Question: Why do phones include dedicated depth and monochrome cameras when they can be baked into the main cameras via image processing?

[Results45]

The Oneplus Nord just released with a pretty decent camera system and it seems quad-cameras is quickly becoming standard on sub-$500 phones.

 

As more of these phones roll out a peice of camera critique from reviewers like MKBHD, LTT, and MrWhosTheBoss keeps on catching my attention: "the included macro, depth-sensing, and monochrome sensors are nice, but they don't do whole lot."

 

So in lies the question: Why do phone brands include dedicated depth, monochrome, or even low-resolution macro cameras when they can be baked into the main cameras via image processing?

 

This is a pretty underemphasized area of phone design and I would love to know why this is a trend right now.

 

As a consumer, I'm always looking for products with the best functionality, quality, and bang-for-buck. If Google can integrate monochrome photography and depth-sensing (I assume for focusing & boca) all in a single main camera through software image processing, why do other phone makers choose to include sensors dedicated for those functions instead of spending that budget on including a wide-angle or telephoto camera instead?

 

If a phone does include a monochrome and/or macro camera, it has to at least be worthwhile ~ maybe having the monochrome be an "X-ray" camera as well (like for those who haven't updated their Oneplus 8s yet) or macro sensors that are at least 8-12 Megapixels.

 

As for a fifth or sixth sensor -- after the hi-res main, wide-angle, telephoto, and monochrome/macro cameras -- they could provide new ways for amateur creators and everyday people to view & capture experiences and the surrounding world. I'm thinking things like infrared, night-vision, and polarized light (look-up "mantis shrimp camera" to learn more about the latter).

 

Basically if I designed and made my own line of phones I'd rather spend $20-$30 on including cameras that bring versatility to photography rather than extra fixed-function sensors.

 

Thoughts?

[Lord Vile]

18 minutes ago, Results45 said:

The Oneplus Nord just released with a pretty decent camera system and it seems quad-cameras is quickly becoming standard on sub-$500 phones.

 

As more of these phones roll out a peice of camera critique from reviewers like MKBHD, LTT, and MrWhosTheBoss keeps on catching my attention: "the included macro, depth-sensing, and monochrome sensors are nice, but they don't do whole lot."

 

So in lies the question: Why do phone brands include dedicated depth, monochrome, or even low-resolution macro cameras when they can be baked into the main cameras via image processing?

 

This is a pretty underemphasized area of phone design and I would love to know why this is a trend right now.

 

As a consumer, I'm always looking for products with the best functionality, quality, and bang-for-buck. If Google can integrate monochrome photography and depth-sensing (I assume for focusing & boca) all in a single main camera through software image processing, why do other phone makers choose to include sensors dedicated for those functions instead of spending that budget on including a wide-angle or telephoto camera instead?

 

If a phone does include a monochrome and/or macro camera, it has to at least be worthwhile ~ maybe having the monochrome be an "X-ray" camera as well (like for those who haven't updated their Oneplus 8s yet) or macro sensors that are at least 8-12 Megapixels.

 

As for a fifth or sixth sensor -- after the hi-res main, wide-angle, telephoto, and monochrome/macro cameras -- they could provide new ways for amateur creators and everyday people to view & capture experiences and the surrounding world. I'm thinking things like infrared, night-vision, and polarized light (look-up "mantis shrimp camera" to learn more about the latter).

 

Basically if I designed and made my own line of phones I'd rather spend $20-$30 on including cameras that bring versatility to photography rather than extra fixed-function sensors.

 

Thoughts?

Well actual hardware is always better than software faking the effect but they do a lot more than just take monochrome photos for example, which is why I don't watch MKBHD because he knows FA. Your phone can take a photo with all of the lenses and merge them together to get a better overall image, the monochrome works better in low light and can capture more details vs the colour lens so the phone can compare the 2 and use the monochrome image to see how it should process the colour image. 

 

Have a read:

 

https://www.red.com/red-101/color-monochrome-camera-sensors

[WereCatf]

16 minutes ago, Results45 said:

Why do phones include dedicated depth and monochrome cameras when they can be baked into the main cameras via image processing?

Software-processing is never the same thing as actual physical functionality. It may get close, but it's also more prone to errors and artifacts. Also, multiple different kinds of cameras allow you to combine them in software to get even more functionality and/or quality out of them.

