Android Filmic Pro: Disable digital video sharpening

[Andrew Reid]

I still don't shoot much video on a smartphone. I don't know why but it's almost 100% a stills cam for me, and a very good one too.

I find it very clever though how we are now able to get clean video off a 100MP chip or a 40MP. The sampling has got a lot more intelligent since the days of line skipping. Pixel mix / binning is now not so much the sin it once was, and with Quad Bayer it is actually turning into a nicely oversampled positive with big chunky pixels.

Stills

Mi 10 is 25MP output from the 108MP sensor.

Mate 30 Pro is 10MP from 40MP... You can have it output the full 40MP RAW DNG. Is that possible with the Xiaomi?

Comparison shots from DXOMark below only show the Mate 30 Pro in 10MP mode.

However it is a very good 10MP mode that looks more like a normal camera at around 16MP.

The Mi 10 25MP looks a bit lower when you pixel peep it - maybe 18MP.

So the difference is there but not as massive as 40MP vs 108MP suggests at 1:1.

I scaled the Mate 30 Pro up to 25MP and did a 1:1 crop compared to same crop on the Mi 10...

Mate 30 Pro

Mi 10 Pro

The plants behind them look a bit more natural on the Mi 10 Pro but the difference in clothing texture shows actually an advantage to the Mate 30 Pro, weirdly.

So either it is a soft glowing lens on there, or too much noise reduction?! Or just a bit off on the focus?

As for the RAW...

I find the JPEGs are often cleaner and more detailed with better dynamic range on smartphones, due to the composite, multi-shot, multi-lens, neural network upscaling, etc. nature of the beasts. But the RAWs do give you some low-fi natural look back and more fine grained noise, less sharpening and less NR.

Raw sensor data at 1:1 from 108MP with 0.8 pixel pitch is always going to be quite noisy and soft... Although big leaps have happened in last few years!

Can you edit such a large file on the phone?

I can with the P30 Pro and Mate 30 Pro at 40MP but 108MP would be majorly pushing it!

The big key to all this is the multiple sensors and lenses, composite images and computational imaging.

The cameras should be seen as a system of cameras rather than one.

[Emanuel]

34 minutes ago, Andrew Reid said:

So either it is a soft glowing lens on there, or too much noise reduction?! Or just a bit off on the focus?

I'd bet, very likely, a bit of all that... LOL ; -)

[Patrick B.]

Heard back from Filmic Pro re: which Android cameras support edge detection via API:

Quote

Thanks for writing in with that question! Unfortunately due to the large number of Android devices on the market and the varied support each manufacturer gives for our feature set we are unable to keep an up to date list of each device and what features they support. I wish I could give you that information, but unfortunately I simply don't have it available to me! I reached out to our developers to see if they have the info, and they said that most Android devices do support edge enhancement, but that it's particularly noticeable on Samsung devices.

 

46 minutes ago, Andrew Reid said:

As for the RAW...

I find the JPEGs are often cleaner and more detailed with better dynamic range on smartphones, due to the composite, multi-shot, multi-lens, neural network upscaling, etc. nature of the beasts. But the RAWs do give you some low-fi natural look back and more fine grained noise, less sharpening and less NR.

Raw sensor data at 1:1 from 108MP with 0.8 pixel pitch is always going to be quite noisy and soft... Although big leaps have happened in last few years!

Can you edit such a large file on the phone?

I can with the P30 Pro and Mate 30 Pro at 40MP but 108MP would be majorly pushing it!

The big key to all this is the multiple sensors and lenses, composite images and computational imaging.

The cameras should be seen as a system of cameras rather than one.

This brings up an interesting point for the future of digital imaging.  Right now some think of RAW files as the holy grail of quality, but as computational imaging improves, this gap is narrowing and in the near future I wonder if the tables might turn to where it’s much harder for a human to manually squeeze the same quality from a RAW file as the AI/CPU/GPU can (especially if multiple exposures are involved).  Personally I’m okay if my camera and phone make everything look amazing for me

[kye]

12 hours ago, leslie said:

give it to @kye . I seem to remember him doing something similar, with an action camera some time ago 😎

The camera hasn't left the box yet and remains un-modded, unfortunately, but the project is still on my list.  The idea is definitely a good one.

