More banal than this axiom is only the explanation "the iPhone, it turns out, does not have a slot for a memory card." But beginners continue to make mistakes when they "peck" on the number of megapixels in the camera, which means they will have to repeat themselves.

Imagine a window - an ordinary window in a residential building or apartment. The number of megapixels is, roughly speaking, the number of glasses inside the window frame. If we continue to draw parallels with smartphones, in ancient times, glass for windows was the same size and was considered a scarce commodity. Therefore, when the conditional "Tolyan" said that he had 5 glasses (megapixels) in his window unit, everyone understood that Anatoly was a serious and wealthy person. And the characteristics of the window were also immediately clear - a good view to the outside of the house, a large glazing area.

A few years later, windows (megapixels) were no longer in short supply, so their number only needed to be brought to the required level, and then calm down. Just bring it into line with the area (window for ventilation and a loggia, for the sake of strength, require a different number of windows) so that the camera gives out a slightly denser picture than 4K monitors and TVs give out. And finally, to deal with other characteristics - for example, to deal with clouding of glasses and image distortion. Teach cameras how to properly focus and paint the available megapixels with high quality, if you want specifics.

There are more “megapixels” on the right, but they give nothing but “obstacles” with the same “sensor” area

But people are already used to measuring the quality of cameras in megapixels, and sellers gladly indulged this. Therefore, the circus with a huge number of glasses (megapixels) in the same size frame (the size of the camera matrix) continued. As a result, today the pixels in smartphone cameras, although not “filled” with the density of a mosquito net, but the “devitrification” has become too dense, and more than 15 megapixels in smartphones almost always spoil rather than improve photos. This has never happened before, and here again it turned out that it is not the size that matters, but the skill.

At the same time, as you understand, the "evil" is not the megapixels themselves - if tons of megapixels were spread out on a sufficiently large camera, they would benefit the smartphone. When the camera is able to unleash the potential of all the megapixels on board, and not “smear” them in bulk when shooting, the photo can be enlarged, cropped, and it will remain high-quality. That is, no one will understand that this is just a fragment of a larger picture. But now such miracles are found only in the “correct” SLR and mirrorless cameras, in which the matrix alone (a microcircuit with photo sensors, on which a picture arrives through the “glasses” of the camera) is much larger than the smartphone camera assembly.

"Evil" is a tradition of sticking a clip of megapixels into tiny cell phone cameras. This tradition has brought nothing but blurred pictures and an excess of digital noise (“peas” in the frame).

Sony piled on 23 megapixels where competitors put 12-15 megapixels, and paid for this with a decrease in picture clarity. (photo - manilashaker.com)

For reference: in the best camera phones of 2017, the main rear cameras (not to be confused with the b/w additional ones) all operate with “pathetic” 12-13 megapixels as one. In photo resolution, this is approximately 4032x3024 pixels - enough for a Full HD (1920x1080) monitor, and for 4K (3840x2160) too, albeit back to back. Roughly speaking, if the smartphone camera has more than 10 megapixels, their number is no longer important. Other things are important.

How to determine that the camera is of high quality, before looking at the photos and videos from it

Aperture - how wide the smartphone "opened its eyes"

The squirrel feeds on nuts, the deputies feed on the money of the people, and the cameras feed on light. The more light, the better the photo quality and more details. Only sunny weather and studio-style bright lighting lamps for any occasion of life can not be enough. Therefore, for good photos indoors, or outdoors in cloudy weather / at night, cameras are designed in such a way that they produce a lot of light even in adverse conditions.

The easiest way to get more light to hit the camera sensor is to make the hole in the lens larger. The indicator of how wide the “eyes” of the camera are opened is called aperture, aperture, or aperture ratio - this is the same parameter. And the words are different so that the reviewers in the articles can show off incomprehensible terms for as long as possible. Because, if you don’t show off, the aperture can simply be called, excuse me, a “hole”, as is customary among photographers.

Aperture is indicated by a fraction with the letter f, a slash and a number (or with a capital F and no fraction: for example, F2.2). Why

so - a long story, and that's not the point, as Rotaru sings. The bottom line is this: the smaller the number after the letter F and the slash, the better the camera in the smartphone. For example, f / 2.2 in smartphones is good, but f / 1.9 is better! The wider the aperture, the more light enters the matrix and the better the smartphone “sees” (takes better photos and videos) at night. As a bonus, the wide aperture comes with beautiful background blur when you're photographing flowers up close, even if your phone doesn't have a dual camera.

