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Cell phone Digma LINX A453 3G Black Linx A453

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Cell phone Philips S260 Black

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Huawei Y5 2019 2/32, black

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Smartphone Nokia 1 Dark Blue 11FRTL01A08

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RUB 6,485

Huawei Y5 2019 2/32, brown

Dual SIM cards. Bluetooth. 3G. Automatic screen orientation. With a 2 megapixel front camera. The case is classic. Radio. With 4.5 inches (11 cm) screen. With 5.0 megapixel camera. MP3 player. 4G LTE. GPS. Wi-Fi. Operating system type - Android. Multitouch. With built-in memory size 8 GB. SIM card type - micro SIM. Video resolution - 1280x720. EDGE. With a maximum supported memory card capacity of 32 GB. Screen resolution - 480x854. Video recording. Touch screen type - capacitive. Type - smartphone. Screen manufacturing technology - TFT. Memory card slot - microSD. With a battery capacity of 2000mAh. With height: 135.9 mm. With thickness: 10.0 mm. With width: 67.7 mm. With weight: 142 g.

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Cell phone Digma LINX A453 3G Blue Linx A453

With mp3 player. The case is classic. With bluetooth. Screen size 4.5 inches. Type - smartphone. With Wi-Fi. With a digital video camera. SIM card type - micro SIM. Camera 5.0 Mpx. Operating system type - Android. With radio. With GPS. Screen resolution - 480x854. Battery capacity 1800 mAh. Touch screen type - capacitive. For 2 SIM cards. With Multitouch. Max. memory card capacity 32 GB. With 3G. Screen manufacturing technology - TFT. Memory card slot - microSD. Front camera 2 Mpx. The size of the built-in memory is 8 Gb. With thickness: 11.0 mm. With width: 67.0 mm. With height: 133.5 mm. With weight: 129 g.

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RUB 4,490

Smartphone Huawei Y5 Lite Modern Black

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Huawei Y5 2019 32Gb 4G Sapphire Blue

With EDGE. Screen size 4.5 inches. With a digital video camera. SIM card type - micro SIM. Operating system type - Android. With radio. With GPS. With auto-rotate screen. Camera 5.0 Mpx. Video resolution - 1280x720. Screen resolution - 480x854. With 4G LTE. Touch screen type - capacitive. For 2 SIM cards. With Multitouch. Max. memory card capacity 32 GB. With mp3 player. Type - smartphone. With 3G. The case is classic. With bluetooth. Battery capacity 2000 mAh. Screen manufacturing technology - TFT. With Wi-Fi. Memory card slot - microSD. Front camera 2 Mpx. The size of the built-in memory is 8 Gb. With height: 135.9 mm. With thickness: 10.0 mm. With width: 67.7 mm. With weight: 142 g.

If previously a 5 megapixel camera was an expensive tool used for professional purposes, today it is a shooting tool available to everyone at a low price. In Moscow and other cities, video cameras with a resolution of 5 megapixels are used in the field of security of houses, dachas, courtyards, remote video surveillance of objects, surveillance in order to collect the most detailed information.

The image from a good 5-megapixel camera is highly clear, the smallest details are visible, and when individual parts of the picture are enlarged, no serious distortion is observed, which opens up the possibility for multiple digital zooms and fine editing.

In the online store, customers will find a large selection of 5mpx cameras at affordable prices. So you can buy a 5 MP video surveillance camera at a price of 4,000 rubles.

There are different camera options such as:

• 5 megapixel CCTV camera;
• 5 MP camera with autofocus;
• USB camera 5 MP;
• mobile camera 5 megapixels

and other models. In addition to the main type of device, the price and scope of application are determined by technical characteristics.

Their list looks something like this:

• Shooting speed (number of frames per second).
• Camera viewing angle in degrees. In this case, the camera may have a rotating mechanism that rotates the lens at a remote user request or when a motion sensor is triggered.
• Camera mounting method. It is important what fasteners are used during installation, the connection method (wired or wireless), and the strength of the fastening (protection from vandalism).
• Low and high temperature limits at which a 5 MP camera can function normally.
• Basic kit details. Does it contain all the necessary fasteners, adapters, instructions for installing and operating the device?

A 16-megapixel camera on a smartphone sounds great, but an 8-megapixel camera often takes better photos. Technologies allowed companies to equip all their flagships with stronger cameras last year, but for some reason this did not happen. Samsung Galaxy S3, HTC Droid DNA, BlackBerry Z10 And iPhone 5, all gadgets are nestled on a cozy eight-megapixel bar.

The picture quality of these smartphones is very high, and much better than some devices with a large number of pixels. What's the matter? Let's figure it out.
Megapixels are not a guarantee of the quality of your photos, this is the first thing you need to understand. The formula for getting fantastic photos is much more complicated. This includes the weight of the camera module, lens material, light sensor, image processing hardware, software that links all the components together, and much more. If you can add something else to this list, then most likely this article is not for you. Well, newcomers, welcome.

Sensor

Most beginner and professional photographers will tell you that the most important element in an optical system is the sensor that reflects the light. No light - no photos.

