While the biggest number of megapixels doesn’t always transfer to the greatest picture, there’s something to be said abou ta 16-megapixel sensor for a smartphone camera. Renesas Technology has announced a new sensor of theirs that could allow up to 16-megapixel image capture. On top of that, the chip is said to support high-speed continuous shooting at 15fps at 13 megapixels.
The company has already started shipping sample chips to manufacturers for testing purposes, and announced via press release that commercial shipments should being in March of this year.
- October 27, 2009 10:15 am
Mobile photographers listen up, if you were looking for a higher megapixel count for your camera phone, step back, take a reality check and realize that camera’s will not replace a good digital SLR anytime soon. In reality, real photographers already know that it’s not necessarily the number of megapixels that matters most as it is the quality of the lens and algorithms/software used to shuttle physical images into “1″ and “0″ form.
With that little factoid expressed, we can get on with the program. Toshiba wants you to know, the megapixel race isn’t over yet as they’re prepping a new 14.6 megapixel beast. This photo-centric beast will be designed under Toshiba’s 65nm process and housed on 300mn slabs of silicon. Physical sizing aside, the real reason you need to be excited is because of a little feature called “back-side illumination” which is said to increase light absorption by up to 40%! Such an increase will no doubt work wonders for low light shots — something cameraphones have a heck of a time capturing cleanly and legibly.
The 14+ megapixel number may still be blurring your vision. But be careful, as stated before, just because it has the most megapixels, doesn’t automatically mean it will be the best, most useful mobile camera. If this little gem gets paired with a crappy lens and clumsy software, those megapixels will be more or less useless. We’ll have to wait until late Q4 2010/Q1 2011 to get any products in our hands as mass production isn’t slated to begin until Q3 2010. So we wait. Still interested?
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