"He who gets the image wins the world".
Such trend predictions have become the consensus of the industry. Since the development of mobile phones 20 years ago, the innovation space has become more and more cramped, and imaging, fast charging, and appearance design are among the few key development directions.
Among them, the competition in imaging is particularly fierce. Huawei's multi-zoom, OPPO's independent image chip, vivo's micro-gimbal, Honor's high-specification multi-main camera, etc., manufacturers have invariably explored the boundaries of mobile phone imagery. What is certain is that this is a challenge to the limits of mobile phone imaging.
Nowadays, the extreme challenge of mobile phone image seems to have slowed down: limited by the size of the mobile phone body, advanced technology cannot break through the physical laws; the hardware specifications of mobile phone image have been continuously upgraded over the years and have approached the ceiling.
Specific to the state presented by the development of mobile phone images, the direction of the super bottom is limited by the limited improvement of mobile phone space, multi-main camera with computational photography technology can fully mobilize the ability of each camera, and the improvement of ultra-high pixels on the mobile phone camera experience is not very obvious.
What the industry is waiting for is, in the image battle, what is the key to victory? Who will be the next "Apple" to lead the industry?
"Extreme Challenge"
To improve the imaging capability of mobile phones, the most direct approach is to switch to a larger size sensor, the so-called "bottom level of crushing people", in the face of the super large bottom, any technical optimization is "fancy". The larger the sensor size, the more light is entered, which has a great effect on improving the richness of imaging details and the ability to excavate and portray night colors.
If so, is it okay to go all the way to black? Nature doesn't.
The internal space of the mobile phone is scarce, there is no rich space to accommodate several oversized sensors, and the larger sensor needs a longer physical focal length to maintain the equivalent of about 27mm of mainstream focal length, and the thickness of the mobile phone will increase as a result. Due to the size and thickness of the reasons, the lifting space of the oversized bottom is becoming more and more limited, which is why there are few upgraded sensor models this year.
Compared with the current top flagship models, in terms of sensor size, Apple's iPhone 13 Pro Max is 1/1.65 inches, Samsung S22 Ultra is 1/1.33 inches, and the Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra and Honor Magic4 Ultimate Edition are equipped with a 1/1.12-inch outsole - in the mature scheme, the sensor size is almost the top.
Japanese electronics manufacturer Sharp has produced a 1-inch oversized mobile phone, but the significance of the machine is to show "muscle", "partial" can not enter the eyes of consumers.
Mobile phone manufacturers may spend as much effort on publicity as technology, and "multi-camera" is an example. In fact, there is no shortage of a single outsole main camera + a combination of multiple poor quality secondary cameras, although the use of "three shots" and "four shots" to attract attention, in fact, imaging, as long as you switch to the sub-camera, the image quality will decline.
However, the "chicken thief" of individual manufacturers has shown the invaluable multi-main camera configuration, giving sufficient material in the configuration, improving the sensor specifications in the ultra-wide angle and telephoto secondary camera, forming a "multi-main camera" matrix, and any camera can take on the big responsibility.
For these honest manufacturers is a bit of a loss, after all, there are not many consumers who know the camera parameters or are willing to spend time to understand, but those "100 million pixels" publicity can instantly touch people's hearts.
However, the camera of smart phones is a very complex system engineering, high pixels in the imaging experience is far less powerful than imagined, "pixel theory" has long been confirmed to be undesirable, but also consider the sensor size, focusing ability and mobile phone computing power and other aspects of information.
In addition, some manufacturers have worked image parsing. The lens of the mobile phone camera uses a multi-layer lens combination, correcting and filtering between each other, each more piece, the final imaging effect is better, the current mainstream flagship mobile phone still uses 7P lens, but including the honor Magic4 to the best version, Xiaomi 11 Ultra, including flagship models have used 8P lenses.
The relevant supply chain is also more mature, OFILM recently announced that the 8P lens project has been successfully developed, and has now entered the trial production stage, the gradual maturity of the supply chain and the trend of localization, will work together with mobile phone manufacturers to bring more high-quality and inexpensive mobile phone products.
