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What's up with the rear camera?

F

freeman727

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Feb 9, 2009
279
16
The only thing I'm annoyed with the iPad 2 is the low res rear camera! I know that the iPad will not be a primary picture taking device but it is nice when I want to document something while I'm using the iPad. I bet the pictures will be grainy and fuzzy.

Do you think the camera is low resolution because of the thinness of the device? I think that was the excuse for the current iPod Touch.

I was really hoping for at least a iPhone 3gs quality camera. All the other tablets with cameras have high resolution cameras.
 
I feel like Apple is banking on the idea that no one is really using it as a camera just an accessory to Facetime which makes sense because it does film HD video. The still camera quality probably wasn't high on Apple's list. Would advertisiing how good the picture quality is versus the thinness and new design really attract customers??
 
freeman727 said:
The only thing I'm annoyed with the iPad 2 is the low res rear camera! I know that the iPad will not be a primary picture taking device but it is nice when I want to document something while I'm using the iPad. I bet the pictures will be grainy and fuzzy.

Do you think the camera is low resolution because of the thinness of the device? I think that was the excuse for the current iPod Touch.

I was really hoping for at least a iPhone 3gs quality camera. All the other tablets with cameras have high resolution cameras.
Click to expand...

i think apple did it to keep cost down. the iphone 4 is only a little bigger so i dont think its size. also i dont think many are going to use ipads to take high quality pictures. its going to be one of the reasons apple haters will use against the ipad. same as the processor only being 1 ghz when others are 1.2. and unless the ram is 1 gb thats another apple hater fact even though all 3 of those are completely stupid reasons.

what is the res of the camera because on the website it says the back takes 720p video but doesnt mention the quality. the front is vga though.
 
I think they don't want people to use it as a camera cause it looks silly, and they still want you to use a dedicated camera and spend an extra $80 on their camera adapter accessory.
 
I'm not sure where the info that it's a low-res camera came from. One article stated it was because it shoots 720p video, but that doesn't seem to make sense as many point and shoot cameras with 5-10 megapixels shoot 720p video. Is there some other information out there?

I saw on another site where someone had pointed out that they also advertise it as having a 5x digital zoom (which is true). Quoted as follows:

"The other thing they say on their tech specs is 5X digital zoom. That means they are blowing up the picture by a factor of 5 and then re-cropping it to 1280x720. If they really did that with only 1280x720, you would only have 256x144 of source pixels left after re-cropping... The pixels would be HUGE after doing a 5X zoom. Just compare with the iPhone 4 tech specs, which ALSO say digital zoom of 5X. The amount of digital zoom Apple will allow is going to to be a function of the amount of original camera resolution. The iPad 2 has a 5 megapixel camera."
​
I think this makes more sense if you think about it. I know Apple doesn't always do things the way you'd think, but I'd be highly surprised to find a camera in there that sports less than a megapixel resolution. Just doesn't make any sense. Not that I might not be wrong... can't wait till someone tears one apart on the 11th so we can find out. :)
 
freeman727 said:
Do you think the camera is low resolution because of the thinness of the device? I think that was the excuse for the current iPod Touch.

I was really hoping for at least a iPhone 3gs quality camera. All the other tablets with cameras have high resolution cameras.
Click to expand...

So here's where Apple's design philosophy is showing its colors. Apple wants to design things to be as thin as possible. Hence the iPod Touch and iPad2 are super thin. By making these devices as thin as they are, they have limited the distance from the lens to the sensor, so there's a trade-off that has to be made. They have to use a small sensor because of the distance between the lens and sensor. Trying to cram more pixels onto a small sensor will result in two things ... 1. lousy photos and 2. larger photo files.

With the iPhone, they already had the camera specs dictated since most phones at the time the iPhone debuted had 2 MP cams. They couldn't put in a small MP cam on the original iPhone. Since then, they've had to up the MP to keep up with the competitors ... which isn't a problem as the iPhone probably has to be thicker anyway for putting in all of the other components required in a phone. Therefore the lens can be further away from the sensor, so the sensor can be larger and have more MP without taking crappy photos.

BTW, I'm no expert in sensors and/or optics, but the jist of what I'm saying is true.
 
vistadude said:
I think they don't want people to use it as a camera cause it looks silly, and they still want you to use a dedicated camera and spend an extra $80 on their camera adapter accessory.
Click to expand...

The camera adapter is $30 FYI
 
This issue came to my attention because me friend just got the Xoom and when he was taking notes on Evernote he could nicely add 5 MP pics from the rear camera. Of course not everyone needs a high resolution camera to the rear but if it is physically possible, why not?
 
vistadude said:
I think they don't want people to use it as a camera cause it looks silly.
Click to expand...
Why do people think using the iPad as a camera looks silly but holding a phone 4 ft from your face does not?

