18 Year Evolutionary History of Mobile Phone Photographing: From 11 Megapixels to AI Join

The phone goes farther and farther along the camera

In 2000, the world’s first mobile phone achieved a camera function. Although the pixels were only poor 110,000, they all tasted like chicken. However, they opened the door for the evolution of mobile phones. In 2018, the camera has become the highlight of mobile phone manufacturers’ innovation competition. , 40MP, Leica, Zeiss, Dual Camera, Zoom, OIS Optical Image Stabilizer... The mobile phone moves further and further along the camera path. It's not a matter of photography.

The 18-year evolution of the mobile phone camera function successfully killed the card camera. The evolutionary history of the camera phone is actually a history of changes in the mobile phone industry. Behind technological advancement is the change of industry, and the destiny of the company's destiny.

Evolution from 110,000 to 40 million pixels

In September 2000, Sharp introduced a mobile phone J-SH04 in Japan, built-in 110,000-pixel CCD camera, becoming the first mobile phone with camera function on the rivers and lakes. This phone has a straight appearance, old-fashioned buttons, and the camera is in the middle of the back. Outside the bulge, like the popular PHS of the past few years, with the current eyes to see 'ugly to burst', at the time did not cause much sensation. But this small step opened up the first mobile phone camera function.

On March 27, 2018, Huawei launched the latest flagship mobile phone, the P20/P20 Pro, in the magnificent Grand Palais in Paris. The powerful camera features are stunning. Even users sigh, this is the mobile phone conference, it is simply a Leica card. The conference.

Among them, the P20 Pro pioneered Leica's three lenses, including a 40 million-pixel color lens, a 20-megapixel black-and-white lens, and an 8 million-pixel telephoto lens. Sensitivity up to IS0 102400, optical zoom lens system + three-photo zoom technology, Up to 5x support mixed zoom. This configuration to catch up with a SLR.

The Huawei P20 series has refreshed the rating height of the authoritative evaluation agency DxOMARK. On the ladder diagram of DxOMARK, the Huawei P20 series took the top two positions, defeating the Samsung S9+, iPhone X. Among them, the P20 scored 107 points in the mobile phone's photo session. The P20 Pro scored 114 points and won the highest score in the history of DxOMARK. On this item, it finally realized the dream of Huawei's mobile headmaster Yu Chengdong's “putting down a competitor's street”.

If camera phones used pixels as the most important measure 18 years ago, today's major mobile phone conferences are full of various camera terms, ISO sensitivity, noise reduction, OIS stabilization, sensors...

The ups and downs of the king behind the ultra-high pixel battle

There are many milestone moments in the history of mobile phone photographing, and there are once one after another in the industry.

The first camera phone that was launched in China was the Nokia 7650. In 2002, Nokia, which was the dominant mobile phone industry, launched the first Symbian smart phone. This was Nokia's first mobile phone with a built-in camera. Although there were only 300,000. Pixels, but people impressed, when the mainstream digital camera but also about 3 million pixels. This phone was very expensive at the time, is the white Fumei exclusive.

"I was still in high school when the phone was born. The magazine saw that the Nokia 7650 was just shocked. I can't believe that the mobile phone can still be a color screen. I can still take pictures. It's just too high technology!" Netizen Xiao Shu recalled. When the black-and-white screen functioned in the world, in the era of two or three thousand dollars in a digital camera, it was an eye-opener for a color-screen mobile phone to take pictures that could be washed.

By 2004, the megapixel camera mobile contest was the hottest technology news at the time. Sony Ericsson was the first to release the world's first GSM megapixel camera phone and became the fuse. Then NEC, Samsung, Siemens, Motorola and Konka, Amoi, The South China High-tech, Haier, Bird, TCL, Datang, Dibit, Lenovo, etc. Chinese and foreign mobile phone manufacturers are all putting together, not lively.

In the following years, the ultra-high pixel shooting mobile warfare escalated, with 2 million, 3 million, and 8 million... High-resolution pixels became the ruler for mobile phone photography. In 2012, it reached its peak. At that time, the Nokia Pureview 808 mobile phone camera pixels reached a perverted state. The 41 million pixels exceeded the SLR's pixel level at that time. However, even if it did not stop the king's weakness, Nokia lost the 'world's first' crown and was overtaken by Samsung.

The second revolution promoted by the iPhone

Today, mobile phone photography has become the standard for mobile phones. Manufacturers are paying more and more attention. When asked, someone asked: 'Why is today's mobile phone more and more inclined to photography?' There's an iPhone's credit.

The first-generation iPhone debuted in 2007 brought a touch screen and eliminated the physical keyboard. It challenged the aesthetics of the public at that time. Its camera was 2 million pixels, and the performance was mediocre. Until the classic iPhone 4 was introduced in 2010, it took the camera to a new level. The back is equipped with a 5-megapixel 1/3.2 inch back-illuminated CMOS sensor, supports 5x digital zoom, 3 kinds of flash settings (auto/on/off). The optimized iOS platform makes it easy to photograph and share. After that, mobile phone manufacturers slowly began to wake up and gradually jumped out of the madness of the pixel index. Actually, the pixel is just a factor that affects the phone's camera. Players will focus more on cameras, sensors, processors and algorithms. The ease of use and interest of mobile phones are taken seriously.

After the apple embarked on prosperous days, each generation of iPhone is a model of a camera phone. Almost all opponents are learning and trying to surpass it.

Also worth mentioning here is HTC's classic phone, the HTC ONE M7. This 2013 best phone is considered a reincarnation of HTC. It is equipped with a 4 million-pixel UltraPixel camera, and the unit of photosensitive area has reached Astonishing 2μm, the night shooting effect is very outstanding. Of course, this sacrifice pixel, the advance approach to increase the amount of light was controversial at that time, especially consumers do not buy it, they would rather buy a 13 million pixel Samsung S4. Subjected to the craftsmanship of the time, this phone did not save the industry leader who was once in the same league as Apple. After experiencing glory from 2007 to 2011, HTC has fallen into cliff-break style since 2013 and is now getting further and further away from mobile phones.

In addition, it is worth mentioning that the OPPO and vivo of the main camera function have risen in this battle. The former's 'before and after 20 million pictures are taken more clearly', and the latter's soft light self-timer, brightens your beauty' is a success. A model of marketing.

AI brings more games to photography

In the industry's view, the first phase of mobile phone photography is the continuous integration of the camera's functions, becoming more and more 'professional'; in the second stage of evolution, the mobile phone has more emphasis on ease of use, sharing and fun, background blur, double Photography, soft light self-timer and other rich features allow photography white has easy to shoot large emboldened. So the future of mobile phones will be like?

Recently, a large wave of flagship mobile phones has entered the arena. Each camera has its own color. From Apple iPhone X, Samsung S9 to Huawei P20, Xiaomi MIX 2S, vivo X21, OPPO R15, each is a photo artifact, all with their own uniqueness. Martial arts and fans. And their common point is to strengthen AI (artificial intelligence).

"Since AI empowers mobile phones, the picture-taking level has been a byword." Xiao Jun, chairman of Xiaomi, lamented that AI is in-depth transformation of mobile phones, bringing more room for imagination. Let's take a look at the AI ​​of these photo artifacts.

Some of them can intelligently detect and identify the subject, and even identify PPT, real-time translation and currency exchange rate calculation; some can intelligently identify more than each scene, and give you the most suitable camera program; some can adjust the size of the post-deposition blurring spot. , Shape, create a fantastic portrait effect; Some can adjust the beauty program according to the user's gender, skin, etc., to avoid 'thousands of people'...

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