Melania Trump explains what different apertures look like in smartphone cameras

Before buying a smartphone, do not be too lazy to clarify how “seeing” the rear camera is in it. We looked after the Samsung Galaxy J3 2017 - drive in the search "Galaxy J3 2017 aperture", "Galaxy J3 2017 aperture" or "Galaxy J3 2017 aperture" to find out the exact figure. If nothing is known about the aperture in the smartphone that you have looked at for yourself, two options are possible:

• The camera is so bad that the manufacturer decided to keep silent about its characteristics. Approximately the same rudeness marketers are engaged in when, in response to “what processor is in the smartphone?” they answer “quad-core” and evade in every possible way so as not to disclose a specific model.
• The smartphone has just appeared on sale and no characteristics, except for those in the advertising announcement, have yet been “delivered” on it. Wait a couple of weeks - usually during this time the details come out.

What should be the aperture in the camera of a new smartphone?

In 2017-2018 even in a budget model, the rear camera should produce at least f / 2.2. If the number in the denominator of this fraction is greater, get ready for the fact that the camera will see the picture as if in darkened glasses. And in the evening and at night, she will be “blind-sighted” and will be able to see almost nothing even at a distance of several meters from the smartphone. And don’t rely on the “twists” of brightness - in a smartphone with f / 2.4 or f / 2.6, an evening photo with a programmatically “tightened” exposure will turn out to be “rough smudge”, while a camera with f / 2.2 or f / 2.0 will take a better photo without tricks.

The wider the aperture, the higher the quality of shooting on a smartphone camera

The coolest smartphones today have cameras with f/1.8, f/1.7 or even f/1.6 apertures. The aperture itself does not guarantee the maximum quality of pictures (no one has canceled the quality of the sensor and “glasses”) - this, I will quote the photographers, is just a “hole” through which the camera looks at the world. But other things being equal, it is better to choose smartphones in which the camera does not “squint”, but receives an image with wide-open “eyes”.

Diagonal of the matrix (sensor): the more - the better

The matrix in a smartphone is not the matrix where people with complex faces in black raincoats dodge bullets. In mobile phones, this word means a photocell ... in other words, a plate onto which a picture flies through the “glasses” of optics. In old cameras, the picture arrived on film and was stored there, and the matrix instead accumulates information about the photograph and sends it to the smartphone's processor. The processor arranges all this into the final photo and stores the files in internal memory, or on microSD.

The only thing you need to know about the matrix is ​​that it should be as large as possible. If the optics is a water hose, and the diaphragm is the neck of the container, then the matrix is ​​​​the very reservoir for water, which is never enough.

It is customary to measure the dimensions of the matrix in inhuman, from the bell tower of ordinary buyers, vidicon inches. One such inch is equal to 17 mm, but the cameras in smartphones have not yet reached such dimensions, so the matrix diagonal is denoted by a fraction, as in the case of the aperture. The smaller the second digit in the fraction (divisor), the larger the matrix -> the cooler the camera.

Is it clear that nothing is clear? Then just remember these numbers:

A budget smartphone will take good pictures if the matrix size in it is at least 1/3 "with a camera resolution of no higher than 12 megapixels. More megapixels - lower quality in practice. And if there are less than ten megapixels, the photo will be on good large monitors and TVs look loose, simply because they have fewer dots than the height-width of your monitor screen.

In mid-range smartphones, a good matrix size is 1/2.9” or 1/2.8”. Find a larger one (1/2.6” or 1/2.5”, for example) - consider yourself very lucky. In flagship smartphones, a good tone is a matrix of at least 1/2.8”, and preferably 1/2.5”.

Smartphones with large sensors shoot better than models with small photocells

Is it even tougher? It happens - look at 1/2.3” in the Sony Xperia XZ Premium and XZ1. Why, then, these smartphones do not set records for photo quality? Because the “automation” of the camera is constantly mistaken with the selection of settings for shooting, and the stock of “clarity and vigilance” of the camera is spoiled by the number of megapixels - in these models they piled 19 instead of the standard 12-13 megapixels for new flagships, and a fly in the ointment crossed out the advantages of a huge matrix.

Are there smartphones in nature with a good camera and less harsh characteristics? Yes - take a look at the Apple iPhone 7 with its 1/3" at 12 megapixels. On the Honor 8, which is enough 1/2.9" with the same number of megapixels. Magic? No - just good optics and perfectly "licked" automation, which takes into account the potential of the camera as well as tailored trousers take into account the amount of cellulite on the thighs.

But there is a problem - manufacturers almost never indicate the size of the sensor in the specifications, because these are not megapixels, and you can be embarrassed if the sensor is cheap. And in reviews or descriptions of smartphones in online stores, such camera characteristics are even less common. Even if you have chosen a smartphone with an adequate number of megapixels and a promising aperture value, there is a chance you will never know the size of the rear sensor. In this case, pay attention to the last characteristic of smartphone cameras, which directly affects the quality.

