“The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on Tuesday granted Apple a patent for a camera system that uses three separate sensors, one for luminance and two for chrominance, to generate images with both higher resolution and color accuracy,” Mikey Campbell reports for AppleInsider.
“Apple’s U.S. Patent No. 8,497,897 for ‘Image capture using luminance and chrominance sensors’ describes a unique multi-sensor camera system that can be used in portable devices like the iPhone,” Campbell reports. “The main thrust of the patent is to combine three separate images generated by one luminance sensor disposed between two chrominance sensors. Each sensor has a ‘lens train,’ or lens assembly, in front of it that directs light toward the sensor surface.”
Campbell reports, “While Apple is unlikely to implement the three-sensor camera tech anytime soon, a future iPhone could theoretically carry such a platform.”
Read more, and see Appel patent application illustrations and diagrams, in the full article here.
iNo this is off topic… BUT Mikey Dell’s buyout plan just hit the proverbial BRICK WALL? Hey Mikey!!!? How do you LIKE IT!!!? Good RIDDANCE!
“Who does the bell toll for?”
“It tolls for thee”
Good-bye consumer camera industry.
The consumer camera industry has already been hit since the introduction of the iPhone. However, it was getting hit anyway. In some ways the iPhone has helped the consumer camera industry.
What’s happened is that the low-end P&S cameras which were low margin products are getting killed.
However, a lot more people are into photography as a result of smartphones and those wanting to do more are looking to buy the higher margin cameras whether they’re super-zoom compacts on up to the DSLRs.
So while smartphones have killed the low-margin low-end consumer camera market, they’ve helped the industry by bringing more people into the higher margin camera market.
Smartphones won’t ever compete with what you can do with a nice chunk of glass and larger sensor.
And now that cameras are working well together with the iPhone and iPad, the only real disadvantage is carrying the extra camera, instead of just wanting to use the iPhone to take the picture because you can edit, and connect to services.
I just bought an Olympus Micro 4/3 camera for underwater photography after a LifeProof case (definite misnomer) failed on my iPhone 4S. Snapshots on an iPhone are great because it’s handy but having a nice 14-42 lens (or other) on a regular camera is so much better.
I still have some very good 35mm SLR’s. Haven’t used them in a long time. Probably five or six years. I guess I should buy a good DSLR but between my iPhone and a decent point-and-shoot digital camera I have gotten lazy. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to just throw them in the trash. Being a techie/mechanical kind of guy I appreciate fine hardware. DSLR’s take fine photographs but I’m not certain that they equal good film? I am convinced that film is still better in the movie industry compared to digital but that seems to be a losing battle. It’s all about the Benjamin’s. It’s not always about quality. I’m involved in this area a lot and quite often the bottom line is the bottom line. That’s a shame. Same goes for sound. Other than a few high-end photographers I wonder if film SLR’s will ever make a comeback? I guess not. That’s a shame too. Digital has made many things convenient, quick and easy. Just not the best.
@GM. Film is great and I still have film SLR’s as well as medium format film cameras. But digital beats them hollow in pretty much every way. The only time I think absolute quality is better from film is the output from exceptional photographers using large format cameras. However, large format cameras cost an absolute bomb to buy, are big and unwieldy to use and film costs are way up there = just not practical.
I have a bunch of old cameras that I can’t let go. My old Mamiya c330 f, twin-lens reflex, has a place of honor in my display case.
It’s now art.
… 35mm SLR, too. Have not even considered using it in years, though. Film is messy, fragile, expensive and just more trouble than it’s worth. That said, I couldn’t live with a P&S for shots I care about. My consumer model goes from wide to tele in a second or two and can take indoor shots without flash (if desired). My grand-kids are flash-averse, but they don’t mind me getting my flash-less shots. And my shots, when “edited” in iPhoto, retain more pixels of data because I started out with a pre-cropped image.
Can’t DO that with a P&S camera.
FWIW: the camera has a number of “features” that I never – EVER – use. Like the “antique” option, or the “frame” option. Get those wrong the first time out and the picture cannot be rescued. There’s free, or low-cost, software than can take care of that in “post” – without ruining the original shot.
Until phone cameras get optical stabilization and optical zoom, and decent flash, dedicated consumer cameras will survive just fine.
Digital stabilization is partly why field of view on iPhone’s video mode is much smaller than photo mode: off-screen pixels can be used to reduce jitter and simulate stability.
Digital zoom… might as well take photo normally and crop out what you don’t want.
LED flash… in low light, currently only works if subject is completely still, and no more than an arm’s length or two away. Only 1/4 of flash photos on my iPhone5 come out acceptably, and that’s only if I’m taking them. If someone else takes them only about 1/10 are worth keeping.
I didn’t even cover macro, manual shutter and other very useful if less-used features… all available in even cheap point-and-shoot cameras.
Apple holds the innovation crown in everything it touches.
I saw a poster advert for a Samsung Galuxy S4 Zoom today on the way home – 10x optical zoom – i.e. basically looked more like a camera than a phone… Went home, looked for reviews of it and they are generally terrible. I am happy that I can see an advert for something from Samsung that looks really good but is apparently awful, and on the same day, see Apple gradually improving their understated product to make it even more perfect – without essentially taping a camera on the back.
Yeah, even with gaffers tape it might be a little unseemly. Clearly the camera on phones is an area ripe for improvement. You can only do so much to improve the quality of phone calls but improving the camera is endless.
…”a future iPhone could theoretically carry such a platform.”
Wow! Really. Who would have thought.
I’d say pretty obvious, since the vast majority of broadcast video cameras use a three chip setup to create a similar result. However I don’t see this appearing in any phone soon. Just because someone has a clever idea, doesn’t make it happen. I’m certain many camera manufacturers have had similar thoughts.
Soon, the Samsuck Gaglaxative will come with this exact technology, and they will claim they “innovate”. Then Apple will spend even more of their money on lawsuits and lawyers. ScamShame is breaking Apple from the inside out.
Sop why does Apple bother? If the new technology is any good, Samedung et al will just copy it anyway as if the patent doesn’t exist.
“Read more, and see Appel patent application …”
Why does MDN keep making that same spelling mistake ? It’s been going on for years.
Developers have found some interesting camera things while poking around in the IOS beta. We may see a camera on the next IPhone that will rock the rest of the smartphone/camera industry back on their heels! Just saying.
Nice.