Nexus 6P - Camera Discussion

[hyminameisderek]

What benefit is the smart burst?

You can use it to create GIFs as one benefit. Another would be that you could take multiple pictures and then flip through and choose the best quality image.

 

[Zendroid1]

What benefit is the smart burst?

It takes shots in rapid fire and one of them is bound to turn out sharper and better composed (person smiling, eyes open, etc...) than the rest.

 

[wunderbar]

And Google talked about a feature that when you shoot a smartburst it'll automatically pick the best picture and use that one.

 

[LeoRex]

Sounds good to me. In their Reddit chat, that Nexus team seemed to be keen on the sparseness & thinness of the 6P's design. And if they wanted to keep that camera swatch looking more like a "visor" than a "bump," there couldn't have been much wiggle room to mess with at the top of the phone.

Yeah... I can only imagine that it wasn't possible to retrofit a mobile style OIS system on that sensor. Who knows? It's basically a waiting game though. I don't think OIS is going to mean a whole hell of a lot for still pictures to be honest. Where it will pop up is video, where they are using software stabilization. The only sample video we've seen to date is that rather amazing hummingbird 240fps clip, but can't really go off of that much.

 

[wunderbar]

OIS *can* make a big difference. I have an SLR camera and the difference between OIS on and off (inside the lens in this case) can be a big deal on a shot where I'm holding the cameara. Obvioulsy on a tripod, and anytime I'm using manual focus, I turn it off; but there definitely can be a difference.

On a phone I'm not sure if OIS is more important or less important. With a phone you're more likely to be less steady holding it when taking a shot, becuase in many cases a user doesn't care to take the time to steady it properly, etc. But on such a small device, there may not be as much movement anyway.

Basically, I'm interested to get my hands on it and try it.

 

[WinstonSmith#AC]

It takes shots in rapid fire and one of them is bound to turn out sharper and better composed (person smiling, eyes open, etc...) than the rest.

Thanks to you and others for the answers.... I"m guessing something like SmartBurst would be very beneficial for me having a two year old and wanting to take pics of a kid that never stops moving?

 

[Zendroid1]

Thanks to you and others for the answers.... I"m guessing something like SmartBurst would be very beneficial for me having a two year old and wanting to take pics of a kid that never stops moving?

Very much so! I use it on my iPhone and it's a lifesaver.

 

[Only1Z]

It's much less important on wider angle lenses. It's very important the more zoom you need. But on phones that have no optical zoom and just sit at 28mm to 35mm full frame equivalent, it's not all that necessary. I'd take the bigger 1/2.3" sensor without OIS over a 1/3" sensor with OIS considering the fact these aren't zoom lenses we're dealing with here.

 

[mookiekillsit]

So far these look incredible. Serious considerations after thinking the MXP was going to be mine... and the actual phone doesn't look like the god awful render.

 

[jdot104]

Another thing that I was thinking about... I wonder if the omission of OIS was out of technical reasons... The cameras that have OIS rigs were all designed, from the ground up, to be stuffed into phones. That means extremely tight packaging constraints in every dimension. So any OIS system needs to be extremely compact and efficient. On still and video cameras, there's a lot more room to work with. Perhaps adding OIS to the 6P, nevermind the 5X, would have required a sensor housing that was a too cumbersome to be feasible. So they left it out and relied on the fact that the reduced exposure times needed with counteract.... Of course, like DXO noted, this doesn't help when taking video (though, that isn't to say they scored the 6P video ability badly. Guess we'll have to see what things are like when they get into people's hands.

I think Google probably had to choose between bigger pixels and cutting OIS for cost reasons, and OIS lost out. As long as the camera can even compete with the S6/Note 5, I'll be satisfied. Based on what I've seen, I think they've done a great job.

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[LezCronut]

I think Google probably had to choose between bigger pixels and cutting OIS for cost reasons, and OIS lost out. As long as the camera can even compete with the S6/Note 5, I'll be satisfied. Based on what I've seen, I think they've done a great job.

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The real miracle here is the Nexus 5X, it has comparable a camera to much pricier gadgets (S6, iPhone, etc). What the..
5X should be one of the most successful Nexus ever evah vah!

 

[jdot104]

The real miracle here is the Nexus 5X, it has comparable a camera to much pricier gadgets (S6, iPhone, etc). What the..
5X should be one of the most successful Nexus ever evah vah!

I agree, but people on the Internet will find a way to complain about anything. If that were the only Nexus released this year I'd buy one.

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[Cakefish]

I'm very impressed by the camera of the new Nexus. A very solid improvement over the Nexus 5.

 

[teamnowak]

Looks like they are already working on improving the video.
Google promises Nexus 6P tweak to improve video - CNET

The stuff we've seen so far is pre-production and already seems pretty great. I have high expectation for this camera.

 

[Shepx13]

People need to stop spreading misinformation.

Larger pixels do not equate to more light sensitivity. A larger sensor does. Any 1/2.3" sensor that has same max Aperture lens as the 6p will allow the same amount of light in, no matter how many megapixels it is.