Few large pixels are better than many small ones.

Imagine a sandwich with red caviar, or take a look at it if you don’t remember well what such delicacies look like. Just as eggs in a sandwich are distributed over a piece of loaf, the area of ​​​​the camera sensor (camera matrix) in a smartphone is occupied by light-sensitive elements - pixels. These pixels in smartphones, to put it mildly, are not a dozen, or even a dozen. One megapixel is 1 million pixels, in typical cameras of smartphones produced in 2015-2017, there are 12-20 such megapixels.

As we have already figured out, containing an excessive number of "blanks" on the smartphone's matrix is ​​detrimental to pictures. The effectiveness of such a pandemonium comes out like that of specialized detachments of people to replace a light bulb. Therefore, it is better to observe a smaller number of smart pixels in a camera than a large number of stupid ones. The larger each of the pixels in the camera, the less “dirty” the photos turn out, and the video becomes less “jumpy”.

Large pixels in the camera (photo below) make evening and night shots better

An ideal smartphone camera consists of a large "foundation" (matrix / sensor) with large pixels on it. Only now no one is going to make smartphones thicker or allocate half of the case at the back for the camera. Therefore, the "building" will be such that the camera does not stick out of the body and does not take up much space, the megapixels are large, even if there are only 12-13 of them, and the matrix is ​​as large as possible to accommodate them all.

The pixel size in a camera is measured in micrometers and is denoted as micron in Russian or mm in Latin. Before you buy a smartphone, make sure that the pixels in it are large enough - this is an indirect sign that the camera is shooting well. Type in the search, for example, "Xiaomi Mi 5S µm" or "Xiaomi Mi 5S µm" - and enjoy the camera characteristics of the smartphone that you have noticed. Or upset - depends on the numbers that you see as a result.

How big should a pixel be in a good camera phone?

In the “newest” time, it was especially famous for its pixel sizes ... Google Pixel is a smartphone that was released in 2016 and “showed Kuzkin’s mother” to competitors due to the combination of a huge (1 / 2.3”) matrix and very large pixels of the order of 1.55 microns. With such a set, he almost always produced the most detailed photographs even in cloudy weather or at night.

Why don't manufacturers "cut" the megapixels in the camera to a minimum and place a minimum of pixels on the matrix? There has already been such an experiment - HTC in the flagship One M8 (2014) made the pixels so huge that they fit in the rear camera ... four on a 1/3 ”matrix! Thus, One M8 received pixels as large as 2 microns! As a result, in terms of the quality of images in the dark, the smartphone “broke” almost all competitors. Yes, and photos in a resolution of 2688 × 1520 pixels were enough for Full HD monitors of that time. But the HTC camera did not become an all-round champion, because the Taiwanese were let down by HTC's color accuracy and "stupid" shooting algorithms that did not know how to "correctly prepare" settings for a sensor with unusual potential.

Today, all manufacturers have gone berserk in the race for the largest possible pixels, therefore:

• In good budget camera phones, the pixel size should be 1.22 microns or more.
• In flagships, pixels ranging in size from 1.25 microns to 1.4 or 1.5 microns are considered good form. More is better.

There are few smartphones with a good camera and relatively small pixels, but they exist in nature. This, of course, is the Apple iPhone 7 with its 1.22 microns and OnePlus 5 with 1.12 microns - they “leave” due to very high-quality sensors, very good optics and “smart” automation.

Without these terms, small pixels ruin photo quality in flagship smartphones. For example, in the LG G6, the algorithms create lewdness when shooting at night, and the sensor, although ennobled with good “glasses”, is itself cheap. AT

as a result, 1.12 microns always spoil night shots, except when you enter the battle with “manual mode” instead of stupid automation and correct its flaws yourself. The same picture prevails when shooting with the Sony Xperia XZ Premium or XZ1. And in the masterpiece, “on paper”, the Xiaomi Mi 5S camera, the lack of optical stabilization and the same “crooked hands” of the algorithm developers prevent it from competing with the flagships of the iPhone and Samsung, which is why the smartphone copes well with shooting only during the day, and at night it is no longer very impressive.

In order to make it clear how much to weigh in grams, take a look at the characteristics of the cameras in some of the best camera phones of our time.

What type of autofocus is the best

Autofocus is when a mobile phone “focuses” on its own while taking photos and videos. It is needed in order not to twist the settings “for every sneeze”, like a gunner in a tank.

In older smartphones and in modern Chinese "state employees", manufacturers use contrast autofocus. This is the most primitive way of focusing, which focuses on how light or dark it is “straight ahead” in front of the camera, like a half-blind person. That is why it takes about a couple of seconds for cheap smartphones to focus, during which it is easy to “miss” a moving object, or not want to shoot what they were going to, because “the train has left”.

