Kodak Promises 5MP Cameras for Mainstream Phones

Tue Feb 5, 2008 12:08PM EST at http://tech.yahoo.com/blog/patterson/12383

The imaging giant says it's developed a 5-megapixel sensor that's small enough for a compact phone. Expect sharper pictures and better results in low-light conditions.

CNET has a detailed story on Kodak's new sensor technology, which should start shipping by the end of the year (meaning we probably won't see camera phones with the new chip until 2009). As the story points out, 5MP camera phones are on sale now—take the feature-packed (if bulky) Nokia N95, for example—but most compact cell phones come with cameras that top out at about two megapixels or so.

Not only will the new sensor come in a smaller package, it'll also take cleaner pictures in dim lighting conditions, CNET reports.

Take a snapshot with your typical camera phone in a poorly-lit room and you'll see a storm of static-y "noise" in the picture. Why? Because in low-light conditions, current camera phone chips have a hard time telling the difference between the electrons from a light source and the electronic noise inherent in the sensor. The new Kodak chips will reportedly fix this problem by detecting the absence, rather than presence, of electrons, which should make for a cleaner picture in dim conditions. (Click through to the CNET story for more details on how the new technology works.)

Sounds like great news to me; it seems like camera phone technology has been at a standstill for a few years now, at least in terms of quality. Personally, I'm ready to take a night-time snapshot that doesn't look like a swarm of fireflies.