Samsung announces their new 50 megapixel camera sensor
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| Samsung's sensor |
Samsung
announced their
new 50 megapixel camera sensor called the “ISOCELL GN1”. It’s
Samsung’s first sensor to include both dual pixel auto focus along
with
Tetracell pixel binning, which the company says should offer a
combination of fast performance and outstanding
low
light image quality. The pixel size is 1.2μm, closer
to what you’d find on a conventional phone camera sensor than the
high resolution chips. The obvious competitor is Sony’s new IMX689
sensor, featured in phones like the Oppo Find X2 Pro, which has 48
megapixels at 1.22μm. By default, Samsung’s sensor will take
12.5-megapixel photos with four pixels binned into one.
The addition of dual pixel phase detection
autofocus is noteworthy because Samsung had a recent high profile
failure in that area. The Galaxy S20 Ultra, which used a 108MP sensor
without dual-pixel tech, suffered from poor autofocus performance;
Samsung said it would issue a fix, though we haven’t been able to
test for improvements yet.