Light enters the camera lens and the sensor receives the information and converts it into an electronic signal. The image processor takes the signal and creates an image, which is by no means final. All photographic imperfections, such as noise, are visible here. Therefore, the size of the image capture sensor is extremely important. In simple terms, the larger the sensor, the greater the number of pixels, and the more pixels, the more light you can get.

Many experts like to draw a rather colorful analogy of the relationship between pixels and sensors with “buckets of water.”
Imagine you have buckets (pixels) placed on asphalt (sensor). You want to collect as much water in these buckets as possible, as much as possible. It turns out that the more buckets (pixels) you can place on the asphalt (sensor), the more water (light) will get into them.

As you may have already noticed, increasing the number of pixels installed on a limited sensor size does not lead to improved photo quality. It is necessary to enlarge the sensor itself, which will have a bad effect on the ergonomics of mobile phones and, of course, increase the cost.

The relationship between the number of pixels and the physical size of the sensor is precisely why some 8-megapixel cameras can outperform their 12-, 13-, or even 16-megapixel counterparts.

Unfortunately, most camera manufacturers do not disclose the full list of characteristics of their devices, much less indicate such “little things” as the width of the sensor. And think about it, even if they did this, how many users would understand these incomprehensible terms?

Image processing

The image processor is equally important for creating high-quality photography. Most modern smartphones have a graphics processor installed that handles all multimedia tasks of the device. Whether it's photos, videos or even games, processing is carried out without the load of the central processor, which significantly affects the operation of the smartphone.

The image processor helps achieve (or at least get close to) zero delay between the shutter being released and the resulting image being captured. At last year's Mobile World, company HTC advertised the latest discrete image processor for a family of phones HTC One, entitled ImageChip. The processor could process photos at the highest speed, the delay between shots was only 0.7 seconds!

Also, do not forget about the graphical functions of the device. The algorithms embedded in the processor create the final appearance of the image on the phone screen. Determining color, photograph clarity, noise reduction - all this happens at this stage.

Increasingly, some phone makers such as HTC and Samsung are including additional features in their high-end phones, such as detecting people's smiles and faces. All this is also the work of the electronics placed in our smartphones.

What's the result?

But let's return to our pixels. Currently, users pay more attention to convenience and speed of shooting. Quickly taking a smartphone out of your pocket, armed with a really high-quality camera, and taking a photo worthy of your home collection becomes a more pleasant procedure than waiting for a fancy DSLR to turn on. And carrying your phone with you is much easier and more convenient.

Don't chase the number of megapixels on smartphones. Having studied all the ins and outs and understood all the subtleties, you can choose a really good option.

The race for megapixels from digital photography has gradually moved into IP video surveillance. Our clients are increasingly asking for cameras of 3, 4, 5 megapixels and even higher. Most of them are absolutely sure that the higher the resolution, the more megapixels the camera has, the better it will show, the higher the detail of the frame will be. Manufacturers, to please consumers, produce high-resolution cameras; 12 MP IP cameras, in the now fashionable 4K format, are already being sold with all their might.

We decided to figure it out - does the video quality of IP cameras really increase with increasing megapixels? Is it worth paying extra for high-resolution cameras, NVR processing power, high network bandwidth and terabytes of disk space required for such high resolution? We selected several cameras from stock with different resolutions - from 1 to 5 megapixels. We also ordered several expensive 5 - 8 MP IP cameras from manufacturers for this test. This is who came to us for testing.

We gave preference to outdoor IP cameras with a fixed lens, because... they do not need to be adjusted, and errors in the tedious adjustment of varifocal lenses will not affect the quality of the video image. True, we did not find 5-megapixel cameras with a fixed lens and tested 5MP varifocal cameras. We installed all the cameras in the same place and pointed them at the opposite wall, where we have several homemade “test tables” hanging.

Let's see what we got. All frame shots were taken through the web interface of the cameras using the IE browser and the ability to save a still frame built into each camera. In the table below we have placed a reduced frame to a resolution of 640x480 (or 640 by 360 if the camera has a widescreen matrix with an aspect ratio of 16:9), as well as a crop (cut out of the frame) with a resolution of 200x360 pixels. It more clearly shows the quality of the “drawing” of small details of the image - in particular, the letters on the Sivtsev table (a table for testing vision).

To view a full-size frame from an IP camera, click on its small copy in the table.

What we noticed when comparing these frames:

1. Cameras have different aspect ratios. IP cameras with a resolution of 1, 2, 4 megapixels have a widescreen frame with a 16:9 ratio. And cameras with a resolution of 1.3, 3 and 5 megapixels are 4:3. Those. the latter have a greater vertical viewing angle. This is very important for those cameras that will “look” at an object from top to bottom. For such cameras, there will be fewer dead spots under the camera both near and far. It is interesting to note that a 3MP camera compared to a 4MP camera not only has a larger vertical viewing angle, but also a resolution: 1536 versus 1440 pixels.
2. Cameras have different viewing angles, and it depends not only on the lens, but also on the size of the matrix. Budget IP cameras with a 1/4 matrix and a standard 3.6mm lens have a horizontal viewing angle of no more than 60°. But the 5MP IPEYE camera with a 1/2.5 matrix has a wide viewing angle both vertically and horizontally (more than 110°). It’s true that the lens at its shortest focus has a distance of 2.8mm.
3. Well, the most important thing we wanted to pay close attention to is the resolution. If you look closely at all the frames, you will notice that, undoubtedly, as the resolution (megapixels) increases, the detail increases. But NOT PROPORTIONAL! Not huge. A 4MP camera does not improve the image by 2 times compared to a 2MP camera. Detail increases slightly. In any case, not a single camera could “cope” with the second line from the bottom of Sivtsev’s table. And already the 6th bottom line (the right letters “B K Y”) is confidently “read” by both cameras with a resolution of 4 and 2 MP.

