[Device Team] [Tech Class] Chapter 9 : Megapixels and Photo Quality - Redmi Note 4 - Mi Community

Hello Mi Fans,

Hope you guys are having loads of fun here on Mi Community.

In this 'Tech Class' we will take you through the topic - Do more Megapixels mean better photo quality and much more. So lets get started.

Introduction

A 16-megapixel Redmi Note 3 camera sounds great, but an 13-megapixel shooter in Redmi Note 4 still produce better pics, thats why I chose this this topic for this week.Lets start with the definition of Megapixel.

Megapixel refers to the size of an image, usually in reference to a photo from a digital camera or camera phone

Megapixel means one million pixels. The resolution of digital cameras and camera phones is often measured in megapixels. For example, a 13-megapixel camera can produce images with 13 million total pixels. There are a few reasons why you might want to buy a camera with more megapixels. The most important is cropping. Sometimes you don't always capture what you want to capture in the right part of the frame. If you crop the image slightly, it looks a lot better than it would if you just left it alone. This is the main advantage of having a camera with more megapixels. It gives you a little extra room to play around with when you are cropping your photos. Now we will discuss about few important things which determines quality of photo.

The Sensor

Light enters through the camera lens, then passes to the camera sensor, which receives the information and translates it into an electronic signal. From there, the image processor creates the image and fine-tunes it to correct for a typical set of photographic flaws, like noise. The size of the image sensor is extremely important. In general, the larger the sensor, the larger your pixels, and the larger the pixels, the more light you can collect. The more light you can catch, the better your image can be. Larger sensors are the reason that 8 megapixels from a digital SLR camera (or 5 or 13) is far better than a 8 megapixels smartphone camera. You get roughly the same number of pixels, but the pixels on the DSLR get to be larger, and therefore let in more light. More light (generally) equals less-noisy images and greater dynamic range.

Fallacy of Megapixels

You can start to see that cramming more pixels onto a sensor may not be the best way to increase pixel resolution. That hasn't stopped the cell phone industry from doing just that.The relationship between the number of pixels and the physical size of the sensor is why some 8-megapixel cameras can outperform some 12-, 13-, or even 16-megapixel smartphone cameras.

Image processing

In addition to the size and quality of the lens and sensor, there's also the image processor. Most modern high-end smartphone CPUs have dedicated graphics processors built into the chip, which, being hardware-accelerated and not just software-dependent, can quickly render images like photos, videos, and games without overtaxing the main application processor.This is where the most subjective element of photography comes in: how your eye interprets the quality of color, the photo's sharpness, and so on.The image processor is also what helps achieve zero shutter lag, when the camera captures the photo when you press the capture button, not a beat or two after.

Usability is King

Despite the intense engineering focus that goes into the camera's physical elements, it's hard to overstress the importance of both convenience and the total customer experience. How easy it is to open the camera app from a locked position, how quickly photos get captured, and how desirable the special effects and shooting modes are, all add up to either a camera you want to use or one you don't. Increasingly, some phone makers, like Xiaomi, Oppo, One Plus One include extra logic in their big-ticket phones, like detecting smiles and selecting the best group photo of a bunch. New modes have emerged among the top-tier Android handsets, including taking photos and videos from both front and rear cameras, as well as grouping action shots into a single frame. Fancy filters and tricks are fun party games, but for most phone owners, said Drew Blackard, of product planning of a smart phone comapmny , being able to quickly and easily share photos on the fly is far more important than pixel count. Just look at Twitter's and Instagram's runaway success in sharing simple, small photos.

Redmi Note 4 Camera Performance

This is a review by our moderator Bingo.The 13 MP camera with BSI CMOS sensor captures the picture with more light compared to its early version. Due to the more light it catches every image with rich details and in vibrant colors. The camera covers every minor details on this image, Thanks to the 1.12-micron pixels. HDR mode works perfectly to give beautiiful pictures. Overall the performance of Redmi Note 4 is much better than Redmi Note 3 for obvious reasons. Rear Camera also allows you to take HD and FHD videos, you can even take Time Lapse and Slow Motion videos in HD mode.The 5 MP front selfie camera will make you change your profile picture time to time with its Smart and Pro Beautify profiles. The front camera has f/2.0 aperture for better photos.

One of the click I took as an explorer