Besides. Cameras are for more than images of people. Documents for evernote, check cashing apps, translating text, barcode scanning all require a good autofocus camera which means they can't be done on the iPad. So this has a lot more to do with just "looking silly". Cameras are productivity tools.
 
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ftaok said:
freeman727 said:
Do you think the camera is low resolution because of the thinness of the device? I think that was the excuse for the current iPod Touch.

I was really hoping for at least a iPhone 3gs quality camera. All the other tablets with cameras have high resolution cameras.
Click to expand...

So here's where Apple's design philosophy is showing its colors. Apple wants to design things to be as thin as possible. Hence the iPod Touch and iPad2 are super thin. By making these devices as thin as they are, they have limited the distance from the lens to the sensor, so there's a trade-off that has to be made. They have to use a small sensor because of the distance between the lens and sensor. Trying to cram more pixels onto a small sensor will result in two things ... 1. lousy photos and 2. larger photo files.

With the iPhone, they already had the camera specs dictated since most phones at the time the iPhone debuted had 2 MP cams. They couldn't put in a small MP cam on the original iPhone. Since then, they've had to up the MP to keep up with the competitors ... which isn't a problem as the iPhone probably has to be thicker anyway for putting in all of the other components required in a phone. Therefore the lens can be further away from the sensor, so the sensor can be larger and have more MP without taking crappy photos.

BTW, I'm no expert in sensors and/or optics, but the jist of what I'm saying is true.
Click to expand...

This makes the most sense.
 
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urkel said:
vistadude said:
I think they don't want people to use it as a camera cause it looks silly.
Click to expand...
Why do people think using the iPad as a camera looks silly but holding a phone 4 ft from your face does not?

Besides. Cameras are for more than images of people. Documents for evernote, check cashing apps, translating text, barcode scanning all require a good autofocus camera which means they can't be done on the iPad. So this has a lot more to do with just "looking silly". Cameras are productivity tools.
Click to expand...

Thank you for sharing my sentiments.
 
freeman727 said:
The only thing I'm annoyed with the iPad 2 is the low res rear camera! I know that the iPad will not be a primary picture taking device but it is nice when I want to document something while I'm using the iPad. I bet the pictures will be grainy and fuzzy.
Click to expand...

The rear camera is HD resolution. It's rumored to have only a 1.3mp sensor, so maybe that is your complaint? But Apple hasn't released any stats so hard to confirm right now. Also no mention whether the rear camera is auto focus or not.
 
I think we're just going to have to wait for the teardown to know the exact resolution of the rear camera. Since Apple hasn't stated the resolution in the spec sheet, it's probably safe to assume it's not good. However, here are the strange things about the way Apple shows the specs:

- iPad 2 mentions 720p video and 5x digital zoom, but no resolution.

- iPod Touch specifically says 720p video and 960x720 resolution. NO mention of 5x digital zoom. It would be silly for a camera with only that resolution to have a 5x digital zoom anyway.

- iPhone 4 specifically says 720p video and a 5mp rear camera. It also mentions 5x digital zoom in the camera feature section.

It doesn't make sense for a camera like the iPod Touch's to have a 5x digital zoom. On the other hand, if the iPad 2 had the iPhone 4's camera, Apple certainly would have touted it! So perhaps it's a different camera altogether somewhere in-between?

Either way, I personally don't think this is much of an issue. I would have NO desire to use the rear camera for stills. I actually wish the FRONT camera was HD - that would be much more useful IMO. Then you could do Facetime HD and take photos with Photo Booth in a higher resolution than 640x480.

Either way, I think most of us have an iPhone along with our iPads. And with that in mind, it'll be much easier to take photos on the iPhone 4 anyway. Even videos would be easier to take on the iP4 and just transfer them over to iPad 2 for editing on the go! The camera connection kit will allow you to transfer photos and video, so that will be nice for those of us with multiple devices!
 
I think we can safely predict iPad3 specs

1: Better screen.
2: Batter Cameras to go with the better screen.
3: Faster

It's pretty clear why Steve Jobs said nothing about the Camera spec.

Would you want to stand up on stage in 2011. In front of the whole world, with the media glued to every word you said, and, announce you have fitted a 1 megapixel rear camera into your cutting edge device. Even more so when a direct competitor to you has just launched a similar device a week or two earlier with a 5 megapixel rear camera and dual LED flash.

No, you would do exactly what Steve Jobs did. You would keep your mouth shut.
You focus on the positive thing only.
 
...

Those high res cameras with tiny lenses and tiny sensors aren't neccisarily better. More pixels in a tiny area means more noise, also you don't need every photo to be the size of a poster board, most people are just using these photos for facebook which low res is fine for, you aren' taking family portraits with this thing and blowing them up
 
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