Phase autofocus “catches light” over the entire area of ​​the camera sensor, calculates at what angle the rays enter the camera and draws conclusions about what is in front of the smartphone’s nose or a little further. Due to its "intelligence" and calculations, it works very quickly during the day and does not annoy anything at all. It is common in all modern smartphones, except for the very budget ones. The only drawback is the work at night, when the light enters the narrow hole in the aperture of the mobile phone in such small portions that the smartphone “tears the roof” and it constantly fidgets with focus due to a sharp change in information.

Laser autofocus - the most chic! Laser rangefinders have always been used to "throw" a beam over a long distance and calculate the distance for an object. LG in the smartphone G3 (2014) taught such a "scan" to help the camera quickly focus.

Laser autofocus is amazingly fast even indoors or in semi-darkness

Take a look at your wristwatch... well, what am I talking about... okay, turn on the stopwatch on your smartphone and appreciate how fast one second goes by. And now mentally divide it by 3.5 - in 0.276 seconds, the smartphone receives information about the distance to the subject and reports this to the camera. And it does not lose speed either at night or in bad weather. If you plan to shoot photos and videos up close or at a short distance in low light, a smartphone with laser autofocus will help you out a lot.

But keep in mind that mobile phones are not Star Wars guns, so the range of the laser in the camera barely exceeds a couple of meters. Everything that is further, the mobile phone considers with the help of the same phase detection autofocus. In other words, to shoot objects from afar, it is not necessary to look for a smartphone with “laser guidance” in the camera - you will not get any use from such a function in general terms for photos and videos.

Optical stabilization. Why is it needed and how does it work

Have you ever driven a car with a leaf spring suspension? On army UAZ vehicles, for example, or an ambulance with the same design? In addition to the fact that in such cars you can “beat off the fifth point”, they are incredibly shaking - the suspension is as rigid as possible so as not to fall apart on the roads, and therefore it tells passengers everything that they think about the road surface, frankly and not a “spring” (because that there is nothing to spring).

Now you know how a smartphone camera without optical stabilization feels when you are trying to take a photo.

The problem with shooting on a smartphone is this:

• The camera needs a lot of light to take good pictures. Not the direct rays of the sun in the "face", but diffused, ubiquitous light around.
• The longer the camera "views" the image during the photo, the more light it snatches = the higher the quality of the picture.
• At the time of shooting and these “peepers” of the camera, the smartphone must be motionless so that the picture is not “smeared”. Leave at least a fraction of a millimeter - the frame will be spoiled.

And human hands are shaking. This is very noticeable if you raise your arms outstretched and try to hold the bar, and less noticeable when you hold a mobile phone in front of you to take a photo or video. The difference is that the bar can “float” in your hands within wide limits - just not to put it against the wall, a neighbor, or drop it on your feet. And the smartphone needs to have time to "grab" the light in order for the photo to come out well, and do it before it deviates by a fraction of a millimeter in your hands.

Therefore, the algorithms try to please the camera and not put forward increased requirements for your hands. That is, they tell the camera, for example, “so, 1/250 of a second you can shoot, this is enough for the photo to be more or less successful, and taking a picture before the camera moves to the side is also enough.” This thing is called endurance.

How optical stabilization works

What's with the optostab? So after all, he is that “shock absorption” with which the camera does not shake, like the body of army trucks, but “floats” within small boundaries. In the case of smartphones, it does not float in water, but is held by magnets and “fidgets” at a short distance from them.

That is, if the smartphone “leaves” a little or trembles during shooting, the camera will shake much weaker. With such insurance, the smartphone will be able to:

• Increase shutter speed (guaranteed time "to see the picture before the photo is ready") for the camera. The camera receives more light, sees more image details = the quality of the photo during the day is even higher.
• Take clear pictures on the move. Not while sprinting off-road, but while walking or out of the window of a shaking bus, for example.
• Compensate for shaky video. Even if you stomp your feet very sharply or sway a little under the weight of the bag in your second hand, this will not be as noticeable on the video as in smartphones without optical stabilizer.

Therefore, the optostab (OIS, as it is called in English) is an extremely useful thing in a smartphone camera. It’s also possible without it, but it’s sad - the camera must be of high quality “with a margin”, and the automation will have to shorten (degrade) the shutter speed, because there is no insurance against shaking in the smartphone. When shooting a video, you have to “move” the picture on the fly so that the jitter is not visible. This is akin to how in old movies they imitated the speed of a moving car, when it actually stood still. With the difference that in films these scenes were shot in one take, and smartphones have to calculate the shaking and deal with it on the fly.

