Although in recent years, mobile phone manufacturers have bragged about how powerful their mobile phones have been upgraded in photography at each conference, as if they have the taste of "full width". But every time I think of the huge picture frame gap between the mobile phone sensor and the camera sensor, it always makes people question the bragging ability of mobile phone manufacturers. So what level of hardware quality of today's mobile phones has reached? Today we are going to discuss this topic with you.
The first thing that must be confirmed is that the scope of our discussion is limited to the hardware aspect. As we all know, domestic mobile phones have a variety of algorithms to improve the final picture quality, not limited to multi-frame fusion and automatic HDR, and even can automatically fill in the details through AI algorithms. So if you take these factors into account, this article may be too difficult to stillborn. Therefore, we will select a few more representative mobile phones, show you the hardware of these mobile phones, and select some camera products that can be "equivalent", so that everyone has a clear understanding.
Main Camera - Card Machine/Entry Deck Level
The main camera is also the core area of the manufacturer's most "stacking" because of the highest frequency of use. Currently on sale, there are Sony Xperia PRO-I with a 1-inch sensor, Xiaomi Mi 11Ultra with a 1/1.12-inch sensor, and Honor Magic4 Ultimate Edition. Among them, although the Sony Xperia PRO-I uses a one-inch sensor, the actual imaging area is less than one inch, so we are mainly talking about Xiaomi and Honor's imaging flagship mobile phone.
The main camera of the Xiaomi Mi 11Ultra features an equivalent 24mm focal length, F1.95 aperture, and a 1/1.12-inch sensor. The main camera of the Honor Magic4 Edition features an equivalent 23mm focal length, F1.6 aperture, and a 1/1.12-inch sensor. The size of the 1/1.12-inch sensor is almost not much different from that of an inch, and we can see it through the comparison chart.
We can compare the common one-inch card machine on the market, the Sony RX100 VII uses a lens equivalent to 24-200mm F2.8-4.5, and the Sony RX100 Va uses a 24-70mm F1.8-2.8 lens, which can have similar "equivalent" specifications with the APS-C format body + corresponding sleeve under extreme conditions. So from a hardware point of view alone, the main camera of the Xiaomi Mi 11Ultra is slightly inferior to the Sony RX100 Va, Canon G7x Mark III, Panasonic LX10 and other standard zoom one-inch card machines and entry-level APS-C format sleeves.
The Magic4 To Best Edition is already slightly better than these entry-level camera products. As for whether it can "race full width"? At least from the hardware specifications, dab.
Ultra-wide angle - slightly less beginner
For mobile phone manufacturers, it is much simpler to do a good job of ultra-wide angle than to do a telephoto camera. Therefore, a few years ago, some manufacturers began to use the sensor of the main camera on the ultra-wide angle, and promoted the "dual main camera". It is true that this type of phone has quite good ultra-wide-angle performance, but after my research, I found that the hardware specifications are also different from the main camera of the current imaging flagship phone.
At present, the strongest specifications in the ultra-wide field are oppo and one plus flagship of the Oujia Group, and the sensor used is the Sony IMX766 of the "Lamor" 1/1.56 inch. Starting from THE FIND X3 PRO and one plus 8 PRO, OPPO and OnePlus began to use the IMX766 on a large scale to strengthen the "dual main camera" selling point. The current flagship OPPO FIND X5 PRO features an ultra-wide camera equivalent of 15mm, F2.2 aperture, and free-form lenses to correct distortion. The previous flagship, the OnePlus 9PRO, is equivalent to 14mm, F2.2 aperture. These two mobile phones are blessed by Hasselblad and have corresponding optimizations in color.
Since there is no equivalent 14-15mm card machine on the market, we need to look for the corresponding M43/APS-C format product. The "equivalent aperture" of these two phones is about F9.3, which is stronger than the Olympus lens cover 9mm F8 fisheye, slightly inferior to the Panasonic 7-14mm F4, and has at least one stop of aperture with the introductory ultra-wide-angle zoom of the APS-C format, not to mention the frog 7.5mm F2 and 9mm F2.8 with a very close focus but a much larger aperture. However, due to the blessing of the algorithm, the mobile phone can already achieve handheld shooting of the outline of the Galaxy, and the camera can only achieve handheld shooting of the Galaxy by combining Olympus' flagship five-axis image stabilization body + 8mm F1.8 fisheye.
Telephoto – there is still a big gap
Due to physical limitations, no matter how much effort the mobile phone takes, it is difficult to compete with the camera in telephoto. And the choice of mobile phone manufacturers in the telephoto focal length and sensor size is also relatively diverse, and there is no more unified solution, which also increases the difficulty of our data collection.
At present, mobile phone brands are roughly divided into the following factions in the choice of telephoto specifications: Samsung S series flagship with 10 times telephoto and Huawei MATE40PRO+, which represents the product of Samsung's previous generation flagship S21 Ultra, and the specification of the 10 times telephoto lens is a 1/3.24-inch sensor, the equivalent focal length is 240mm, and the F4.9 aperture. The Xiaomi Mi 11Ultra with 5x telephoto + outsole is a 1/2-inch sensor with an equivalent focal length of 120mm and an F4.4 aperture. 3.5x telephoto + outsole Honor Magic4 to The Best Edition and Huawei P50PRO, with a 1/2-inch sensor equivalent to 90mm, F3.5 aperture.
As the representative of the telephoto one-inch card machine, the Sony RX100 VII had to "Lü Bu Zhan Sanying". Compared with the Huawei/Honor ratio, the Sony RX100 VII's "equivalent aperture" comparison of the co-focus segment is F10.8 vs. F14, and the black card wins an aperture. Compared with Xiaomi, the Sony RX100 VII's cofocal "equivalent aperture" contrast is F10.8 vs. F22, and the black card wins more. As for the Samsung, which only has a 1/3.24-inch sensor, the black card cut to 240mm is no suspense to crush... Therefore, at present, many mobile phone manufacturers have chosen the fourth method after trying - lying flat.
In general, the main camera with the most sufficient material for mobile phones at present has been very powerful in hardware, and can break the wrist with a one-inch card machine and an entry-level M43/APSC sleeve machine. However, the ultra-wide angle is still a certain distance compared with the lens purchased by the camera user for 2,000 yuan more, and the telephoto is because of physical limitations, and no matter how much material is stacked, it will be hoisted up by a one-inch telephoto card machine and an entry telephoto head. But in any case, the phone is a very convenient creative tool, and if you can take advantage of it, it can also record all kinds of beautiful moments for you. Of course, we also sincerely hope that mobile phone manufacturers can pile up more vigorous hardware, so that we can more easily and unburdened image creation. That's all for this article, I hope you'll like it.