Of course, here we need to make allowances for different viewing angles. After all, as the viewing angle increases, we seem to move away from the scene being filmed and the detail deteriorates. This is especially true for the 5-megapixel IPEYE camera - the viewing angle provided by this combination of matrix and lens is too wide. And if you make the angle on it the same as that of 2MP cameras (about 90°), then the letters of this table will be read more confidently.

It’s interesting that another 5MP IP camera with the same declared parameters (2.8-11 lens, 1/2.5 matrix) has a slightly narrower viewing angle at the shortest focal length than the IPEYE-3802VP. Detail is approximately at the same level, the picture is somewhat noisier in dark areas of the frame, although the cost of the BEWARD camera is several times higher. But it has a motorized lens and you can control the viewing angle while sitting in front of the computer. A picture with a maximum focus of 11 mm will then look like this:

Maybe someone needs this, considering that every time you change the focus of the lens, you need to either manually or by pressing the “autofocus” button to adjust the sharpness of the image. And this takes from 5 to 20 seconds. But here you can confidently read the second line from the bottom of the vision test table.

Subsequently, we tested a pair of 2-megapixel IP cameras with a 2.8 - 12mm varifocal lens, because... There is an opinion that they show better than “fixes”. Here's what we got:

As you can see, the result is not much different from the previous one. The detail is almost the same as that of 2MP IP cameras with a fixed lens. Even the expensive 2 megapixel (!) Hikvision camera (the retail price of which as of February 2016 was 21,990 rubles) with a viewing angle of 50 degrees set at the factory (and to change it, you had to open the camera, which we absolutely did not want) The readability of Sivtsev’s table was no higher than 5th line from the bottom.

Perhaps varifocal lenses have greater photosensitivity and IP cameras with them can “see” better in the dark, but this is the topic of a completely different test and another article, which we may turn to later. But varifocal lenses have virtually no effect on resolution. Moreover, the slightest inaccuracy in focusing settings can lead to disastrous results, and all megapixels will be useless. And anyone who has ever set up a varifocal lens on an IP camera will agree with me that this is oh so difficult, given the delay with which the signal from the camera arrives at the monitor.

This is the first camera with a 1/1.8 sensor size that we got our hands on. In addition, this camera is capable of delivering a stream at a speed of 25 fps with a 5-megapixel resolution (2592x1920 px). Others cannot do this yet. The maximum they are capable of is 12-15 fps at maximum resolution. The wide viewing angle of this camera is immediately noticeable. With a focus of 3.6 mm, it is wider than 5MP cameras with a 1/2.5 matrix with a focus of 2.8 mm. The resolution of the camera from BSP Security is at the level of other 5-megapixel cameras, even a little clearer. At least the contrast of the picture is higher. However, the situation is slightly overshadowed by blurring of the left side of the frame. Perhaps we were unlucky and came across a camera with a slight distortion of the matrix.

And finally, 4K IP cameras with 8MP resolution arrived at our warehouse. This is a hemisphere with a fixed lens DAHUA DH-IPC-HDW-4830EMP-AS. Here's a shot from that camera:

To open the frame in full resolution, right-click on the picture in your browser and select the “open image” menu item.

We didn't stop our test with office pictures; we also wanted to look at real footage of a street scene. To do this, we pointed our camera lenses at the nearest parking lot, visible from our window. We did this deliberately in rather difficult light conditions - early twilight. This is what we got.

Perhaps we chose a part of the day that was still too bright (17.10 - 18.00 in February), but all the cameras did an excellent job with such lighting. True, the 1.3 MP camera MT-CW960IP20 had a slightly darker picture than others, which is quite strange, because... the 1/3 matrix should have better light sensitivity compared to the 1/4 matrix.

As for the detail of the picture, the situation is similar to the results of testing in the office. Although it increases with increasing megapixels, it is not significant. Both 4 and 2 megapixel cameras were able to read Renault's license plate number. True last ones A little worse.

IP cameras with a resolution of 1.3, 4 and 5 megapixels with their wide viewing angles even “saw” the license plate of our van in which we carry all these IP cameras)). And the 5 MP camera even saw a car standing to the left of the van. The viewing angle is amazing!

In March, we received two more 5-megapixel IP cameras BEWARD and BSP Security for testing. Let's compare how they show on the street.

5 MP IP camera: resolution 2592x1944, matrix 1/2.5, zoom lens 2.8 - 11 mm
5 MP IP camera: BSP Security, resolution 2592*1920, matrix 1/1.8, lens 3.6 - 11 mm

The cameras were tested at the same time (18.00 in mid-March). It is interesting to note that despite the fact that the camera from BSP Security has a wider angle, it has slightly better detail. State The license plate on the blue Ford can almost be read, which is not the case in the BEWARD camera footage. The matrix size has an effect - 1/1.8 versus 1/2.5.

