Samsung’s research team took a photo using the company’s in-house developed, and still experimental, 200MP ISOCELL image sensor. The team then proceeded to print the photo, presumably without subjecting the same to any image compression techniques. The resulting hardcopy turned out to be a huge poster.
The image sensor engineers at Samsung Electronics printed a picture that was taken with Samsung’s 200-Megapixel (MP) mobile image sensor. The printout was 28-meter-wide (92-feet) and 22-meter-tall (72-feet) in size. Simply put, the large sensor was able to offer a clear image that appeared crisp on a 616 sq. meter (6630 sq. feet) canvas, which is roughly 1.5-times the size of a basketball court.
The team calculated multiple variables while preparing to shoot in an unstable environment. They had to develop a custom adaptor that allowed them to attach various DSLR camera lenses to a test board. The engineers had to modify settings to optimize exposure and focus using an experimental board. The 200MP photo was taken by photographer Hyunjoong Kim, who said:
I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw the raw image enlarged to 100%. I was truly astonished by the degree of detail. In that moment, I knew any prejudices I previously had regarding smartphone photography had been proven wrong.
The subject for the humongous poster was a cat. The poster had to be printed on twelve separate 2.3-meter-long pieces of fabric and then stitched together. Samsung has posted a brief video of the entire process:
Justifying the need for such a large image sensor, Minhyuk Lee, an engineer from the Sensor Solutions Team at Samsung’s System LSI Business said:
The ultimate benefit of the 200MP image sensor is to allow users to capture an image that can be zoomed in and cropped without compromising on image quality. The 200MP image sensor will soon become the optimal solution for 8K video recording.
Samsung, Sony, and other companies, specializing in developing camera sensors, continue to increase the MegaPixel count. The 600 sq. meter poster is just an example of the capabilities of a large image sensor. In terms of practical usage, such sensors have the ability to take in a lot of light and visual information. The image processing hardware and software onboard the camera or smartphone can then use the information to offer a sharp image that has a lot of detail.