About megapixels, number 41 and Jacques Fresco / UPD: added a demo video with zoom and comparison with a soap box at the request of readers

▌ Instead of the preface

First of all, I would like to clarify for whom this article was written and for what purpose.

But first, a little background. At the end of last year, I bought myself already quite sensational cameraphone Nokia Lumia 1020. Once at the university, when my friend asked what kind of black round pancake is on the back of my smartphone, I had the imprudence to utter the phrase:
"Camera with a resolution of 41 megapixels ."

The reactions of others did not have to wait long. Almost immediately, several people turned their eyes on the smartphone and mocked me that I was a ~~sucker, a~~ victim of advertising and marketing. In principle, the same picture can be seen on the Internet. It should be on Habré appear any article on the 1020, so in the comments there will always be theorists who smash this cameraphone in tatters.
')

▌ There is no need to go far for an example, here is a small clipping of typical comments under any publication about 1020:

Theorist №1

Some more research from theorist №1

Theorist №2

Some more research from theorist №2

Theorist №3

▌ The logical question is: what does the author care about what others think?

It so happened that the author had a seizure: "People love the offended." In particular, Nokia.

Yes, the company is now not in the best position, yes, many do not like some of the decisions made by the management of the company, but, according to the author, this does not give reason to ignore the titanic work done by the company's engineers to advance the mobile photo industry. However, unfortunately, due to mistrust of the company after some events in the minds of users, it seemed that Nokia, in desperation, came up with a marketing ploy called “41 megapixels”, which in reality does not give out a share of the stated level.

▌ For whom is this article intended in the first place?

For those who agree with the opinion of the author and are convinced that the stated permission is real
For those who agree with the opinion of the author and sometimes have to explain why 41 megapixels are not dumb marketing for suckers
Accordingly, for those who were asked to read the material of this article during holivar
Well, if you are ready to go a little further from theory directly to practice and see live photos

No, this is not a promotional article, simply the author is genuinely surprised by the possibilities of the 1020 and wants to share his observations with others. Yes, sometimes it happens. You will not be forced immediately after reading to run to the store and buy a camera phone.

▌ And how does the author intend to demonstrate the capabilities of the camera?

Unlike most Internet theorists, the author was able to hold the subject in his hands, take photos of him and study these megapixels under a microscope.

What does the theorist tell us?

Okay, in this article we will check only the question: how real are the declared 41 MP, we will omit the artistic side, since this is a question of direct hands and a long search for a decent frame.

Attention, all photos were taken in cloudy winter weather without a tripod, with hands.

What does practice show?

And she shows this:

Scale 100%

Scale 25%

Scale 12.5%

Full frame:

Compare:

But, of course, this will not be enough for the theorists. Let's increase the letters in Photoshop to 1000% and what will we see there?

For this resolution, the line of letters in the word “SOVIET” barely fit within one or two pixels from that distance to the object. For example, in the letter “I”, the first vertical stick is only 2 pixels wide. On average, each letter of the inscription in width occupies only 7-9 pixels. I do not know about you, but in my opinion this is critically small in order to convey information on the photo, but, nevertheless, the inscription can be read at the scale of the photo 1: 1.

And again, the matrix and the optics are able to convey a small letter on the edges of their 1-2 pixels, while all this is removed from the hands and stabilization on top of that keeps the projection of the subject being shot strictly on the matrix. The slightest shudder of the projection on the matrix and you can no longer see the details between the pixels.

No one forces you to believe everything. You can safely download the original file and personally study everything:
View the original photo in FullRes, 10 MB , Download from Yandex.Disk .

Well, what happens to the picture at the edges of the frame?

And indeed, theorists did not forget to mention this remark, describing the unreality of such a huge resolution along the entire perimeter of the frame:

What happens in practice with the edges of the frame?

Scale 100%

Scale 25%

Scale 12.5%

Full frame:

Compare:

And again, let's take this opportunity and increase the figure to 1000%

Again the matrix picks up information on the edges of 1-2 pixels. Against the background of a frame width of 7712 pixels when shooting in cloudy weather without a tripod, this is incredible to the author personally.

And again there is an opportunity to download the original and personally check what's what:
Download original photo in FullRes from Yandex.Disk, 15 MB

▌ Well, suppose convinced, but why do you need such a huge resolution? Print posters A0?

I dare to suggest that the above examples closed the topic of the impossibility of the existence of such a huge resolution. The logical question is: where are so many megapixels?

In short, the main advantages of this approach are:

Oversampling technology, which allows you to make a 41-megapixel 5MP frame with a photo with an extremely small amount of noise. From 6-7 “noisy” pixels, 1 “clean” pixel is combined, which contains a kind of arithmetic average of “noisy” pixels. This is best demonstrated in the following video:
The ability to perform digital zoom up to 5X when shooting photos and videos without losing quality and at the same time not doing a giant Galaxy Zoom
Opportunity to crop a photo after a photograph has been taken
The same oversampling allows you to shoot HD video with 6x zoom without any loss of quality.
An example of a video shot by the author at 1020. Watch in HD.

View and download video in original quality on Yandex.Disk (150 MB).

▌ With direct hands, 41 megapixels can be a very good photographer's assistant.

Photo taken at Lumia 1020. Other photos in the sav-in photographer's blog.

No one claims that since there are so many megapixels in a smartphone, then you will shoot masterpieces with the push of a single button. It's like buying a Yamaha grand piano for $ 30,000. You can play it with one finger, or you can give it to a professional and enjoy the incredible sound of the instrument. In the case of DSLRs, the story is the same. Having bought a DSLR for 30k and taking pictures in auto ‐ mode, you will not achieve a strong difference between your pictures and those captured with a soap dish for 9k

▌ And there is one thing

In conclusion of this article, I would like to recall the words of the outstanding engineer and inventor Jacques Fresco, who during one of his speeches made quite an interesting idea about the language in which we speak today.

Of course, in today's era of advertising and marketing, it is quite difficult to track down and study in detail all the new technological delights. Sometimes there is too much marketing and outright nonsense, but sometimes it’s still worth making exceptions and then maybe you’re lucky and you’ll discover something completely new.

▌ Update

Some readers asked for a comparison with a soap box. Since the author does not have a soapbox on hand, a comparison from one side view is suggested.

A respected authoritative resource www.ixbt.com conducted its review of the Lumia 1020 and presented a comparison of photographs of the camera and the Canon PowerShot G15 compact camera with an average price of 13k . View full text and review comparison photos .