Info lately discovered inside Google’s digicam code strongly means that subsequent 12 months’s Pixel flagships will help a strong new function that the present Pixel 7 vary won’t ever be capable to present.
The data comes, once again, from well-known leaker Kuba Wojciechowski who has found an experimental new Pixel digicam mode hid throughout the code of Google’s newest Digicam Go app. The mode, named “Staggered HDR”, seems in a code part labeled “Experimental2023”, suggesting the brand new function could arrive subsequent 12 months.
Google’s next-gen Pixel 8 smartphones might obtain a giant digicam improve over the Pixel 7 vary … [+]
Maybe essentially the most fascinating side to this discovery is that as a result of present Pixel smartphones lack the {hardware} essential to help staggered HDR, subsequent 12 months’s Pixel 8 must include a considerably upgraded digicam to allow it.
Staggered HDR is a digicam sensor trick that permits it to seize brief, center, and lengthy exposures concurrently. These particular person exposures are then mixed to supply a single picture with elevated dynamic vary — the power to comprise deep shadows and shiny highlights on the similar time.
This system provides potential benefits over the present technique, the place a number of photographs are as an alternative taken sequentially, drastically growing the time taken to take a shot and leading to elevated digicam shake and movement blur.
Staggered HDR isn’t supported by the Pixel 7 vary’s Samsung Isocell GN1 sensor, however the function is offered on newer sensors such because the Isocell GN2 and the Isocell GN5 present in Samsung’s Galaxy S22 and S22+ handsets.
There’s no assure, nevertheless, that Staggered HDR alone would trigger the Pixel 8 to blow the Pixel 7 vary out of the water; in any case, the present Pixel 7 Professional scores are significantly higher than any Samsung smartphone in Dxomark’s digicam checks, even with out this. Moreover, using staggered HDR is at present listed as an experiment which presumably means Google continues to be evaluating whether or not or to not use it.
Regardless, a Pixel 8 with upgraded digicam {hardware} goes to be an thrilling launch when it will definitely arrives towards the tip of subsequent 12 months.
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