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MacBook Pro iSights See 1.3 MP Upgrade

Standalone iSight ver. 2.0

MagnusVonMagnum said:
What would be really cool from Apple would be a Bluetooth or even a Airport-based iSight. If you really want to 'walk around the house and show people things, etc.,' do you really want your camera on something like a USB cord? How long would THAT have to be? But if it could send the video back via wireless.... Well, that would be pretty sweet, IMO.

I wonder if such things are available already... hrrmmm ... Well, I see Bluetooth ones are at least under development so I'm not the first person to think of it. And lo and behold, there are a LOT of wireless network based ones available!

Yes indeedy, if Apple is going to release stand-alone iSights and wants to be 'with it', they'd better offer some wireless options. The new 802n format would be great for it.
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Really, I would love to see a new stand-alone iSight. The stand-alone is going for up to twice the retail price on aftermarket sales, so clearly there is a market for Apple to release a webcam in the $150-300 range.

Personally, I would like Apple to make something competitive with the latest waterproof helmet cams. I want Apple design in an HD unit that has an internal battery and flash storage so I can make high quality vids of snowboarding.

I wouldn't mind a slot for the flash card, but I could see Apple making a sweet all-in-one unit with induction charging and wireless transfer. They have a great relationship with flash suppliers, and expertise in wireless, plus they have made a hugely successful camera before.

Oh well, just a dream, I guess...
 
read the article people... it is not widescreen. the resolution they pulled was 1280x1024.

we probably won't see any video uses for this, as trying to video conference in that resolution would take way too much bandwidth. it'll most likely used for still images only, at least for a while.
 
gauchogolfer said:
From a purely physics point-of-view, photon noise increases with the square root of the detector area. That's all I'm saying. If you have two detectors with all of the same properties, but one of them has smaller pixels, the one with smaller pixels will have less noise. It's just fundamental.

The ability of commercial DSLR manufacturers to make better, more responsive, larger arrays compared to those used in cell phone cameras is largely a function of their better processing technology (and not using plastic lenses), not the dimensions they've chosen for array geometry.

And now, back on topic. :)
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I love a good physics explanation, by that reasoning the proportion of noise-to-light detection should actually be the same between the two different pixel sizes. However, from everything I've read and testing done myself, the result is neither the same amount of noise, nor is it less on smaller pixels. Thus, there is something missing or incorrect with that explanation.

When taking RAW images (straight from the sensor, no image processing) with high sensitivity for low light on a dSLR, the resulting image will still have dramatically less noise than if you tried the same conditions with a processed image from a high quality compact camera.

Anyone still unconvinced would have to take this up with sites such as Digital Photography Review, Digital Camera Resource, and many others that extensively test both professional and consumer grade cameras; they're the ones who've made the issue known to so many people getting into digital photography.

Anyway, I don't like extending off-topic discussions like this, especially since I've been rather sick of hearing about iPhone and this has been one of the few droplets of actually Mac-related news or rumors on the site. This is the last you guys will hear of this, sorry.

Alex R.
 
gerbilbox said:
Unless Apple is borrowing technology from Fujifilm or created their own advancement that no other camera maker has done yet, I'm not so sure that I like this. More pixels squeezed on tiny sensor = each pixel on the sensor has to be physically smaller = more camera noise, especially in low lighting. There is less surface area on each pixel to overcome the level of noise.

This is why today's 10 MP compact cameras generally get poorer image quality under low lighting when compared to yesterday's 4 MP cameras under the same conditions, and why digital SLR cameras (with huge sensors, hence much larger size of each pixel) have such incredible low light performance. And this is also why camera phones, which are even smaller, have such poor image quality when the lighting isn't adequate.

In truth, this is probably not an issue for most people since they'll probably be in a well lit room. But the iSight on my 1st gen MacBook is a already bit noisy in the ambient evening lighting in my living room, imagine how how much more noise with a 1.3 MP on a tiny camera like that. It's a webcam, I don't need super high resolution, so I think I prefer the lower noise from the lower resolution to better adapt to the different lighting conditions around my house.

Alex R.
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Actually, I plugged my standalone iSight into my new MBP and compared it to the integrated one. I was surprised to find that the integrated iSight looked much better in all lighting conditions. Of course, I need to adjust the screen angle to get myself in the capture window, which is a bit annoying.
 
I think the standalone iSight would be great if it was reasonably priced.

That being said, now that you can have USB 2.0 webcams, just get a logitech or Microsoft webcam and be done with it. There are some good webcams out there.
 
With today's computer technology, it's surprisingly easy to build a diffraction-limited plastic lens group... The tradeoff lens makers always make in webcams in order to avoid third order spherical, field curvature, coma, etc. is to have third order distortion (which doesn't increase the spot size but gives a field-dependent pin-cusion or barrel effect)...