[EL02]

The 2mp macro is useless. At that price a 5mp one would be great.

[porina]

I guess we're in the realms of computational photography, and have been for some time now. The more data you have, the more you can do with it. I'd assume most phone reviewers are not technical photographers. 

 

Let's assume one sensor that does everything for starters. If you want monochrome, you lose resolution and sensitivity significantly due to the colour filter, compared to an unfiltered panchromatic sensor. On the plus side, the colour information can allow you to decide how to convert to mono. Depth information is also difficult to acquire. Look at the Lytro light field cameras. To get significant depth information they have to massively sacrifice resolution to obtain it. I guess the nearest we could otherwise get is something like the dual-pixel AF implementations, but I'm not sure how much depth info that can give. Separating those functions into different sensors greatly increases the data quality. You can process a single sensor data to get similar out of it, but it is more computationally expensive and results will be worse.

 

IR detection could be done, but it will ruin "normal" photos without a physical filter option, which would have to be mechanically implemented with all the costs and risks involved. Similarly for polarised detection, that's even more complex in that you would need a way to alter the polarisation. So it is not just in/out, but also at what angle. Macro is a different optical setup if you want to optimise for it, so presuming that's why they break it out. One camera+lens assembly to rule them all can be done, but the cost would be thickness. I guess for a phone form factor, they decided expanding sideways was better than that.

[Sauron]

The real reason is that they're looking for gimmicks to justify the purchase of a $500+ device when the vast majority of people nowadays would be perfectly satisfied with a $250 device from 3 years ago.

 

In theory having real sensors is better than just relying on software processing but ultimately whether that's useful or not depends on what you do with them - and phones really don't do much with them at all.

20 minutes ago, Results45 said:

As a consumer, I'm always looking for products with the best functionality, quality, and bang-for-buck.

Then don't even consider a flagship smartphone.

[WereCatf]

21 minutes ago, Results45 said:

maybe having the monochrome be an "X-ray" camera as well (like for those who haven't updated their Oneplus 8s yet)

I forgot to reply to this part as well: this shows exactly why physical features are WAY better than software-processing, because the software-processed image that attempts to look like the Photochrom-mode did is...well, just plain, unadulterated fucking shit.

 

It doesn't actually look anything even remotely like the original did, software-processing can only try to guess which parts of the image would have colour and which parts wouldn't and literally never gets even remotely close, plus the intensity and depth are all wrong. There is literally no way of getting the same result, or even anything close to it, with software-processing.

[Lord Vile]

20 minutes ago, EL02 said:

The 2mp macro is useless. At that price a 5mp one would be great.

All phone cameras are horrendous hardware wise though it's all software. Doubt a 5mp would make much difference. I have a bottom end mirrorless and it destroys my iPhone 11 pro in picture quality never mind a oneplus. 

[Zodiark1593]

4 hours ago, Sauron said:

The real reason is that they're looking for gimmicks to justify the purchase of a $500+ device when the vast majority of people nowadays would be perfectly satisfied with a $250 device from 3 years ago.

 

In theory having real sensors is better than just relying on software processing but ultimately whether that's useful or not depends on what you do with them - and phones really don't do much with them at all.

Then don't even consider a flagship smartphone.

In bright conditions, a small sensor can use extremely fast shutter speeds to capture a lot of data and offset many of the disadvantages. That’s kind of the basis for computational photography. Low light, moderate to high speed photography is well out of reach of small sensors anytime within the decade though. 

[D13H4RD]

The whole reason for the monochrome camera is because it lacks a Bayer CFA. In theory, this allows not just better dynamic range but also improve sensitivity in general. The Huawei P9 was known for using that combination and proved to actually work quite well. The Essential Phone had the same core philosophy but the shit-tastic software lets it down a ton.

 

The problem is that most phone reviewers aren't technically-versed, as they mostly review phones from a usability standpoint. Which is valid but when they try to make a technical explanation, a lot of them just fall short.

[Results45]

9 hours ago, Sauron said:

Then don't even consider a flagship smartphone.

 

That's why I got a used P20 Pro (for the 3x optical zoom), a Moto Z Play, 3 battery Moto Mods, a USB-C-to-3.5mm adapter, a multiport USC-C hub, and 2 phone cases for grand total of $450.