Smartphones with a good camera, which without stabilization shoots no worse than competitors with stabilization, are vanishingly few - for example, the Apple iPhone 6s, the first generation of Google Pixel, OnePlus 5, Xiaomi Mi 5s and, with some stretch, Honor 8 / Honor 9.

What not to pay attention to

• Flash. Useful only when shooting in pitch darkness, when you need to take a photo at any cost. As a result, you observe the pale faces of people in the frame (and all of them, because the flash is low-power), eyes closed from bright light, or a very strange color of buildings / trees - photographs with a smartphone flash definitely do not carry artistic value. In the role of a flashlight, the LED near the camera is much more useful.
• Number of lenses in the camera. “Before, when I had 5 Mbps Internet, I wrote an essay in a day, and now, when I have 100 Mbps, I write it in 4 seconds.” No, guys, that's not how it works. It doesn’t matter how many lenses a smartphone has, it doesn’t matter who made them (Carl Zeiss, judging by the quality of Nokia’s new cameras, too). Lenses are either high-quality or not, and you can only check this with real photos.

The quality of the "glasses" (lenses) affects the quality of the camera. Quantity is not

• Shooting in RAW. If you do not know what RAW is, I explain:

JPEG is the standard format in which smartphones record photos, this is a "ready-to-use" picture. Like Olivier salad on a festive table - it is possible to disassemble it “into components” in order to remake it into another salad, but it will not work out very well.

RAW is a hefty file on a "flash drive" in which all options for brightness, clarity and color for a photograph are sewn in its pure form, in separate "lines". That is, the photo will not be “covered with small dots” (digital noise) if you decide to make it not as dark as it turned out in JPEG, but a little brighter, as if you had correctly set the brightness at the time of shooting.

In short, RAW allows you to "photoshop" a frame much more conveniently than JPEG. But the catch is that flagship smartphones almost always select the settings correctly, therefore, apart from the memory of the smartphone polluted by “heavy” photos in RAW, there will be little use from “photoshop” files. And in cheap smartphones, the camera quality is so bad that you will see poor quality in JPEG, and just as bad source in RAW. Don't bother.

• Camera sensor name. Once upon a time, they were super important because they were the “quality mark” of a camera. The sensor model (module) of the camera determines the size of the matrix, the number of megapixels and the pixel size, minor "family signs" of shooting algorithms.

Of the “big three” manufacturers of camera modules for smartphones, Sony produces the highest quality modules (we don’t take into account individual examples, we are talking about the average temperature in a hospital), followed by Samsung (Samsung sensors in Samsung Galaxy smartphones are even better than the coolest Sony sensors, but "on the side" the Koreans sell something awkward), and, finally, closes the list of OmniVision, which releases "consumer goods, but tolerable." Intolerant consumer goods are produced by all the other basement Chinese offices, whose names in the characteristics of smartphones are ashamed to mention even the manufacturers themselves.

8 - execution option. Do you know how it happens in cars? The minimum equipment with a "cloth" on the seats and a "wooden" interior, the maximum - with artificial suede seats and a leather dashboard. For buyers, the difference in this figure means little.

Why, after all this, should we not pay attention to the sensor model? Because things are the same with them as with megapixels - Chinese "alternatively gifted" manufacturers are actively buying expensive Sony sensors, trumpeting at every corner "our smartphone has a super-quality camera!" ... and the camera is disgusting at the same time.

Because the “glasses” (lenses) in such mobile phones are of terrible quality and transmit light a little better than a plastic soda bottle. Due to the same bastard “glasses”, the camera aperture is far from ideal (f / 2.2 or even higher), and no one is engaged in setting up the sensor so that the camera correctly selects colors, works well with the processor and does not disfigure the pictures. Here is a clear example of the fact that the sensor model has little effect on anything:

As you can see, smartphones with the same camera sensor can shoot in completely different ways. So don't think that a cheap Moto G5 Plus with an IMX362 module will shoot as well as the HTC U11 does with its amazingly cool camera.

Even more annoying is the “noodles on the ears” that Xiaomi hangs on the ears of buyers when it says that “the camera in the Mi Max 2 is very similar to the camera in the flagship Mi 6 - they have the same IMX386 sensors! They are the same, only smartphones shoot very differently, the aperture (and hence the ability to shoot in low light) is different in them, and Mi Max 2 cannot compete with the flagship Mi6.

