One of the biggest revolutions in the world of mobile photography came in 2017 with the Google Pixels. From being a manufacturer that was beginning to manufacture its own mobiles, Google managed to become one of the main references in mobile photography, being considered by many to be the best camera in mobile photography ever created.
Although the competition for mobile photography is tighter than ever, the popularity of the Pixels has given Marc Levoy great fame and name, the engineer who led the team that created such a spectacular camera. Marc left his position at Google and now works for Adobe with the goal of creating the best camera app for everyone. After his change of company, he has been interviewed by The Verge and we can learn some interesting details about computational photography.
Marc Levoy explains two very interesting concepts of mobile photography
As the mobile industry has reached a minimum viable power level and practically all the important applications work well on any mobile, mobile photography has become one of the most important aspects, able to determine on several occasions which can be the best mobile of the year based on photographic results.
Sensors of more than 100 megapixels or several cameras are some of the weapons that the leading manufacturers are taking, but at the end of the day it isthe software the one that determines which are the photographs that end up convincing us the most. There are mobiles like the Pixel 4a, which with a single 12 Mpx sensor is capable of taking spectacular photographs.
The megapixel war and what really matters
Regarding the resolution of modern sensors, Marc Levoy does not seem to be particularly convinced that they help to improve the final result of the photographs. For the former Google engineer, the number of megapixels plays a secondary role. The signal-to-noise ratio depends more on the size of the sensor than on the pixels they have.
With the same sensor size, when you increase the pixels you have more information, but less precise, so there is no clear improvement in quality, at least when it comes to processing and treating the information.
The influence of art on mobile photography
Caravaggio, a reference for the Pixel 2’s camera.
Another aspect that they have consulted with Levoy is about the photographic differences between the Pixels, the multiple changes of course of Apple or the sometimes excessive processing of Samsung. Levoy indicates thatIt is not a technological question, but an artistic one.
In dealing with the dynamic range of Google’s camera, Levoy studied how artists interpreted dynamic range, with Caravaggio and his handling of shadows being an influence on the development of the Pixel 2’s camera.
The Assumption of the Virgin, Titian.
He is not the only artist who has had an influence on the Pixel cameras, since during the last year the team had Titian as a reference, showing much lighter shadows.
If you are interested in Marc Levoy we recommend that you listen to the full interview (in English) on The Verge Podcast. I already have it written down to listen to this afternoon, and if you are passionate about computational photography and you do well with the Anglo-Saxon language, you should too.
The entry The two most important lessons in mobile photography from the genius behind the Google camera appears first in The Free Android.
