Samsung has announced it has developed a new ‘dual pixel’ sensor, the ISOCELL Fast 2L9, with improved low-light capability for use in smartphones.
Samsung’s 12-megapixel dual pixel sensor will aim to bring the iPhone 7 Plus Portrait Mode effect to a wider range of camera phones.
The iPhone 7 Plus’s dual lens cameras were able to simulate a background blur effect in Portrait Mode, and we’ve now seen the Google Pixel 2 claim to do this with just a single lens.
The new Samsung ISOCELL Fast 2L9 dual pixel sensor should see this technology trickle down to more phones on the budget end of the market.
“Dual Pixel technology especially allows depth-of-field effect for taking bokeh, or aesthetically out-of-focused photographs, through a traditional single lens camera,” Samsung says.
The way the new Samsung sensor works is that it will determine what your subject is and what’s in the background by measuring the difference in distance from one side of the pixel and the other. The iPhone 7 Plus does measures this difference from each lens.
What’s more, Samsung says because its new dual pixel sensor employs a smaller pixel size, phone makers will be able to design phones without that bump on the back where we commonly see a camera.
However, Samsung says despite the smaller pixel size, the new dual pixel sensor will hold more light information.
And Samsung says that each of the ISOCELL Fast 2L9’s 12 million dual pixels will be capable of focus detection, which should allow a smartphone camera to better track moving subjects or focus on smaller targets.
Via PetaPixel