On 2/21/2020 at 3:55 AM, Andrew Reid said:

I can see a digital bolex style body which you slot your phone into. Shame the smartphone lenses are still quite clinical. C-mount mod anyone?

Do you know anything about how they're constructed?

When I was researching the action camera mod I discovered that most of them are based on a CCTV lens standard called M12, which is a screw-type mount and there are cheap lenses all over ebay for it.  If you can get the cameras apart then you can just break the glue and unscrew them, replacing them with other lenses, and finding infinity focus before locking them in place.
Amusingly the lenses are often sold with the spec of how many MP of resolution they have, and 2MP is the common one, for that cinematic vintage 1080 feel 

I'm less optimistic that the smartphone lenses will be as accessible a standard..

[deezid]

On 2/21/2020 at 3:05 PM, Andrew Reid said:

I still don't shoot much video on a smartphone. I don't know why but it's almost 100% a stills cam for me, and a very good one too.

I find it very clever though how we are now able to get clean video off a 100MP chip or a 40MP. The sampling has got a lot more intelligent since the days of line skipping. Pixel mix / binning is now not so much the sin it once was, and with Quad Bayer it is actually turning into a nicely oversampled positive with big chunky pixels.

Stills

Mi 10 is 25MP output from the 108MP sensor.

Mate 30 Pro is 10MP from 40MP... You can have it output the full 40MP RAW DNG. Is that possible with the Xiaomi?

Comparison shots from DXOMark below only show the Mate 30 Pro in 10MP mode.

However it is a very good 10MP mode that looks more like a normal camera at around 16MP.

The Mi 10 25MP looks a bit lower when you pixel peep it - maybe 18MP.

So the difference is there but not as massive as 40MP vs 108MP suggests at 1:1.

I scaled the Mate 30 Pro up to 25MP and did a 1:1 crop compared to same crop on the Mi 10...

Mate 30 Pro

Mi 10 Pro

The plants behind them look a bit more natural on the Mi 10 Pro but the difference in clothing texture shows actually an advantage to the Mate 30 Pro, weirdly.

So either it is a soft glowing lens on there, or too much noise reduction?! Or just a bit off on the focus?

As for the RAW...

I find the JPEGs are often cleaner and more detailed with better dynamic range on smartphones, due to the composite, multi-shot, multi-lens, neural network upscaling, etc. nature of the beasts. But the RAWs do give you some low-fi natural look back and more fine grained noise, less sharpening and less NR.

Raw sensor data at 1:1 from 108MP with 0.8 pixel pitch is always going to be quite noisy and soft... Although big leaps have happened in last few years!

Can you edit such a large file on the phone?

I can with the P30 Pro and Mate 30 Pro at 40MP but 108MP would be majorly pushing it!

The big key to all this is the multiple sensors and lenses, composite images and computational imaging.

The cameras should be seen as a system of cameras rather than one.

The Mi 10 shows much more texture and less sharpening artifacts, skin doesn't look like wax unlike on the overprocessed Mate 30 Pro example.

[ntblowz]

Mi10's lens doesnt look sharp, I think i saw from gsmarena that the 12MP 2X zoom show better quality than 108MP punch in..

 

Really curious how much sharper would Samsung S20U will be, as the main camera is used from 1-4X zoom

[Emanuel]

28 minutes ago, ntblowz said:

Mi10's lens doesnt look sharp, I think i saw from gsmarena that the 12MP 2X zoom show better quality than 108MP punch in..

 

Really curious how much sharper would Samsung S20U will be, as the main camera is used from 1-4X zoom

No idea if you're used to shoot with AI, I am : ) You can try a few shots, all will show to you different results in the end. That proves zero on the device properties : -)

Don't put much expectation on Samsung unless you end to reduce it with some other tool like this one this thread's topic.