In general, ordinary consumers can not master professional image knowledge, but want not to be "fooled", first of all, do not only look for high pixel numbers, and secondly, you can pay attention to whether there are so-called "independent macro lenses" or "bokeh auxiliary lenses" in the main camera.
Compared with the top two players on the authoritative DXOMARK smartphone image rankings, Honor Magic4 to Zhen Edition and Huawei P50 Pro, Honor Magic4 Zhi Zhen Edition has three main cameras, namely 50 million pixel wide-angle camera, 64 million pixel ultra-wide camera and 64 million pixel periscope telephoto camera, covering the outsole, large aperture, ultra-wide angle, macro, ultra-telephoto and other excellent quality and scene performance. With the support of the spectral enhanced camera and the 8x8TOF laser focus system, it can be said that it is the top multi-main camera computational photography platform at present.
Huawei P50 Pro adopts a dual image unit design, the super main camera unit contains three cameras, including large aperture, ultra-wide angle and other configurations, and the super zoom unit is a 64-megapixel telephoto camera.
For the Honor Magic4 to the best edition to win the first crown in the image score, DXOMARK officially commented: the camera image performance shows excellent performance almost in the sub-category, and the overall image quality is outstanding. At the same time, its individual scores are also very high, such as 153 points for taking photos and 117 points for videos, showing the true high-end flagship image capabilities.
The top image configuration makes the Honor Magic4 to the best version shake off similar competitors, but the technical support of "algorithm" and "computing power" behind it is the root that stands out. It can be said that after years of development, manufacturers have provided a powerful configuration for the strength of mobile phone image strength, but one of the problems that have to be faced is that no matter how strong the technology can not break through the limitations of physical laws, with the optical configuration has been almost full, the role of algorithms and computing power will become more and more important.
"Algorithm" and "Computing Power"
If a door is closed, open a window.
In the space of mobile phones, the image strength lies in the top hardware configuration on the one hand, and on the other hand, it also relies on algorithms and computing power as support.
Apple mobile phone is an example, once lasted for many years of 12 million pixels, not large enough 1/2.55-inch sensor, in the hardware configuration behind a number of friends, but with superb algorithms and powerful computing power to achieve first-class image effects.
Algorithms are the tuning of imaging effects and are an essential complement to imaging capabilities.
The steady development of multi-camera systems, in addition to the needs of multi-scene imaging, is also inseparable from the opportunities provided by the development of AI algorithms, which has become a link between multiple cameras. The number and categories of mobile phone cameras are gradually increasing, the sense of atmosphere of dim tones, the sense of focus of the bokeh background, the scenes shot by mobile phones are becoming more and more complex, and the types of algorithms that users need are more.
The current mobile phone, for the effect of static shooting in daylight conditions can be guaranteed, but for the processing of night scene shooting often takes a few seconds, especially the night scene video shooting is a huge challenge - processing more than thirty photos per second - to calculate the image to process a beautiful video, to a large extent need to lose resolution, 4K ultra-high definition and processing speed is difficult to get both.
The constraint behind this is computing power, and improving this ability requires a powerful image chip.
The role of the image chip is to calculate and process the image signal input by the sensor, and then through a series of intelligent "beautification" such as linear correction, noise removal, white balance correction, exposure correction, etc., the smoothness of the whole process depends on the strength of the computing power.
Mobile phones need the traditional central processing unit, but also need to calculate the image of the necessary artificial intelligence chip and image processing chip, in the huge algorithm and computing power demand, independent dedicated image chip is more and more necessary, as to the image system specially open "plug-in", in the custom hardware fit, imaging beautification effect, as well as dedicated computing power support and other aspects will reach a higher level.
Not long ago, OPPO and Vivo respectively launched Marisilicon X and V1 dedicated image chips in Marinaia, which made a wave of eyeballs, and the two brother manufacturers took "taking pictures" as a selling point and direction of efforts a long time ago, which was impressive in image strength.
Honor has also made great efforts in this direction, honor magic4 to the best version equipped with the self-developed HONOR Image Engine image engine, honor AI portrait engine and glory AI color engine, as well as support 28.8TOPS highest AI computing power of the independent chip, in the computing image platform comprehensive strength has made a breakthrough.
