Samsung has just shown the marquee feature for its upcoming flagship smartphones, and it’s downright adorable, that is, the teaser. However, to make the capabilities of its next 200-megapixel mobile image sensor more flexible, Samsung took the obvious route: take a picture of a sweet domestic cat, blow it up to about 1.5 times the size from a basketball court and then hang it in a building so everyone can see how detailed it is.
Samsung, you have our attention.
The promotion was created with the 200-megapixel ISOCELL HP1 sensor that Samsung unveiled last year. It has 0.64 micron pixels, which are much smaller than those found in lower resolution cameras. A smaller pixel size means less light captured, so Samsung uses a technique called pixel binning, which combines adjacent pixels into a superpixel.
In this case, a 4 × 4 grid consisting of 16 pixels is stacked using a technology called ChameleonCell. The resulting pixels are 2.56 μm massive, making them more capable of absorbing light to create a brighter, clearer photo in darker conditions. Under ideal lighting conditions, you can use the full 200 MP pixels of the sensor to capture very sharp photos and then zoom in or out without looking grainy.
Samsung 200MP (Image: Samsung)
And that’s exactly what Samsung did to create this promotion. Using a dashboard instead of a smartphone, Samsung photographers captured an image of a pet cat, a popular theme for photos, and where having a high-resolution image allows you to see details up to , such as mustaches and skins.
After adjusting the contrast and focus, the photo was captured and then printed on twelve 2.3-meter-long separate pieces of fabric that were sewn together to create a 616-square-foot image. It was then transported by truck and installed on the wall of a building using a crane.
You should see the photo in person for a fair assessment, however, the results are certainly impressive from what is shown in the pictures and videos provided. The photo of the kitten looks sharp and reveals details that you might not otherwise see with a standard 12 MP lens.
“I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw the 100% raw image magnified,” said Hyunjoong Kim, project manager for Marcom’s global team in Samsung Electronics’ device solutions division. “I was really surprised by the degree of detail. At the time, I knew that my previous prejudices about smartphone photography had turned out to be wrong.”
It is worth noting that adding megapixels does not always result in better image quality. You still need good optics and smart processing, so there’s no guarantee that these 200 MP photos will help Samsung outperform Google and Apple on the image front. In addition, taking 200 MP raw photos will quickly be consumed in your phone’s storage, and any social platform you upload to (Instagram, Facebook, etc.) will inevitably compress hell.
In addition to capturing bright images in dark conditions or high-resolution photos in daylight, the 200 MP sensor is also marketed as an ideal tool for capturing 8K videos at 30 frames per second. Now we’re just waiting for Samsung to reveal which phones will be the first to use the sensor. If I had to put money into it, the Galaxy S23 seems like the top candidate.