The actual wording used in all of Sony’s marketing, and all of the reviews is “effective megapixels”. That’s not the same as megapixels. If it were they would not use the word ‘effective’.
What I believe it really means, is that the sensor is a 12MP sensor (my bad, I originally wrote 20MP) and which uses algorithms - digital enhancement - to increase that by 4 to 48 effective MP (under each square of the the Quad-Bayer Filter there are 4 ‘sub-pixels’).
All mobile phone cameras must use algorithms to process their images to the JPG output that you see on your screen, otherwise they’d be really bad. This is for simple physical reasons, including, but not limited to, the amount of light falling on the very small sensor (compare that to the light that falls on a much larger DSLR sensor through a vastly larger lens) and the ‘cross-contamination’ caused by such very small pixels being crammed so close together to make the small sensor.
Don’t get me wrong, you can take a good photo on a mobile phone with good light and with proper processing of the RAW image, and this is a good mobile phone sensor. But in this case the RAW (i.e. unprocessed by an algorithm) image is indeed 12MP. The processed JPG files produced by the built-in app are enhanced to 48MP.
I so agree! The marketing is, well, interesting (and a little confusing!) but I really just want to take good photos. If I find out what lenses are used and if there’s a profile for Adobe Lightroom and Adobe Camera RAW I’ll let everyone know.
The issue is that in the FP3 the camera had 48MPs which were tied to a bayer array and could only output 12MPx.
In the FP4 each photosite can be processed separately hence the 48MPs gives 48MPx in selected situations. The output can be much smaller depending on a) user selection and b) what is offered by the software.
Of course I can’t really see any of the real detail, this is all hearsay.
Having each photosite accessible was a great move… Instead of relying on the camera itself to process data from the photosites, it can now be offloaded to the phone and done in software
I guess this explains why the night photo in the FP4 gallery thread looks pretty good, although I’m sure gcam can unlock some more of that sensor’s potential
Does it work with stock cam app? I remember from the first reviews that there is work to be done and updates to be provided for the cameras. Was this probably part and was it already fixed?
@Incanus where have you found the RAW option in Open Camera on FP4? Have you experimented with the shutter speed? I can’t believe doesn’t go slower than 1/2.
I have no FP4, my ‘best’ one is a FP3. It was just a question which camera app offers raw shooting in general.
The maximum shutter speed of half a second on the FP4 was mentioned her too:
But I remember another threads with this topic. Maybe I can find it later.
Hi @giammi56. The RAW option can be found by selecting the gear icon in the upper right when you open Open Camera. Choose ‘Photo Settings’ in the list, then 'RAW is the 3rd setting down.
@Phragmites should be the case to ask to the NGCam project to implement such a thing? I sent a message to NGcam cahnnel, maybe I will send another one to the general GCam. It would be pretty interesting creating a fork/XML config for Fairphone btw!
PS. I’ve just realized someone took already initiative
Call me “stupid”: but I have tried to take pictures with the FP4 / OpenCamera / RAW(DNG) settings. And they come out REALLY flat. Tried to import them in Capture One, but could not find any matching camera settings; and ACDSee also was no big help (I was able to get some color by maximizing the saturation - but even then the colors were too muted).
How does one get the colors straight for the DNG-files?