[Lord Vile]

4 hours ago, Results45 said:

 

That's why I got a used P20 Pro (for the 3x optical zoom), a Moto Z Play, 3 battery Moto Mods, a USB-C-to-3.5mm adapter, a multiport USC-C hub, and 2 phone cases for grand total of $450.

So you got an overrated surveillance device and a phone from a company that hasn't made a good one in, well since the OG Razr that had its last release in 2007. 

[Sauron]

6 hours ago, Lord Vile said:

overrated surveillance device

Imagine thinking phones from other manufacturers are not surveillance devices

[Results45]

6 hours ago, Lord Vile said:

So you got an overrated surveillance device and a phone from a company that hasn't made a good one in, well since the OG Razr that had its last release in 2007. 

 

Isn't that a little to cynical? I mean, American multinational corporations and the NSA can learn anything they want about you and I just as much as China can request user info from Huawei. Anyway, there's a reason why you can still find an endless supply of refurbished Z Plays today for 100 bucks: it was the only phone launched in the US to last 1.5-2 days on a charge in 2016 (all Moto Mod supported phones that came after had worse battery life). No phone matched that endurance until models with batteries approaching 4000mAh like the Blackberry Motion and Mate 10 Pro started popping up in 2017. Plus with Moto Mods you can double the battery capacity/endurance to 3 days among other functionality and the P20 Pro was among the first to offer triple cameras let alone a 40MP + Telephoto camera combo.

 

I will likely stick with these phones, repair them down the road, or buy seconds until solid sub-$700 foldables arrive.

 

More info: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1i66tISjiF83RJDjqdrP68IBjfmK9AB5GSQ-hvH2a9KM/edit

[Lord Vile]

20 minutes ago, Sauron said:

Imagine thinking phones from other manufacturers are not surveillance devices

At least there's laws in the west limiting what data can be mined.

 

16 minutes ago, Results45 said:

 

Isn't that a little to cynical? I mean, American multinational corporations and the NSA can learn anything they want about you and I just as much as China can request user info from Huawei. Anyway, there's a reason why you can still find an endless supply of refurbished Z Plays today for 100 bucks: it was the only phone launched in the US to last 1.5-2 days on a charge in 2016 (all Moto Mod supported phones that came after had worse battery life). No phone matched that endurance until models with batteries approaching 4000mAh like the Blackberry Motion and Mate 10 Pro started popping up in 2017. Plus with Moto Mods you can double the battery capacity/endurance to 3 days among other functionality and the P20 Pro was among the first to offer triple cameras let alone a 40MP + Telephoto camera combo.

 

More info: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1i66tISjiF83RJDjqdrP68IBjfmK9AB5GSQ-hvH2a9KM/edit

Thing is they can't. Companies can oblige to the NSA etc demands but they can reject it if they feel it oversteps the law, look at apple with the FBI a while back. In china they have to give everything and Huawei is essentially a government branch anyway. 

 

Pity the P20 Pro camera is shit. Megapixels don't matter, in fact excessive amounts increase noise which mean the image is even more processed that it would have to be on a more reasonable pixel count but y'know bigger number = better right? Also how often do you use a zoom lens on a phone? Mine does 2x and I never use the damn thing, if I wanted to take a photo that required a telephoto lens I'd get the actual camera out. 

 

If I charge my phone fully I can get a day and a half out of it if I'm not playing games and video 6 hours a day. Used to get 2 out of my SE when it launched. 

[Sauron]

1 minute ago, Lord Vile said:

At least there's laws in the west limiting what data can be mined.

Lol, no there aren't. They can mine your location, your browsing habits, your personal messages and your shopping list; what more do you think they might want that they can't get? Not to mention that for Huawei to do business outside China they need to respect local laws so for all intents and purposes they're subject to the same laws as everyone else in any given country. The focus is only on Huawei because of xenophobia and protectionism.

6 minutes ago, Lord Vile said:

Companies can oblige to the NSA etc demands but they can reject it if they feel it oversteps the law, look at apple with the FBI a while back.

You mean that time the FBI got exactly what they wanted in the end while Apple pretended to give a shit for publicity? https://www.businessinsider.com/apple-complies-percent-us-government-requests-customer-data-2020-1#:~:text=Apple announced in a report,the previous six-month period.

 

Not that "giving the data to the government" is the only situation where this is unacceptable... even if they just kept it it would be awful.