What conclusion can we draw?

1. The treacherous pursuit of megapixels is practically useless and only the manufacturers (well, let’s be honest, we, the sellers of these IP cameras, recorders and hard drives) benefit from more profit from them.
2. In the vast majority of cases, 1- and 2-megapixel IP cameras are sufficient. And if you need better detail of distant objects, then this problem should be solved not by mindlessly increasing megapixels, but by reducing the viewing angle using a varifocal lens. With this we will “bring the picture closer” to ourselves and will be able to see everything we need. And an increase in the number of video cameras. This solution may be a little more expensive, but it will definitely solve your problem. And perhaps the price of a pair of 2-megapixel cameras with a viewing angle of 50° (for example, “fixes” with a 6mm lens) will be less than the price of one 5- or even 4-megapixel with a viewing angle of 100°. But they will give us much more information about the observed territory.
3. It should be taken into account that increasing the number of pixels without increasing the physical size of the matrix only worsens the sensitivity of the video camera, because The pixel area becomes smaller and less light reaches its surface.
4. Real high-quality lenses with optics that allow you to get all the advantages of multi-megapixel matrices cost at least $1000. What can you expect from a 12-megapixel camera worth 20,000 rubles?
5. Well, the last thing to remember is that as the “megapixel” increases, you will additionally overpay for the processing power of the devices being recorded, storage devices (HDD), network bandwidth and traffic when viewing via the Internet.

P.S. We will continue to test IP cameras that come into our hands in this way. Several test samples have already been requested from various suppliers with resolutions ranging from 5 to 12 megapixels. Therefore, periodically visit this page to receive new information about the megapixel race in IP video surveillance.

P.P.S. If any of the manufacturers or suppliers would like to test their cameras on our “test bench” - welcome, contact us by e-mail: kb063_sobaka_yandex.ru

The only explanation more banal than this axiom is “the iPhone, it turns out, does not have a slot for a memory card.” But newbies continue to make mistakes when they fall for the number of megapixels in the camera, which means they have to repeat themselves.

Imagine a window - an ordinary window in a residential building or apartment. The number of megapixels is, roughly speaking, the number of glasses inside the window frame. If we continue to draw parallels with smartphones, in ancient times window glasses were the same size and were considered a scarce commodity. Therefore, when the so-called “Tolyan” said that he had 5 glasses (megapixels) in his window unit, everyone understood that Anatoly was a serious and wealthy person. And the characteristics of the window were also immediately clear - a good view to the outside of the house, a large glazing area.

A few years later, windows (megapixels) were no longer in short supply, so their number just needed to be increased to the required level, and that was it. Just adjust it to the area (a window for ventilation and a loggia, for the sake of strength, require a different number of windows) so that the camera produces a slightly denser picture than 4K monitors and TVs produce. And finally deal with other characteristics - for example, combat clouding of glass and image distortion. Teach cameras to focus correctly and paint available megapixels efficiently, if you want specifics.

On the right there are more “megapixels”, but they do not provide anything other than “obstacles” with the same “sensor” area

But people are already accustomed to measuring the quality of cameras in megapixels, and sellers happily indulged this. Therefore, the circus with a huge amount of glass (megapixels) in the same frame dimensions (camera matrix dimensions) continued. As a result, today the pixels in smartphone cameras, although they are not “packed” with the density of a mosquito net, the “deglazing” has become too dense, and over 15 megapixels in smartphones almost always spoil rather than improve photographs. This has never happened before, and again it turned out that it is not size that is important, but skill.

At the same time, the “evil,” as you understand, is not the megapixels themselves - if tons of megapixels were spread out on a fairly large camera, they would benefit the smartphone. When a camera is able to unleash the potential of all megapixels on board, and not “smear” them in large quantities when shooting, the photo can be enlarged, cropped, and it will remain of high quality. That is, no one will understand that this is just a fragment of a larger picture. But now such miracles are found only in “correct” SLR and mirrorless cameras, in which the matrix alone (a microcircuit with photo sensors, onto which the image flies through the “glasses” of the camera) is much larger than the assembled smartphone camera.

“Evil” is the tradition of putting a clip of megapixels into tiny cell phone cameras. This tradition brought nothing but a blurry picture and an excess of digital noise (“peas” in the frame).

Sony piled 23 megapixels where competitors put 12-15 megapixels, and paid for it with a decrease in picture clarity. (photo - manilashaker.com)

For reference: in the best camera phones of 2017, the main rear cameras (not to be confused with the b/w additional ones) all operate with a “pathetic” 12-13 megapixels. In photo resolution it is approximately 4032x3024 pixels - enough for a Full HD (1920x1080) monitor, and for a 4K (3840x2160) monitor too, albeit back to back. Roughly speaking, if a smartphone camera has more than 10 megapixels, their number is no longer important. Other things are important.

How to determine that a camera is of high quality before looking at photos and videos from it

Aperture - how wide the smartphone “opened its eyes”

The squirrel eats nuts, deputies eat people’s money, and cameras eat light. The more light, the higher the quality of the photo and the more details. But you can’t get enough sunny weather and studio-style bright lighting for any occasion. Therefore, for good photos indoors or outdoors in cloudy weather/at night, cameras are designed in such a way that they produce a lot of light even in unfavorable conditions.

