LG G4 Will Have The Widest Camera Aperture On The Market

News
By Lucian Armasu
published

LG Innotek, LG's component manufacturing arm, announced the development of a new 16 MP camera module that has an f/1.8 aperture, making it the widest smartphone aperture on the market right now. (The Galaxy S6's camera comes close with an f/1.9 aperture). The new camera module began mass production this week, and it will appear for the first time on the market inside the LG G4, LG's upcoming flagship smartphone.

The previous LG flagships already did quite well in low-light environments thanks to the addition of Optical Image Stabilization (OIS), but the LG G4 is bound to be even better. The new camera will be able to capture 80 percent more light than the LG G3 camera, according to LG Innotek.

This means several things. The camera will of course take better pictures in dim conditions, but it should also be able to take fast pictures in well-lit environments, such as the outdoors in day time. It also means fewer blurry pictures, because the camera will capture the light that it needs much faster, leaving less time for camera shakes. Pictures of moving objects will also be less blurry for the same reason.

LG Innotek said that large apertures have been difficult to develop for smartphones because of the complexity of the task and the size of the camera modules that have to fit in the limited space of a smartphone.

We've recently started seeing more smartphones come with an 8 MP front camera due to the explosive growth of "selfies" and the high demand for a quality camera in the front of the device. With so many people taking selfies these days, the front-camera has become almost as important as the rear camera.

LG's 8 MP front-facing camera comes with an ultra-thin IR filter that's half the thickness (0.11 mm) of other IR filters on the market. The IR filter is useful to block infrared light from entering the camera lens, which gives pictures more natural and accurate colors.

"At LG Innotek, we are constantly working to ensure that the cameras we develop allow users to capture and preserve the moments that are most special to them," said Ung-beom Lee, CEO of LG Innotek. "We are extremely excited to see our technology in LG's next flagship smartphone because we believe that the power, precision and operability of our camera module will clearly make an impression on consumers."

The LG G4 smartphone that will have the new 16 MP camera with an f/1.8 aperture will likely be unveiled on April 28 and April 29 (depending on the time zone) when LG will be holding some events in New York, London, Paris, Seoul, Singapore and Istanbul. The device is also expected to have a Snapdragon 810 SoC, 5.5" QHD (2560 x 1440) screen and 3 GB of RAM.

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Lucian Armasu
Lucian Armasu
Lucian Armasu is a Contributing Writer for Tom's Hardware US. He covers software news and the issues surrounding privacy and security.
13 Comments Comment from the forums
  • Jerome Kwok
    The f number is relative to sensor size. f/1.8 on G4 may actually have a smaller aperture than Nokia 808 f/2.4, or a DLSR f/16.
    Reply
  • gggplaya
    15644086 said:
    The f number is relative to sensor size. f/1.8 on G4 may actually have a smaller aperture than Nokia 808 f/2.4, or a DLSR f/16.

    Only as far as depth of field, but not as far as exposure. Exposure will be the same so a faster f1.8 lens is still faster than f1.9 regardless of sensor size.

    Tony Northrop on youtube talks about this when you normalize sensor size, then you can talk about equivalent apertures.

    However iso range will be drastically less on a smaller sensor, so a DSLR will always be better than a cell phone in anything better than outdoors in bright light.
    Reply
  • TwoDigital
    This should say "...Widest Camera Aperture Of Any PHONE...". I'm sure many people reading this know that an LG G4 is a phone, but many may not and this detail makes it accurate (if the statement is otherwise accurate.)
    Reply
  • zodiacfml
    Yeah, wider than the S6's f1.9 but that doesn't say how sharp the lens is or what is the actual light transmission of the lens. Usually these wide aperture lenses has softer images and with actual light transmission of 0.3 less.
    Reply
  • gggplaya
    15648300 said:
    Yeah, wider than the S6's f1.9 but that doesn't say how sharp the lens is or what is the actual light transmission of the lens. Usually these wide aperture lenses has softer images and with actual light transmission of 0.3 less.

    Yea, that's true. So it depends on focal length too because a wider FOV will give you less clarity of your subject than a narrower FOV. So people must consider a total package, and not just look at the lens aperture.

    So far i'm loving my Galaxy S6 Camera, it take great pictures for a cell phone, great colors, dynamic range and decent clarity(superb for a cell phone).
    Reply
  • razor512
    Why not just give us the best of both worlds and make a decent smartphone, and then add either an APS-C or full frame sensor, in addition to user swappable lens mounts (which it can come with a Nikon, Canon, and Sony lens mount. This will allow people to capture great images on the go without having to invest in a new lens system.

    Then the rear camera advertised in the article above, can be made into a front facing camera.

    This will appeal to many people, as for example suppose you often have your 24-70 f2.8 attached to your DSLR, but in your camera bag, is also an 85mm f1.4, and an 11-24 f2.8, then you can simply have one of the other lenses attached to your smartphone, while your main lens is attached to your DSLR.
    Reply
  • soldier44
    So basically not worth an upgrade if you already have the G3...
    Reply
  • gggplaya
    15652640 said:
    Why not just give us the best of both worlds and make a decent smartphone, and then add either an APS-C or full frame sensor, in addition to user swappable lens mounts (which it can come with a Nikon, Canon, and Sony lens mount. This will allow people to capture great images on the go without having to invest in a new lens system.

    Then the rear camera advertised in the article above, can be made into a front facing camera.

    This will appeal to many people, as for example suppose you often have your 24-70 f2.8 attached to your DSLR, but in your camera bag, is also an 85mm f1.4, and an 11-24 f2.8, then you can simply have one of the other lenses attached to your smartphone, while your main lens is attached to your DSLR.

    Yea, i've been saying camera manufacturers should put android on their cameras, as a side function with it's own processor. So you can use your camera as a camera all day long and save on battery and have fast boot up. Then when it's time to edit, flip a switch and turn on android. Since lightroom is now a mobile app on android, you can do some great basic editing, light highlights, shadows, color adjustment, lens correction. Then put them on facebook or sync it with your cloud server, or upload to a photo website for your photography business.

    With midlevel DSLR's costing $600-$1000 and tablets costing $100, i don't see much of a price jump for adding android to a camera.
    Reply
  • g-unit1111
    15653555 said:
    With midlevel DSLR's costing $600-$1000 and tablets costing $100, i don't see much of a price jump for adding android to a camera.

    Well there is that weird Samsung Galaxy camera but I don't know what, if any market that serves.

    I'm glad to see cell phone manufacturers taking photography more seriously. I have an HTC One right now and I can't stress enough how much the camera sucks. Even the new M9 model isn't that far improved over the original. But after seeing the camera on the new Galaxy S6 and the LG G4 I can't imagine anyone using anything else.
    Reply
  • Tad3j
    Well this is not quite exact. The last year Xiaomi Mi4 has an f/1.8
    Reply