Dennis @deezid as usual has nailed the whole thing. I'm sorry the others, but this user actually tops the average : -)

[kaylee]

hey at the risk of bein a nerd id like to remind everyone to CLEAN THOSE SMARTPHONE LENSES cuz even a smudge that u cant see can affect the image, and im SUPER guilty of not doing that all the time

my note 10 *reminds me sometimes* 😂, but this IS a thing

my actual camera lenses stay super clean, i have filters over them, i notice, etc. but—man ill pull that smartphone out and shoot careful pics on occasion without even looking at the lens array, and thats hella dumb since its in my pocket all the time getting fingerprints and assorted filth on it!!!

it may sound silly but its for real!! how many of out smartphone pictures could be better if we had wiped off the lens[es] before shooting...? 🤔

[ntblowz]

7 hours ago, Emanuel said:

No idea if you're used to shoot with AI, I am : ) You can try a few shots, all will show to you different results in the end. That proves zero on the device properties : -)

Don't put much expectation on Samsung unless you end to reduce it with some other tool like this one this thread's topic.

Dennis @deezid as usual has nailed the whole thing. I'm sorry the others, but this user actually tops the average : -)

There is great smearing on M10's photo, but there is non on M30 pro, though I do agree M30 pro look like it got aggressive sharpening.

I really want a 108MP phone, but so far the examples is pretty disappointing on the M10, once my S20U arrived I could do a little compare to my friend's P30 Pro.

[Amazeballs]

EIS is not accessible by 3rd party apps on Xiaomi phones. Which means a very shaky image even on a gimbal in FilmiPro or any other app where you want log, unsharpening, 24p, etc.. 

Just keep this in mind before buying any android phone for that purpose. 

You need to check every phone thoroughly for compatibility with Filmic Pro. 

[Emanuel]

7 hours ago, Amazeballs said:

EIS is not accessible by 3rd party apps on Xiaomi phones. Which means a very shaky image even on a gimbal in FilmiPro or any other app where you want log, unsharpening, 24p, etc.. 

Just keep this in mind before buying any android phone for that purpose. 

You need to check every phone thoroughly for compatibility with Filmic Pro. 

Good point, reason why a softer glass system if so or smoother 108MP results are really not so bad in the end...

 

8 hours ago, ntblowz said:

There is great smearing on M10's photo, but there is non on M30 pro, though I do agree M30 pro look like it got aggressive sharpening.

I really want a 108MP phone, but so far the examples is pretty disappointing on the M10, once my S20U arrived I could do a little compare to my friend's P30 Pro.

And that smearing is either or both processing and auto modes, very likely.

Going manual or a 2nd shot as already said up there would probably lead to a different outcome ; ) Just a single sample says too little. A few others with the same devices will show up rather the opposite more often than you would guess. Count on it : -)

[sanveer]

On 2/21/2020 at 7:35 PM, Andrew Reid said:

I still don't shoot much video on a smartphone. I don't know why but it's almost 100% a stills cam for me, and a very good one too.

       ...

The cameras should be seen as a system of cameras rather than one.

The sharpness and detail of the Huawei phones are in a different league. Which may be solely credited to Leica super sharp lens (and to a small extent, to probably better processing). 

[ntblowz]

4 hours ago, Emanuel said:

And that smearing is either or both processing and auto modes, very likely.

Going manual or a 2nd shot as already said up there would probably lead to a different outcome ; ) Just a single sample says too little. A few others with the same devices will show up rather the opposite more often than you would guess. Count on it : -)

ok so smearing could because of the AI stuff going ?

 

3 hours ago, sanveer said:

The sharpness and detail of the Huawei phones are in a different league. Which may be solely credited to Leica super sharp lens (and to a small extent, to probably better processing). 

Yeah that could be too, lens play a big part on sharpness as well.