The easiest way to get more light to reach the camera sensor is to make the hole in the lens larger. The indicator of how wide the “eyes” of the camera are open is called aperture, aperture, or aperture ratio - these are the same parameter. And the words are different so that reviewers in articles can show off incomprehensible terms for as long as possible. Because, if you don’t show off, the aperture can simply be called, excuse me, a “hole,” as is customary among photographers.

The aperture is indicated by a fraction with an f, a slash and a number (or with a capital F and no fraction: for example, F2.2). Why

So it’s a long story, but that’s not the point, as Rotaru sings. The point is this: the smaller the number after the letter F and the slash, the better the camera in the smartphone. For example, f/2.2 in smartphones is good, but f/1.9 is better! The wider the aperture, the more light enters the matrix and the better the smartphone “sees” (takes better photos and videos) at night. The bonus of a wide aperture comes with beautiful background blur when you photograph flowers up close, even if your smartphone does not have a dual camera.

Melania Trump explains what different apertures look like in smartphone cameras

Before buying a smartphone, don’t be lazy to check how “sighty” its rear camera is. If you have your eye on the Samsung Galaxy J3 2017, search for “Galaxy J3 2017 aperture”, “Galaxy J3 2017 aperture” or “Galaxy J3 2017 aperture” to find out the exact number. If the smartphone you have your eye on doesn’t know anything about the aperture, there are two options:

• The camera is so bad that the manufacturer decided to remain silent about its characteristics. Marketers engage in approximately the same rudeness when, in response to “what processor is in the smartphone?” they answer “quad-core” and do their best to avoid disclosing the specific model.
• The smartphone has just gone on sale and no specifications other than those in the advertising announcement have been released yet. Wait a couple of weeks - usually during this time the details will be released.

What should be the aperture in the camera of a new smartphone?

In 2017-2018 Even a budget model should have at least an f/2.2 rear camera. If the number in the denominator of this fraction is larger, get ready for the camera to see the picture as if through darkened glasses. And in the evening and at night she will be “low-blind” and will be able to see almost nothing even at a distance of several meters from the smartphone. And don’t rely on brightness adjustments - in a smartphone with f/2.4 or f/2.6, an evening photograph with a programmatically “tightened” exposure will turn out to be a “rough mess,” while a camera with f/2.2 or f/2.0 will take a higher-quality photo without tricks.

The wider the aperture, the higher the quality of shooting on a smartphone camera

The coolest smartphones today have cameras with an aperture of f/1.8, f/1.7 or even f/1.6. The aperture itself does not guarantee the maximum quality of pictures (the quality of the sensor and the “glass” has not been canceled) - this, to quote photographers, is just a “hole” through which the camera looks at the world. But all other things being equal, it is better to choose smartphones in which the camera does not “squint”, but receives an image with “eyes” wide open.

Matrix (sensor) diagonal: the larger the better

The matrix in a smartphone is not the matrix where people with complex muzzles in black cloaks dodge bullets. In mobile phones, this word means a photocell... in other words, a plate on which a picture flies through the “glasses” of the optics. In old cameras, the picture flew to the film and was saved there, and the matrix instead accumulates information about the photograph and sends it to the smartphone processor. The processor forms all this into the final photo and stores the files in internal memory or on microSD.

There is only one thing you need to know about the matrix - it should be as large as possible. If the optics is a water hose, and the diaphragm is the neck of a container, then the matrix is ​​the same reservoir for water, of which there is never enough.

The dimensions of the matrix are usually measured in inhuman, from the bell tower of ordinary buyers, Vidicon inches. One such inch is equal to 17 mm, but cameras in smartphones have not yet grown to such dimensions, so the diagonal of the matrix is ​​denoted by a fraction, as is the case with the aperture. The smaller the second digit in the fraction (divisor), the larger the matrix -> the cooler the camera.

Is it clear that nothing is clear? Then just remember these numbers:

A budget smartphone will take good photographs if its matrix size is at least 1/3" and the camera resolution is no higher than 12 megapixels. More megapixels means lower quality in practice. And if there are less than ten megapixels, the photo will be visible on good large monitors and TVs look loose, simply because they have fewer dots than the height and width of your monitor screen.

In mid-class smartphones, a good matrix size is 1/2.9” or 1/2.8”. If you find a larger one (1/2.6” or 1/2.5”, for example), consider yourself very lucky. In flagship smartphones, a good tone is a matrix measuring at least 1/2.8”, and better – 1/2.5”.

Smartphones with large sensors take better pictures than models with small photocells

Can it get any cooler? It happens - look at 1/2.3” in Sony Xperia XZ Premium and XZ1. Why then don’t these smartphones set records for photo quality? Because the camera’s “automation” constantly makes mistakes with the selection of settings for shooting, and the camera’s reserve of “clarity and vigilance” is spoiled by the number of megapixels - in these models they piled up 19 instead of the standard 12-13 megapixels for new flagships, and the fly in the ointment crossed out the advantages of the huge matrix.

Are there smartphones in nature with a good camera and less harsh characteristics? Yes - look at the Apple iPhone 7 with its 1/3" at 12 megapixels. On the Honor 8, which has 1/2.9" with the same number of megapixels. Magic? No - just good optics and perfectly “polished” automation, which takes into account the potential of the camera as well as tailored trousers take into account the amount of cellulite on the thighs.

