DxOMark

I had the fun and educational experience of moderating a panel on sensors for cars at Electronic Imaging 2020 recently. Of course there were cameras, but much of the focus was on how lidars, radars, and thermal imaging can complement traditional visible light images. I’ll be curious how innovations in these areas impact our traditional notion of photography as they become less-expensive. As regular readers know, I’ve already done a lot of experimenting with thermal imaging for creative photography. You can read my writeup of the panel on ExtremeTech.

It’s no secret that smartphone’s are now by far the most popular cameras worldwide, as they become increasingly capable. While improvements in image processing, sensors, and optics have helped them catch up to more traditional cameras, many of their recent gains can be attributed to the creative use of multiple camera modules. That’s an option that standalone camera makers have experimented with (stereo and 360-degree models, for example), but have never pushed very far. In an article I’ve written for DxOMark, I look at the evolution of multiple camera modules in mobile devices, along with their benefits and challenges.

Industry camera benchmarking site DxOMark has published an interesting white paper chronicling the progress it has seen in 6 years of testing smartphone image quality. The progress in both hardware and software behind the improvement in results is fascinating and impressive. I’ve written up my thoughts on the paper for Extremetech, along with charts from the paper and a link to the original.