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Friday, November 1, 2019

Xiaomi CC9 Pro with 108 MP camera - my 3.2 MP Konica Minolta Dimage camera


In this exponential World, things are often complicated – you have mind blowing variations and too much of information – in the end unable to comprehend some simple things … long long ago ! ~ photography was an art, only Masters could excel.  Photo studios were thriving – remember that for my marriage in 1992, 4 roll of photos were taken [ 4 x 36 ! +/-] .. .. some had Yashicas, could take photos and in the lab say ‘ogp’ (only good prints !) – was stumped to read a post this morning of a new Xiaomi phone with 108 MP camera !

About 2 decades ago, I was presented a Minota Dimage digital camera that came with a 3.2 MP !!  ~ it was slightly odd looking, powered by   four AA batteries and stored images on SD/MMC cards. It had a unique LCD monitor and came with a 16MB memory card !!  - it was too precious and I would take it out may be once a month or  .. .. that way digital photography changed the way, photos were taken on rolls – now there would be no caution, besides the greatest advantage of instantaneous look of the photos taken .. .. Digital photography uses cameras containing arrays of electronic photodetectors to capture images focused by a lens, as opposed to an exposure on photographic film. The captured images are digitized and stored as a computer file ready for further digital processing, viewing, electronic publishing, or digital printing. Until the advent of this  technology, photographs were made by exposing light sensitive photographic film and paper, which was processed in liquid chemical solutions to develop and stabilize the image.
                                                        Photo taken with Konica Minolta Dimage

The first consumer digital cameras were marketed in the late 1990s. Professionals gravitated to digital slowly !   some leading Camera / film roll manufacturers went out of business as they failed to change with the tides.  At the dawn of the present century, cell phones started having cameras initially VGA cameras.   Slowly, those mobiles with higher MP cameras were doing brisk business – MPs became the cutting edge !!

A megapixel, often shortened to MP, is equal to 1 million pixels. A pixel is an individual element of a digital image. The number of megapixels determines the resolution of an image, and a digital image with more megapixels has more resolution. A higher resolution is certainly desirable in a digital photograph, as it means the camera uses more pixels to create the image, which should allow for greater accuracy. On a digital camera, the image sensor records the photograph. An image sensor is a computer chip that measures the amount of light that travels through the lens and strikes the chip. 

 The image sensors contain tiny receptors, which are called pixels. Each of these receptors can measure the light that strikes the chip, registering the intensity of the light.
However,  .. .. … ….  Logically a camera with 24 megapixels should yield better image quality than a camera that records 8 megapixels,  not necessarily 3 times and sometimes not always too.  The physical size of the image sensor plays a more significant role in determining the image quality of a particular camera. A larger image sensor in physical size that contains 24 MP will have larger individual light receptors on it, while a small image sensor in physical size that contains 30MP will have very small individual light receptors.  

A larger light receptor, or pixel, will be able to more accurately measure the light entering the lens from the scene than a smaller light receptor. Because of the inaccuracies in measuring light with a small pixel, you will end up with more errors in measurements, resulting in "noise" in the image. Noise in photo jargon  are pixels that don't appear to be the correct colour in the photograph.  A high number of megapixels matters most when zooming in or cropping a photo. For example, some phones let users "zoom in" without losing quality, without an optical zoom lens. They do this by simply cropping an 4-megapixel photo from the centre of the original 24-megapixel image captured by the camera.  Photos with more megapixels are larger in file size, and therefore can take longer to transfer or send, and take up more storage space.  To adjust this, most equipments [camera and mobile phones] have the option of taking photos at lower resolution, if so desired. 

Moving away, Xiaomi introduced the Mi CC9 series some months ago. So far the company has launched two smartphones under the series - Mi CC9 and Mi CC9e. On Monday, the company officially confirmed to launch another smartphone under the Mi Cc9 series called the Mi CC9 Pro. Xiaomi took to Weibo -- the Chinese microblogging site -- to announce the launch timeline of the Mi CC9 Pro. The company has officially confirmed that the Mi CC9 Pro will launch on November 5 in Beijing.  Alongside confirming the launch date of the Mi CC9 Pro the company also revealed the key highlight of the smartphone. Xiaomi revealed that the Mi CC9 Pro will come with 108MP main rear camera. This is the first Xiaomi phone to use 108MP camera sensor. The Mi CC9 Pro will likely use the Samsung 108MP camera sensor as that is the only one available right now.

The post also offers a loser look at the Mi CC9 Pro's rear camera setup. It reveals that the Mi CC9 will come with five cameras on the back panel where the primary camera will use 108MP image sensor. The smartphone will also offer 5X optical zoom. In the same post Xiaomi said that on November 5 the company will launch a new watch and also a TV alongside the Mi CC9 Pro.  Rumours and leaks suggest that the Mi CC9 Pro will come with a 4000mAh with 20W+ charging support inside the box.

Xiaomi is yet to confirm the official price of the Mi CC9 Pro but rumours suggest that the smartphone will be priced around 2599 Yuan that roughly translates to Rs 26,000.

Interesting !

With regards – S. Sampathkumar
29th Oct 2019.


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