But there is a problem - manufacturers almost never indicate the size of the sensor in the specifications, because these are not megapixels, and you can embarrass yourself if the sensor is cheap. And in reviews or descriptions of smartphones in online stores, such camera characteristics are even less common. Even if you choose a smartphone with an adequate number of megapixels and a promising aperture value, there is a chance you will never know the size of the rear photosensor. In this case, pay attention to the latest characteristic of smartphone cameras, which directly affects the quality.

Better few large pixels than many small ones

Imagine a sandwich with red caviar, or take a look at it if you don’t remember what such delicacies look like. Just as the eggs in a sandwich are distributed over a piece of loaf, the area of ​​the camera sensor (camera matrix) in a smartphone is occupied by light-sensitive elements - pixels. There are, to put it mildly, not a dozen, or even a dozen, of these pixels in smartphones. One megapixel is 1 million pixels; typical smartphone cameras from 2015-2017 have 12-20 megapixels.

As we have already figured out, containing an excessive number of “blanks” on a smartphone’s matrix is ​​detrimental to photographs. The efficiency of such a crowd is similar to that of specialized teams of people replacing a light bulb. Therefore, it is better to observe a smaller number of smart pixels in a camera than a larger number of stupid ones. The larger each of the pixels in the camera, the less “dirty” the photos are, and the less “jumpy” the video recording becomes.

Large pixels in the camera (photo below) make evening and night shots better quality

The ideal smartphone camera consists of a large “foundation” (matrix/sensor) with large pixels on it. But no one is going to make smartphones thicker or dedicate half of the body at the back for the camera. Therefore, the “development” will be such that the camera does not stick out from the body and does not take up much space, the megapixels are large, even if there are only 12-13 of them, and the matrix is ​​as large as possible to accommodate them all.

The size of a pixel in a camera is measured in micrometers and is designated as µm in Russian or µm in Latin. Before you buy a smartphone, make sure that the pixels in it are large enough - this is an indirect sign that the camera takes good pictures. You type into the search, for example, “Xiaomi Mi 5S µm” or “Xiaomi Mi 5S µm” - and you are pleased with the camera characteristics of the smartphone that you have noticed. Or you get upset - it depends on the numbers you see as a result.

How big should a pixel be in a good camera phone?

In recent times, it has become especially famous for its pixel sizes... Google Pixel is a smartphone that was released in 2016 and “showed Kuzkin’s mother” to competitors due to the combination of a huge (1/2.3”) matrix and very large pixels of the order of 1.55 microns. With this set, he almost always produced detailed photographs even in cloudy weather or at night.

Why don't manufacturers "cut" the megapixels in the camera to a minimum and place a minimum of pixels on the matrix? Such an experiment has already happened - HTC in the flagship One M8 (2014) made the pixels so huge that the rear camera could fit... four of them on a 1/3” matrix! Thus, One M8 received pixels measuring as much as 2 microns! As a result, the smartphone “torn” almost all competitors in terms of the quality of images in the dark. Yes, and photographs in a resolution of 2688x1520 pixels were enough for Full HD monitors of that time. But the HTC camera did not become an all-round champion, because the Taiwanese were let down by HTC’s color accuracy and “stupid” shooting algorithms that did not know how to “correctly prepare” the settings for a sensor with unusual potential.

Today, all manufacturers have gone crazy with the race for the largest pixels, so:

• In good budget camera phones, the pixel size should be 1.22 microns or more
• In flagships, pixels ranging in size from 1.25 microns to 1.4 or 1.5 microns are considered good form. More is better.

There are few smartphones with a good camera and relatively small pixels, but they exist in nature. This, of course, is the Apple iPhone 7 with its 1.22 microns and OnePlus 5 with 1.12 microns - they “come out” due to very high-quality sensors, very good optics and “smart” automation.

Without these components, small pixels ruin the photo quality in flagship smartphones. For example, in the LG G6, the algorithms create obscenities when shooting at night, and the sensor, although ennobled with good “glasses,” is cheap in itself. IN

As a result, 1.12 microns always spoil night shots, except when you enter into battle with “manual mode” instead of stupid automation and correct its flaws yourself. The same picture prevails when shooting on a Sony Xperia XZ Premium or XZ1. And in the masterpiece, “on paper”, the Xiaomi Mi 5S camera is hampered from competing with the flagships of the iPhone and Samsung by the lack of optical stabilization and the same “crooked hands” of the algorithm developers, which is why the smartphone copes well with shooting only during the day, but not at night very impressive.

To make it clear how much to weigh in grams, take a look at the characteristics of the cameras in some of the best camera phones of our time.

What type of autofocus is best?

Autofocus is when a mobile phone “focuses” on its own while taking photos and videos. It is needed so as not to change the settings “for every sneeze”, like a gunner in a tank.

In old smartphones and modern Chinese "state-priced" phones, manufacturers use contrast autofocus. This is the most primitive method of focusing, which focuses on how light or dark it is “straight ahead” in front of the camera, like a half-blind person. That’s why cheap smartphones need about a couple of seconds to focus, during which it’s easy to “miss” a moving object, or stop wanting to shoot what you were going to do because “the train has left.”