1. An additional camera "helps" to take photos at night of the main one and can shoot b/w photos. The most famous smartphones with such camera implementations are Huawei P9, Honor 8, Honor 9, Huawei P10.
2. The secondary camera allows you to "shove the unpushed", that is, it takes pictures with an almost panoramic viewing angle. The only supporter of this type of camera was and remains LG - starting with the LG G5, continuing with the V20, G6, X Cam and now the V30.
3. Two cameras are needed for optical zoom (zoom without loss of quality). Most often, this effect is achieved by the simultaneous operation of two cameras at once (Apple iPhone 7 Plus, Samsung Galaxy Note 8), although there are models that, when zoomed in, simply switch to a separate “long-range” camera - ASUS ZenFone 3 Zoom, for example.

How to choose a high-quality selfie camera in a smartphone?

Best of all - based on examples of real photos. And, both during the day and at night. During the day, almost all selfie cameras produce good photos, but only high-quality front cameras are able to shoot something legible in the dark.

It is not necessary to study the vocabulary of photographers and go deep into what this or that characteristic is responsible for - you can simply memorize the numbers “so much is good, but if the number is larger, it’s bad” and pick up a smartphone much faster. For clarification of terms, welcome to the beginning of the article, and here we will try to derive a formula for a high-quality camera in smartphones.

I do not want to understand the characteristics! Which smartphone to buy with good cameras?

Manufacturers produce countless smartphones, but among them there are very few models that can take good pictures and shoot videos.

13 Mar 2018

phone camera aperture. What is it?

The characteristics of modern smartphones often indicate such a parameter as the "aperture" of the camera. And if earlier buyers paid attention mainly to the number of megapixels of the matrix, today the selection process is influenced by a combination of parameters, including the shutter speed range and sensitivity (ISO).

What is aperture

Aperture is the physical size of the opening through which light enters the objective lens. That is, how much light hits the matrix at the time of shooting depends on the aperture, which directly affects the clarity of the image. The wider the aperture, the more light, so this option is very important when shooting in poorly lit places.

The aperture is measured in f-stops, the value is indicated in the camera specifications as a fractional number, for example, f / 1.4 or f / 2.8. The smaller the number, the greater the degree of aperture expansion (larger aperture), which has a positive effect on the quality of photographs. For example, the iPhone 6S has an aperture of f/2.2, while the Samsung Galaxy S7 has an aperture of f/1.7 (wide-angle lens). Therefore, under equal shooting conditions, the Samsung camera will let more light into the matrix.

How Aperture Affects Photo Quality

In the process of shooting, it is necessary to take into account all the main parameters of the smartphone's digital camera. If the camera has a wide aperture, you can change the settings to increase the shutter speed and decrease the ISO value for shooting in bright conditions.

If the smartphone has an aperture value of f / 2.2 (the standard for models in the middle price segment), then when shooting in poorly lit places, the ISO parameter must be increased.

Large aperture cameras are the best choice for those who often shoot indoors, the flagship models of manufacturers are usually equipped with cameras with f / 1.8 or f / 2.0 apertures, which allows you to get high-quality images. And in recent years, smartphones with two cameras are gaining popularity. So, in the iPhone 7s, one camera has an aperture of f / 1.8, and the second - f / 2.8. This combination allows you to automatically get excellent photos, regardless of the level of illumination and other factors.

The aperture of a camera is one of three factors that affect exposure. Therefore, understanding the action of the aperture is a prerequisite in order to take deep and expressive, correctly exposed photographs. There are both positives and negatives to using different apertures, and this tutorial will teach you what they are and when to use which.

Step 1 - What is a camera aperture?

The best way to understand what a diaphragm is is to think of it as the pupil of the eye. The wider the pupil is open, the more light enters the retina.

Exposure consists of three parameters: aperture, shutter speed and ISO. The aperture diameter regulates the amount of light entering the matrix, depending on the situation. There are various creative uses for the aperture, but when it comes to light, it's important to remember that wider apertures let in more light, and narrower apertures less.

Step 2 - How is aperture determined and changed?

Aperture is determined using the so-called aperture scale. On the display of your camera, you can see the F/number. The number means how wide the aperture is, which in turn determines the exposure and depth of field. The lower the number, the wider the hole. This can cause confusion at first - why does a small number correspond to a large aperture? The answer is simple and lies in the plane of mathematics, but first you must know what the f-series or standard f-stop scale is.

Diaphragm row:f/1.4f/2,f/2.8f/4,f/5.6f/8,f/11,f/16f/22

The main thing you need to know about these numbers is that there is one exposure step between these values, that is, when moving from a smaller value to a larger one, half the light will enter the lens. In modern cameras, there are also intermediate aperture values ​​that allow you to more accurately adjust the exposure. The tuning step in this case is ½ or 1/3 steps. For example, between f/2.8 and f/4 there will be f/3.2 and f/3.5.