[Lord Vile]

6 minutes ago, Sauron said:

Lol, no there aren't. They can mine your location, your browsing habits, your personal messages and your shopping list; what more do you think they might want that they can't get? Not to mention that for Huawei to do business outside China they need to respect local laws so for all intents and purposes they're subject to the same laws as everyone else in any given country. The focus is only on Huawei because of xenophobia and protectionism.

You mean that time the FBI got exactly what they wanted in the end while Apple pretended to give a shit for publicity? https://www.businessinsider.com/apple-complies-percent-us-government-requests-customer-data-2020-1#:~:text=Apple announced in a report,the previous six-month period.

 

Not that "giving the data to the government" is the only situation where this is unacceptable... even if they just kept it it would be awful.

Don't know about the android side but on iOS and MacOS you can turn location tracking off, safari limits a lot of tracking and PMs are encrypted.

 

Because Huawei are renown for following other countries and international law. Setting up a shell company to sell shit they weren't supposed to to Iran? Totally respecting laws outside of their own there. 

 

Do you read beyond the headline?

 

Account requests, sent when law enforcement officials suspect illegal activity, typically seek "details of customers' iTunes or iCloud accounts, such as a name and address" and occasionally, "iCloud content, such as stored photos, email, iOS device backups, contacts or calendars," the company said.

For 90% of those requests, Apple provided the government with at least some information about the account in question, up from 88% during the previous period. Apple also said the requests encompassed more than 15,301 customer accounts, another record high.

[Sauron]

Just now, Lord Vile said:

you can turn location tracking off

Of course you can turn it off but then you can't use gps... not to mention that's not the only way your location can be tracket. Cellular towers give a rough idea of where you are, increasingly more so as cells get smaller with newer telecom generations.

2 minutes ago, Lord Vile said:

Because Huawei are renown for following other countries and international law. Setting up a shell company to sell shit they weren't supposed to to Iran? Totally respecting laws outside of their own there. 

As though other companies didn't do things that are equally shady. Just because they're supposed to respect laws doesn't mean they will, the point is that's not in any way exclusive to Huawei.

4 minutes ago, Lord Vile said:

Account requests, sent when law enforcement officials suspect illegal activity

Who do you think decides what is illegal? It's concerning that you think this invalidates my point.

[Results45]

1 hour ago, Lord Vile said:

At least there's laws in the west limiting what data can be mined.

 

Thing is they can't. Companies can oblige to the NSA etc demands but they can reject it if they feel it oversteps the law, look at apple with the FBI a while back. In china they have to give everything and Huawei is essentially a government branch anyway. 

 

Pity the P20 Pro camera is shit. Megapixels don't matter, in fact excessive amounts increase noise which mean the image is even more processed that it would have to be on a more reasonable pixel count but y'know bigger number = better right? Also how often do you use a zoom lens on a phone? Mine does 2x and I never use the damn thing, if I wanted to take a photo that required a telephoto lens I'd get the actual camera out. 

 

If I charge my phone fully I can get a day and a half out of it if I'm not playing games and video 6 hours a day. Used to get 2 out of my SE when it launched. 

 

4 videos come to mind:

 

 

Yes unlike in China the US government/corporations do not equate potential threats found via surveillance & device usage data to immediately suppressing individuals, but to me potentially living in a shadow surveillance state is even more freaky. If Big Corp, the intelligence agencies, and local/federal law enforcement agencies have their way in the next 10-20 years with harvesting data on everyone I might have to move to Canada!

 

Also, does DXOMark or camera deep dives mean anything to you?

 

Spoiler

 

https://www.dxomark.com/huawei-p20-pro-camera-review-innovative-technologies-outstanding-

.

 

.

[Lord Vile]

3 minutes ago, Results45 said:

 

4 videos come to mind:

 

 

Yes unlike in China the US government/corporations do not equate potential threats found via surveillance & device usage data to immediately suppressing individuals, but to me potentially living in a shadow surveillance state is even more freaky. If Big Corp, the intelligence agencies, and local/federal law enforcement agencies have their way in the next 10-20 years with harvesting data on everyone I might have to move to Canada!

 

Also, does DXOMark or camera deep dives mean anything to you?

 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

https://www.dxomark.com/huawei-p20-pro-camera-review-innovative-technologies-outstanding-

.

 

.