Phase autofocus “catches light” across the entire area of ​​the camera sensor, calculates at what angle the rays enter the camera and draws conclusions about what is “in front of the smartphone’s nose” or a little further away. Due to its “intelligence” and calculations, it works very quickly during the day and does not annoy you at all. Common in all modern smartphones, except very budget ones. The only drawback is working at night, when the light enters into the narrow hole of the mobile phone’s aperture in such small portions that the smartphone “breaks the roof” and it constantly fidgets with focusing due to a sudden change in information.

Laser autofocus is the most chic! Laser rangefinders have always been used to “throw” a beam over a long distance and calculate the distance to an object. LG in the G3 smartphone (2014) taught this “scanning” to help the camera quickly focus.

Laser autofocus is amazingly fast even in indoor or dim environments

Take a look at your wristwatch... although, what am I talking about... okay, turn on the stopwatch on your smartphone and appreciate how quickly one second passes. Now mentally divide it by 3.5 - in 0.276 seconds, the smartphone receives information about the distance to the subject and reports this to the camera. Moreover, it does not lose speed either in the dark or in bad weather. If you plan to shoot photos and videos up close or at a short distance in low light, a smartphone with laser autofocus will be a big help.

But keep in mind that cell phones are not Star Wars weapons, so the range of the laser in the camera barely jumps a couple of meters. Everything that is further away is viewed by the mobile phone using the same phase autofocus. In other words, to photograph objects from afar, it is not necessary to look for a smartphone with “laser guidance” in the camera - you will not get much use from such a function in general shots of photos and videos.

Optical stabilization. Why is it needed and how does it work

Have you ever driven a car with leaf spring suspension? On army UAZs, for example, or ambulances with the same design? In addition to the fact that in such cars you can “beat off the butt,” they shake incredibly - the suspension is as rigid as possible so as not to fall apart on the roads, and therefore it tells passengers everything that it thinks about the road surface, frankly and not “spring” (because that there is nothing to spring with).

Now you know how a smartphone camera without optical stabilization feels when you try to take a photo.

The problem with shooting with a smartphone is this:

• The camera needs a lot of light to take good photos. Not direct rays of the sun into the “face”, but diffuse, ubiquitous light around.
• The longer the camera “examines” the image during the photo, the more light it captures = the higher the quality of the picture.
• At the time of shooting and these camera “peeps”, the smartphone must be motionless so that the picture does not get “smeared”. If it moves even a fraction of a millimeter, the frame will be ruined.

And human hands are shaking. This is clearly noticeable if you lift with outstretched arms and try to hold a barbell, and less noticeable when you hold a cell phone in front of you to take a photo or video. The difference is that the barbell can “float” in your hands within wide limits - as long as you don’t touch it against a wall, a neighbor, or drop it on your feet. And the smartphone needs to have time to “grab” the light for the photo to come out successful, and do this before it deviates a fraction of a millimeter in your hands.

Therefore, the algorithms try to please the camera and not put increased demands on your hands. That is, they tell the camera, for example, “so, 1/250th of a second you can shoot, this is enough for the photo to be more or less successful, and taking a shot before the camera moves to the side is also enough.” This thing is called endurance.

How optical stabilization works

What does optostab have to do with it? So, after all, he is the “depreciation” with which the camera does not shake like the body of army trucks, but “floats” within small boundaries. In the case of smartphones, it does not float in water, but is held by magnets and “fidgets” at a short distance from them.

That is, if the smartphone moves a little or trembles during shooting, the camera will shake much less. With such insurance, a smartphone will be able to:

• Increase the shutter speed (the guaranteed time “to see the picture before the photo is ready”) for the camera. The camera receives more light, sees more image details = the quality of the photo during the day is even higher.
• Take clear photos on the move. Not during an off-road sprint, but while walking or from the window of a shaking bus, for example.
• Compensate for shaking in video recordings. Even if you stomp your feet very sharply or sway slightly under the weight of the bag in your second hand, this will not be as noticeable in the video as in smartphones without an optical stabilizer.

Therefore, optostab (OIS, as it is called in English) is an extremely useful thing in a smartphone camera. It’s also possible without it, but it’s sad - the camera must be of high quality “with a margin”, and the automation will have to shorten (worse) the shutter speed, because there is no insurance against shaking in a smartphone. When shooting video, you have to “move” the image on the fly so that the shaking is not visible. This is akin to how in old movies they simulated the speed of a moving car when it was actually standing still. The only difference is that in films these scenes were filmed in one take, and smartphones have to calculate the shaking and deal with it on the fly.

There are vanishingly few smartphones with a good camera, which without stabilization takes pictures no worse than competitors with stabilization - these are, for example, Apple iPhone 6s, the first generation of Google Pixel, OnePlus 5, Xiaomi Mi 5s and, with some stretch, Honor 8/ Honor 9.