Now for more complex things. More precisely, why the amount of light between the main aperture values ​​\u200b\u200bis two times different.

It comes from mathematical formulas. For example, we have a 50mm lens with an aperture of 2. To find the diameter of the aperture, we have to divide 50 by 2 to get 25mm. The radius will be 12.5 mm. The formula for the area is S=Pi x R 2 .

Here are some examples:

50mm lens with f/2 = 25mm. The radius is 12.5 mm. The area according to the formula is 490 mm 2. Now let's calculate for f / 2.8 aperture. The diaphragm diameter is 17.9 mm, the radius is 8.95 mm, the hole area is 251.6 mm 2 .

Dividing 490 by 251 is not exactly two, but that's only because f-numbers are rounded to the first decimal place. In fact, the equality will be exact.

This is how the ratios of the diaphragm openings really look.

Step 3 - How Does Aperture Affect Exposure?

As the aperture size changes, the exposure also changes. The wider the aperture, the more strongly the matrix is ​​exposed, the brighter the image is obtained. The best way to demonstrate this is to show a series of photographs where only the aperture changes and the rest of the parameters remain unchanged.

All images below were taken at ISO 200, shutter speed 1/400 sec, no flash, and only the aperture was changed. Aperture values: f/2, f/2.8, f/4, f/5.6, f/8, f/11, f/16, f/22.

However, the main property of the aperture is not exposure control, but a change in the depth of field.

Step 4 - Depth of field effect

Depth of field is a vast topic in itself. To open it, you need several dozen pages, but now we will consider it very briefly. We are talking about the distance that will be transmitted sharply in front and behind the subject.

All you really need to know, in terms of the relationship between aperture and depth of field, is that the wider the aperture (f/1.4) the shallower the depth of field, and the narrower the aperture (f/22) the greater the field of field. Before I show you a selection of photos taken with different apertures, take a look at the chart below. It helps to understand why this is happening. If you do not understand exactly how it works, it's okay, as long as it is important for you to know about the effect itself.

The image below shows a photo taken at f/1.4. It has a pronounced DOF effect (Depth of Field)

Finally, a selection of photos taken in aperture priority, so the exposure remains constant, and only the aperture changes. The aperture row is the same as in the previous slide show. Notice how the depth of field changes as you change the aperture.

Step 5 - How to use different apertures?

First of all, remember that there are no rules in photography, there are guidelines, including when it comes to choosing an aperture. It all depends on whether you want to apply an artistic technique or capture the scene as accurately as possible. To make it easier to make a decision, here are some of the most traditionally used aperture values.

f/1.4: Excellent for shooting in low light, but be careful, this setting has very little depth of field. Best used for small objects or to create a soft focus effect.

f/2: The use is the same, but a lens with this aperture may cost one third of a lens with aperture 1.4

f/2.8: Also good for low light conditions. It is best used for portraits, as the depth of field is greater and the entire face will be included, not just the eyes. Good zoom lenses usually have this aperture value.

f/4: This is the minimum aperture used to take a picture of a person in sufficient light. Aperture can limit autofocus performance, so you risk missing wide open.

f/5.6: Good for 2 person photography, but for low light it is better to use flash light.

f/8: Used for large groups as it guarantees sufficient depth of field.

f/11: At this setting, most lenses are at their sharpest, so it's good for portraits.

f/16: Good value when shooting in bright sunlight. Great depth of field.

f/22: Suitable for shooting landscapes where attention to detail in the foreground is not required.

Aperture - in the parameters of smartphone cameras, its value is often indicated. Let's figure out why a good aperture is important, and which aperture is better - f 2.2 or f 1.8.

Camera aperture - what is it all about? And why is this value indicated after the number of pixels in the smartphone's photomatrix? Do not know? Let's figure it out, along the way, finding out which of the apertures is better.

What is aperture?

Simply put, the aperture is the pupil. Light travels through the cornea (lens), passes through the pupil (aperture/diaphragm), and enters the optic nerve (photomatrix). Why is there an aperture in this chain? Yes, then, to dose the light radiation. The larger it is (the pupil dilates), the more light will hit the matrix (optic nerve).

Aperture f 2.0 - what does it mean? What is aperture measured in?

From the characteristics of smartphones, it is clear that the aperture is measured in special units - f-numbers. Or, as professional photographers say, in f-stops. Moreover, the size range of the aperture consists of fractional numbers - f / 1.4, f / 2.0 and so on. Sometimes a simplified version of the designation is written in the characteristics - aperture 1.8. However, the exact display of this value requires the following spelling - f / 1.8.