DXO mark is fairly flawed. They seems to be trying to judge phone cameras on the same criteria as a real camera which makes no sense as they're not for the same thing. Phone pictures are processed for posting to social media and being point and shoots. They all mess with colour differently and use different algorithms for smoothing skin and so forth so pixel peeping and colour accuracy tests are redundant. 

 

Deep dives again are trying to look at them as real cameras and they're just not. 

[Lord Vile]

2 hours ago, Sauron said:

Of course you can turn it off but then you can't use gps... not to mention that's not the only way your location can be tracket. Cellular towers give a rough idea of where you are, increasingly more so as cells get smaller with newer telecom generations.

As though other companies didn't do things that are equally shady. Just because they're supposed to respect laws doesn't mean they will, the point is that's not in any way exclusive to Huawei.

Who do you think decides what is illegal? It's concerning that you think this invalidates my point.

Well then it's your choice to have GPS or not?

 

Better than a landline 

 

If they don't and they're caught they get in massive shit, kinda how the law works. If Huawei does it you might get the CCP saying they'll give them a tap on the wrist.

 

Tinfoil hat out then? 

 

[Results45]

1 hour ago, Lord Vile said:

DXO mark is fairly flawed. They seems to be trying to judge phone cameras on the same criteria as a real camera which makes no sense as they're not for the same thing. Phone pictures are processed for posting to social media and being point and shoots. They all mess with colour differently and use different algorithms for smoothing skin and so forth so pixel peeping and colour accuracy tests are redundant. 

 

Deep dives again are trying to look at them as real cameras and they're just not. 

 

So you're saying you'd rather carry around a phone AND a point-and-shoot?

 

Cuz almost nobody invests in a standalone camera nowadays unless they getting into photography/filmmaking/vlogging/streaming whether as a hobby, side hustle, or a profession.

 

On the other hand there are some big Youtubers and indie filmmakers who still produce top-grade stuff using only smartphones (typically an iPhone, Sony Xperia, or an LG V Series with special lenses on a custom made gimble rig).

[Lord Vile]

4 minutes ago, Results45 said:

 

So you're saying you'd rather carry around a phone AND a point-and-shoot?

 

Cuz almost nobody invests in a standalone camera nowadays unless they getting into photography/filmmaking/vlogging/streaming whether as a hobby, side hustle, or a profession.

 

On the other hand there are some big Youtubers and indie filmmakers who still produce top-grade stuff using only smartphones (typically an iPhone, Sony Xperia, or an LG V Series with special lenses on a custom made gimble rig).

Um if I'm going anywhere i'm expecting to take photos I normally take my mirrorless? And before that I took a point and shoot. I carry a backpack around everywhere anyway. 

 

My point is that trying to review a phone camera like a real one is just dumb. Phone cameras are designed for point and shoot and have software baked in to make photos look a certain way. Pixel peeping isn't really a good test nor is colour as most phones apply different colour settings for each shot. 

 

It'll be iPhones no other phone comes close in video but that's for video not stills and they're still nowhere near a solid entry level dedicated camera

[Sauron]

22 minutes ago, Lord Vile said:

Well then it's your choice to have GPS or not?

No, because gps functionality should be available without them recording it.

2 hours ago, Lord Vile said:

If they don't and they're caught they get in massive shit, kinda how the law works. If Huawei does it you might get the CCP saying they'll give them a tap on the wrist.

Pretty sure a trade ban is far worse than anything companies like Google have had to face for doing equally shady stuff.

2 hours ago, Lord Vile said:

Tinfoil hat out then? 

You're the one wearing the tin foil, acting as though Chinese companies are somehow more hellbent on invading your privacy than others with literally no evidence suggesting as much.

[Lord Vile]

7 minutes ago, Sauron said:

No, because gps functionality should be available without them recording it.

Pretty sure a trade ban is far worse than anything companies like Google have had to face for doing equally shady stuff.

You're the one wearing the tin foil, acting as though Chinese companies are somehow more hellbent on invading your privacy than others with literally no evidence suggesting as much.

GPS is owned by the US government and maintained by the US space force.

 

They're under a trade ban because they sold tech to Iran when they're under US sanctions amongst other stuff. What has google done again? Forgot to turn google home microphones off every time? 

 

Chinese companies are compelled by law to immediately surrender any data they have to the CCP no questions asked, Huawei goes one step beyond this by being in bed with the CCP so hard that they might as well be a government department. Well they are one just not in writing.