Consumer CCDs (especially web-cam style sensors) are going to be johnson, shot, or dark current noise limited, not photon-noise limited. (It's hard enough to build photon-noise limited sensors for space-based applications). Those noises have everything to do with build quality and nothing to do with lenses or array size.

PS I'm getting my master's degree in optical science at the university of arizona... PM me with your optics/sensor related questions if you want... ;)
 
bigbossbmb said:
read the article people... it is not widescreen. the resolution they pulled was 1280x1024.

we probably won't see any video uses for this, as trying to video conference in that resolution would take way too much bandwidth. it'll most likely used for still images only, at least for a while.
Click to expand...

ichat won't broadcast that resolution though. it will downgrade the video before it sends it out.
 
gerbilbox said:
I love a good physics explanation, by that reasoning the proportion of noise-to-light detection should actually be the same between the two different pixel sizes. However, from everything I've read and testing done myself, the result is neither the same amount of noise, nor is it less on smaller pixels. Thus, there is something missing or incorrect with that explanation.
Click to expand...

I just took a workshop on this last week, and wanted to let you know I've figured out I was talking out of my ass. I have a set of equations in front of me, and while the noise does indeed scale with the square root of detector area, it also scales with incident flux. So, they basically cancel out. We're left with the surface area/perimeter ratio, which is where larger diodes win out. I knew there was a reason people used larger pixels, and I knew it was for noise arguments, I just talked myself into a bad argument looking at these equations.

So, I just wanted to come say a mea culpa and let you know that you were right, and that we agree.

Cheers,
 
drumforfun19 said:
ichat won't broadcast that resolution though. it will downgrade the video before it sends it out.
Click to expand...

This is true.
Most programs will not request full resolution video from the camera.
The new iSight reports in its device descriptor that it's natively capable of producing the following formats:

MJPEG 640×480 @ up to 60fps
MJPEG 720×480 @ up to 60fps
MJPEG 800×600 @ up to 30fps
MJPEG 1024×576 @ up to 30fps
MJPEG 1024×768 @ up to 30fps
MJPEG 1280×960 @ up to 30fps
MJPEG 1280×1024 @ up to 30fps
Uncompressed 640×480 @ up to 30 fps
Uncompressed 352×288 @ up to 30 fps
Uncompressed 160×120 @ up to 30 fps
Uncompressed 704×576 @ up to 25 fps
Uncompressed 720×480 @ up to 25 fps

See here for more details:
http://macdaddyworld.com/?p=19
 
gerbilbox said:
Unless Apple is borrowing technology from Fujifilm or created their own advancement that no other camera maker has done yet, I'm not so sure that I like this. More pixels squeezed on tiny sensor = each pixel on the sensor has to be physically smaller = more camera noise, especially in low lighting. There is less surface area on each pixel to overcome the level of noise.

This is why today's 10 MP compact cameras generally get poorer image quality under low lighting when compared to yesterday's 4 MP cameras under the same conditions, and why digital SLR cameras (with huge sensors, hence much larger size of each pixel) have such incredible low light performance. And this is also why camera phones, which are even smaller, have such poor image quality when the lighting isn't adequate.

In truth, this is probably not an issue for most people since they'll probably be in a well lit room. But the iSight on my 1st gen MacBook is a already bit noisy in the ambient evening lighting in my living room, imagine how how much more noise with a 1.3 MP on a tiny camera like that. It's a webcam, I don't need super high resolution, so I think I prefer the lower noise from the lower resolution to better adapt to the different lighting conditions around my house.

Alex R.
Click to expand...

I was about to post the same thing.

So i'm so sure if the 1.3 mega pixel cam is a GOOD thing :rolleyes:

Remember, more pixels =/= higher quality, like most camera manufacturers want us to believe. If they increase the number of pixels without increasing the physical size of the sensor, they decrease the quality of images.
 
sonictonic said:
What an awesome surprise! I too am confused though why this wasn't mentioned when the new MBP's first came out? :confused:
Click to expand...

Me too, because I definitely use Photobooth enough to appreciate a better quality camera. I <3 Photobooth.

I even talked with two of my buddies at the same time, one was in California on vacation and it was pretty tight to be able to stay in touch.
 
drumforfun19 said:
Me too, because I definitely use Photobooth enough to appreciate a better quality camera. I <3 Photobooth.
Click to expand...

It isn't currently supported by Photobooth, iMovie, iChat, or any other Apple app, though, is it? My guess is they're not saying much about it because they haven't rolled out much support for it. You'll probably be able to buy a $1.99 upgrade to Photobooth using iTunes any time now. :D
 
It's probably a Leopard thing. Support for the higher resolutions in the standard apps will probably require that upgrade.
 
mkrishnan said:
It isn't currently supported by Photobooth, iMovie, iChat, or any other Apple app, though, is it? My guess is they're not saying much about it because they haven't rolled out much support for it. You'll probably be able to buy a $1.99 upgrade to Photobooth using iTunes any time now. :D
Click to expand...

Or, like said above, Lepord will enable the full support for it.
 
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