According to the laws of mathematics, the maximum value of the aperture is achieved at the minimum value of the divisor - the numerical coefficient located on the right. That is, an aperture of 2.0 (f / 2.0) implies a greater degree of “expansion” of the pupil-diaphragm than an aperture of 2.2 (f / 2.2). And the larger the number on the right, the smaller the degree of aperture opening.

How does aperture size affect image quality?

A large aperture allows the lens shutters to open to the maximum, letting a very large portion of light into the sensor. A small aperture means that the lens shutters are not fully opened, and let a minimum of light into the matrix.

How does this affect image quality? Yes, in the most direct way! A large aperture in bright light is likely to spoil (light up) the frame. Try to take a photo with the sun behind you and you will see all the consequences of too large an aperture. However, another situation is also possible, when a too small aperture value does not allow the matrix to capture a sufficient portion of light and the picture turns out to be dark.

That is, a good aperture can be neither large nor small. It must match the specific shooting conditions. However, in low light conditions, you need the largest possible aperture in order to capture the maximum light. And you shouldn't forget about it.

Is a small aperture really bad?

Not really. At small apertures - from f 4.0 - f 8.0 and below - there is an interesting opportunity to increase the depth of field of the matrix. The smaller the aperture, the more objects are in the focus of the camera. Therefore, small apertures are loved by all fans of landscape photography and portrait photographers who want to get clear pictures without blurring the contours and other noise.

Finally, choosing between aperture f 2.0 and f 2.2 which can't be said better. The first value guarantees the possibility of improving the quality of the photo in a dark room. The second promises to increase the sharpness of the image.

Choosing a smartphone by camera aperture

The trouble with any camera of any smartphone is the very small physical size of the photomatrix (the optic nerve of a mobile device). Therefore, the standard aperture of the main camera is f 2.0 or f 2.2. No smartphone manufacturer that respects its customers will dare to set a smaller aperture value. In this case, the photos in the rooms will be completely unreadable.

The smartphone also does not need a too large value of the f-number. It is easy to oversaturate a small matrix with light, spoiling the balance of the picture. However, devices with a dual camera and an aperture of f / 1.7 have recently appeared, which is very good for a smartphone with an enlarged photomatrix. The quality of pictures in the room of such smartphones is at an unattainable height.

And what is the aperture of the flagships?

At the moment, the champions in the value of f-numbers are the following smartphones:

For the rest, including the vaunted one, the aperture does not exceed f / 2.2.

This means that the marketers at Samsung are not eating their bread in vain. What have smartphone manufacturers been up to in recent years? They methodically widened the aperture so that more light hit the phone's microscopic sensor. They came to understand that high resolution (16-21 MP) with small pixels (0.9-1.1 microns) performs worse than average resolution (12-13 MP) with larger pixels (1.25-1.4 microns) - at 12-13 megapixels, detail is preserved, but enlarged pixels collect more light. Also, almost all companies have successfully mastered the optical stabilization system, which, in particular, made it possible to set a longer shutter speed so that the matrix has time to capture more light. That is, companies did everything to ensure that the tiny sensor received as much light as possible.

The leading photo flagships of 2017 are f/1.6 (LG V30, Huawei Mate 10), f/1.7 (Samsung Galaxy S8, HTC U11), f/1.8 (iPhone X, Pixel 2). According to the latest rumors, the Galaxy S9 will have a mechanically adjustable aperture with f / 1.5 and f / 2.4. Despite the assumptions, it will not be possible to set intermediate values, that is, the user will have two modes at his disposal - for the day and for the night. A similar solution is used in the Samsung W2018 clamshell, which is sold exclusively in China. Check out the gif:

The fact that smartphone cameras are evolving is certainly encouraging. And I'm glad that Samsung, whose Galaxy flagships are easily in the Top 3 best smartphones for photography, video shooting, has taken on the role of leader in the direction (or is trying to take). However, the joy of the expected jump in photo quality, it seems to me, is premature. Firstly, between f / 1.5 and the current f / 1.7 for the same Galaxy Note 8, there is not such a big difference, given the size of the camera module. And where are the enthusiastic exclamations for the LG V30 camera with f / 1.6? There are none, because the aperture has not radically changed the quality of the photo in comparison with the same G6 (f / 1.8). Secondly, I see very few scenarios where f/2.4 will outperform f/1.5. Nightclubs, house, macro, night landscapes, portraits, shooting moving objects and dynamic scenes? For all these scenes, f / 1.5 is preferable, that is, the rule “the more light (lower shutter speed, lower ISO) - the better” applies.

If you have an iPhone X on hand, you can do a little test - shoot something indoors (or even outdoors) with different cameras (wide and telephoto), trying to build the same focal length. You'd be surprised how much noisier photos from an f/2.4 camera are compared to f/1.8 even in good light.