be managed through a built-in Pro Camera app similar to how the apple watch is managed. They should have done this years ago tbh. The canon 5d 2 which ushered in the prosumer video industry came out in like 2011.
There's a reason why NOBODY uses iphones for professional work outside of instagram content or apple paying somebody to use an iphone for their shoot. Despite all the press and marketing and whatever specs they brag about each year, the image quality is still noisy and muddy because a) tiny sensor and b) AI sharpening/filtering you can't turn off, even in RAW
That's the inherent issue with camera phones and why they'll never compete with an actual cinema camera that's super35 or full frame size.
IMO, they should just sell a $999 Magsafe Pro Camera Module that the phone slides into, which has its own S35 sensor, canon RF or PL lens mount, a massive built-in battery, 3.5mm audio in/out for mics and monitor, Cfast slots, SDI or HDMI out, and multiple USB-C ports for charging and data. This would undercut and takeover the entire prosumer market overnight. It would be managed through a built-in Pro Camera app similar to how the apple watch is managed. They should have done this years ago tbh. The canon 5d 2 which ushered in the prosumer video industry came out in like 2011.
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More evidence that marketers either don't understand the eye and neurobiology, or (more likely) they intentionally misrepresent it for advertising hyperbole. The combination of sensors and neural processing implemented in human vision cannot be accurately mapped to f-stops.
I was just thinking about that exact thing today . I wanted to get the iPhone 17 but might hold off, I really want human like dynamic range
There are apps which allow full sensor 4K resolution (C4K) video in log format. Apple just needs to enable it in the built-in settings.