What not to pay attention to

• Flash. Useful only when shooting in pitch darkness, when you need to take a photo at any cost. As a result, you see the pale faces of people in the frame (all of them, because the flash is low-power), eyes squinted from the bright light, or a very strange color of buildings/trees - photographs with a smartphone flash definitely do not carry any artistic value. As a flashlight, the LED near the camera is much more useful.
• Number of lenses in the camera. “Before, when I had 5 Mbps internet, I wrote an essay in a day, but now, when I have 100 Mbps, I write it in 4 seconds.” No, guys, it doesn't work like that. It doesn’t matter how many lenses there are in a smartphone, it doesn’t matter who released them (Carl Zeiss, judging by the quality of the new Nokia cameras, too). Lenses are either high quality or not, and this can only be verified with real photographs.

The quality of the “glass” (lenses) affects the quality of the camera. But the quantity is not

• Shooting in RAW. If you don’t know what RAW is, I’ll explain:

JPEG is the standard format in which smartphones record photos; it is a “ready-to-use” photo. Like the Olivier salad on a festive table, you can take it apart “into its components” in order to transform it into another salad, but it won’t turn out to be of very high quality.

RAW is a hefty file on a flash drive, in which all brightness, clarity and color options for a photograph are sewn in its pure form, in separate “lines”. That is, the photo will not be “covered with small dots” (digital noise) if you decide to make it not as dark as it turned out to be in JPEG, but a little brighter, as if you had set the brightness correctly at the time of shooting.

In short, RAW allows you to “Photoshop” a frame much more conveniently than JPEG. But the catch is that flagship smartphones almost always select the settings correctly, so apart from the smartphone’s RAW memory being polluted with “heavy” photos, there will be little benefit from “Photoshopped” files. And in cheap smartphones, the camera quality is so bad that you will see poor quality in JPEG, and equally poor quality in RAW. Don't bother.

• Camera sensor name. They were once super important because they were a “quality seal” for a camera. The size of the matrix, the number of megapixels and pixel size, and minor “family characteristics” of shooting algorithms depend on the model of the camera sensor (module).

Of the “big three” manufacturers of camera modules for smartphones, the highest quality modules are produced by Sony (we do not take into account individual examples, we are talking about the average temperature in a hospital), followed by Samsung (Samsung sensors in Samsung Galaxy smartphones are even better than the coolest Sony sensors, but “on the side” the Koreans are selling something absurd), and finally, the last of the list is OmniVision, which produces “consumer goods, but tolerable.” Intolerant consumer goods are produced by all other basement Chinese companies, the name of which even the manufacturers themselves are ashamed to mention in the characteristics of smartphones.

8 - execution option. Do you know how this happens in cars? The minimum configuration is with “cloth” on the seats and a “wooden” interior, the maximum is with artificial suede seats and a leather dashboard. For buyers, the difference in this figure means little.

Why, after all this, should you not pay attention to the sensor model? Because with them the situation is the same as with megapixels - Chinese “alternatively gifted” manufacturers are actively purchasing expensive Sony sensors, trumpeting at every corner “our smartphone has a super-high-quality camera!”... and the camera is disgusting.

Because the “glass” (lenses) in such mobile phones is of appalling quality and transmits light a little better than a plastic soda bottle. Because of these same bastard “glasses,” the camera aperture is far from ideal (f/2.2 or even higher), and no one is tuning the sensor so that the camera selects the colors correctly, works well with the processor, and doesn’t spoil the pictures. Here is a clear example that the sensor model has little effect:

As you can see, smartphones with the same camera sensor can shoot completely differently. So don't think that the cheap Moto G5 Plus with IMX362 module will shoot as well as the HTC U11 with its amazingly cool camera.

Even more annoying is the “noodle on the ears” that Xiaomi puts on the ears of buyers when it says that “the camera in Mi Max 2 is very similar to the camera in the flagship Mi 6 - they have the same IMX386 sensors! They are the same, but the smartphones shoot very differently, the aperture (and therefore the ability to shoot in low light) is different, and the Mi Max 2 cannot compete with the flagship Mi6.

1. The additional camera “helps” take photos at night with the main one and can take black and white photos. The most famous smartphones with such camera implementations are Huawei P9, Honor 8, Honor 9, Huawei P10.
2. The secondary camera allows you to “shove in the impossible,” that is, it takes pictures with an almost panoramic viewing angle. The only proponent of this type of camera was and remains LG - starting with the LG G5, continuing with the V20, G6, X Cam and now the V30.
3. Two cameras are needed for optical zoom (zooming in without losing quality). Most often, this effect is achieved by simultaneous operation of two cameras at once (Apple iPhone 7 Plus, Samsung Galaxy Note 8), although there are models that, when zoomed in, simply switch to a separate “long-range” camera - ASUS ZenFone 3 Zoom, for example.

How to choose a high-quality selfie camera in a smartphone?

Best of all - based on examples of real photographs. Moreover, both during the day and at night. During the day, almost all selfie cameras take good photos, but only high-quality front-facing cameras are capable of shooting something legible in the dark.

It is not necessary to study the vocabulary of photographers and go deeper into what this or that characteristic is responsible for - you can simply memorize the numbers “this much is good, but if the number is higher, it is bad” and choose a smartphone much faster. For an explanation of terms, welcome to the beginning of the article, and here we will try to derive the formula for a high-quality camera in smartphones.

I don't want to understand the characteristics! Which smartphone to buy with good cameras?

Manufacturers produce countless smartphones, but among them there are very few models that can take good photographs and shoot videos.