This sensor is not HUGE. It's the same size as the Sony Z3 (which has a reputation for poor camera performance).

P6 = 1/2.3
Z3 = 1/2.3
G4 = 1/2.6
S6 = 1/2.6
N6 (last year) = 1/3.02

What the larger pixels WILL do is allow for less noise in comparison to a similar sized sensor with more megapixels.
But there's also usually advances in sensor tech that cut down the noise with each subsequent generation. See Nikon D7100 vs d7200 for an example. Their sensor size is the same, megapixels are roughly the same, but the new one has much improved noise, which results in better high ISO images.

The quality of the lens used can play a huge role in the quality of the photos. Unfortunately, there's no way to test phone camera lenses independently, so all we can do is look at the product as a whole.

Image processing will also play a large role in output quality. For anyone interested, see andandtech's review from the Note 5. Excerpt below:
*"While we saw some subtle differences between the Galaxy S6 and the Galaxy Note5 in the day, it's in low light where we really see a massive difference. Even though the camera module is basically unchanged relative to the Galaxy S6, the change in low light photo processing is huge and is enough to tip the scales when it comes to Samsung's camera performance relative to the iPhone line."*

The small incremental difference in sensor size + larger pixels will most likely not make up for the difference in hand-hold ability of lower light shots compared to, say, the G4 since it has a faster Aperture lens along with the OIS. But it will definitely mitigate the difference somewhat. Those people who are expecting to get the same low light HANDHELD shots as the G4 (or even the s6) may be slightly disappointed.

All that said, I'm still very excited for this new pair of Nexus phones and I'm thankful that Google stepped up to the plate and put some great camera hardware in. Hopefully this is a sign that we will never have to settle for a sub-par camera experience on a Nexus again. And that this will put pressure on all the other OEMs to up their game on their next phones. That's a major win for us as consumers.

 

[LeoRex]

For stills, I am not sure if makes a big difference. I'm just going off the iPhone 6/6+ The cameras on both differ only by the addition of OIS on the 6+... and a lot of the camera reviews don't really report that big a difference between the two.

 

[FrogVomit]

People need to stop spreading misinformation.
Larger pixels do not equate to more light sensitivity. A larger sensor does. Any 1/2.3" sensor that has same max Aperture lens as the 6p will allow the same amount of light in, no matter how many megapixels it is.

This is too precious, spreading misinformation while complaining about people spreading misinformation. Larger pixels can most definitely equate to more light sensitivity. But what do I know? I'm only an Image Scientist that worked for an image sensor manufacturer for 8 years, and served on the I3A Camera Phone Image Quality board. Pixels collect photons, and a larger pixel will collect more photons, and thus have a higher signal to noise ratio (all else being equal). Sensitivity, in the context of an image sensor, is really just another way of saying "signal to noise ratio". So, if you have two sensors with the same surface area, and one has more pixels, those pixels will be smaller, and they will have lower SNR and thus lower sensitivity, assuming the underlying noise characteristics of the sensors are the same (i.e., they were made using the same semiconductor process).

 

[wunderbar]

it is pretty great. talking about how the size of the sensor dictates how much light will be let in while saying the same principle doesn't apply to the size of the individual pixel.

 

[Shepx13]

This is too precious, spreading misinformation while complaining about people spreading misinformation. Larger pixels can most definitely equate to more light sensitivity. But what do I know? I'm only an Image Scientist that worked for an image sensor manufacturer for 8 years, and served on the I3A Camera Phone Image Quality board. Pixels collect photons, and a larger pixel will collect more photons, and thus have a higher signal to noise ratio (all else being equal). Sensitivity, in the context of an image sensor, is really just another way of saying "signal to noise ratio". So, if you have two sensors with the same surface area, and one has more pixels, those pixels will be smaller, and they will have lower SNR and thus lower sensitivity, assuming the underlying noise characteristics of the sensors are the same (i.e., they were made using the same semiconductor process).

I'll admit that some of what I wrote was not very clear but you are also ignoring what else I said.

People have been saying that the larger pixels will completely negate the advantages of competitors which use OIS. (ie - P6 pixel size of 1.55 vs S6 size of 1.12, and the sensor size increase as well)
That is just not the case and not likely to make up for the 2-3 f-stop advantage of an S6/G4 utilizing OIS.

Dx to Fx camera is a MUCH larger increase in sensor size, and you're still only gaining 1-2 f-stops of advantage, as far as noise is concerned.

 

[wunderbar]

I don't think anyone outside of google is saying that it'll completely negate it. At worst people are saying that OIS may not matter as much as people think, especially for stills. (which is true, look at the iPhone reviews). Most people seem to be of the mind that we're going to wait to see actual camera reviews and samples from the phones.

Unrelated: we also should remember that a good chunk of what makes a smartphone camera good or not these days is also the image processing software on the phone. You can have a great, identical sensor in two devices but if one device has a crappy image processing algorithm, than quality of sensor matters a lot less. That's also been part of the nexus problem over the years is that the image processing in stock android is not nearly as good as what samsung/LG/sony/etc license/pay for/develop and put in their own phones.