The effect of vigorous scientific research investment is obvious, honor magic4 to the best version of the first 4K 60fps 10bit-log movie mode, can easily achieve real-time image calculation of 4K RAW domain. At the same time, it can also easily control various low-brightness scenes such as night scenery, night portrait, night video, etc., realize real-time preview of 4K night scene video and 4K super night scene video shooting, and efficiently complete a series of operations such as complex image processing, color correction, sensitivity compensation, HDR adjustment and so on.
With the first sale of the Honor Magic4 to the best edition, many users feel the same: "The night scene photography and video are in place, such a mobile phone is worth it" "It looks exquisite and high-end, better than the current ipane13 feel".
It can be said that the next competition of mobile phone images is largely a contest of computing images. Apple and Honor are the first mobile phone manufacturers to launch computing imaging solutions, and now after being judged by authoritative institutions, value experience innovation and other dimensions, the glory of the list has become an absolute strength player.
After several generations of product changes, Honor has become the leading Chinese manufacturer against Apple in terms of image strength, and has achieved a leading edge in the new round of mobile phone image card slot competition.
The "Apple" of the Image Age
Since Sharp released the first real camera phone, the J-Phone, in November 2000, the competition for mobile phones in taking pictures has begun.
Since then, there have been many important nodes in the history of mobile phone image development. The 2-megapixel camera of the Nokia feature phone era in 2006 and the front camera of the iPhone4 in 2010 have begun to develop computing images since then.
As one of the most critical competitions in the mobile phone market in the past decade, the fierce "inner volume" has made the shooting ability of mobile phones improve rapidly, many mobile phone series have taken "taking pictures" as their own labels, and today's market pattern also relies on the strong investment of various brands in images.
"In the era of functional machines around 2000, taking pictures was an important function in addition to basic functions such as calls and text messages. Entering the era of smart phones, the importance of imaging functions such as taking pictures has been further enhanced", indeed as Zhao Yi, research director of Aiji Micro Consulting, said, according to statistics from relevant institutions, in 2020, more than 30% of consumers are concerned about the camera function of mobile phones, ranking first among all factors of concern, far higher than the appearance, processor, screen, fast charging and other factors.
Image strength symbolizes the strength of manufacturers and the level of products, in the past ten years of development, Apple has been leading the friends with back-illuminated sensors and large aperture lenses, and then relying on imaging algorithms to make up for the lack of hardware. It was not until recent years that the efforts of domestic manufacturers in the field of mobile imaging have been able to shake the pattern.
In 2019, Huawei released the P30 series of mobile phones, with a combination of super-sensitive lens + periscope lens, it can also maintain 10x hybrid zoom in low-light conditions. In 2020, Vivo's micro-gimbal is unique in image stabilization, and this year OPPO also has gratifying results on its self-developed image chip, and Xiaomi has circled on the road of hundreds of millions of pixels.
Glory, which quickly caught up after independence, also took the image as the key breakthrough direction, and came up with a multi-main camera combination with a full configuration, with an image software system and an independent image chip, which strengthened the algorithm and computing power support.
This road is undoubtedly right, the future of mobile phone shooting, on the basis of the top hardware configuration, will be supported by computing power, the use of AI algorithms to automatically allocate cameras, perfect capture of the user wants to shoot the picture, software and hardware grasp both hands to enhance the comprehensive strength of the image.
"The next mobile phone market competition is more high-end market competition, the low-end market shows a shrinking trend, high-level image strength is naturally an important battlefield, the future competition will only be more intense", indeed as the industry asserts, the mobile phone image war, has become the epitome of high-end dispute, image breakthrough means to become the next "Apple" to lead the development of the industry possibility.
According to DXOMARK's latest mobile phone camera rankings, the Honor Magic4 Ultimate Edition scored a new high of 146 points in the mobile phone image test, redefining the new height of mobile phone image with strong image comprehensive strength. It can be said that in the high-end battle, glory has undoubtedly stood in an excellent position, which also makes its future full of infinite imagination.
Once upon a time, Apple ushered in an era and led the way for more than a decade. Now, in the opportunity period of image breakthrough, who can card slot with a new attitude and become the leader? The answer seems to be looming.