Samsung’s ISOCELL Zoom Anyplace for 200MP Camera Looks Amazing

Samsung detailed this morning a couple of changes for its 200-megapixel image sensor, the one believed to be inside the upcoming Galaxy S24 Ultra. This sensor is currently in the Galaxy S23 Ultra, but this week, Samsung announced new solutions for it, powered by the help of Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 with its focus on AI.

One of the new solutions is called ISOCELL Zoom Anyplace, which allows for device owners to select a desired subject and the camera will automatically track and film it in high resolution. This feature will (hopefully) lead to a lot less shaky videos, which is common when filming while zoomed in. Samsung notes that this feature is made possible with Qualcomm’s AI engine as well as the sensor’s new real-time remosaic capabilities.

And speaking remosaic capabilities, you have to be a NASA scientist to understand the process that is happening, so I’ll allow Samsung to explain.

Currently, the steps the 200MP image sensor follows for processing images after shooting are: raw data output occurs before a remosaic, which then leads to image signal processing (ISP) before finishing with JPEG image output. In this process, all of the steps occur in sequence.

E2E AI Remosaic improves the process by enabling the remosaic and ISP to take place simultaneously. In other words, E2E AI Remosaic takes a process that occurs in sequence and makes it occur in parallel, thereby reducing remosaic latency by up to half. The end result is an overall faster image processing time, which reduces the shooting time of 200MP images and improves image quality.

Sounds pretty great.

Another feature S24 Ultra owners can look forward to is the ability to take full field of view videos and zoomed in videos simultaneously. Both videos are captured in high resolution, allowing for a more flexible shooting experience. Again with the science talk, Samsung explains why this feature is so important with regards to the work they have done in remosaicing.

Thanks to in-sensor zoom by Tetra pixel, users don’t need to be selective because of zoom limitations, either. Previously, with digital zoom, if the center region of interest (ROI) area was zoomed in 4x at a 12.5MP sum mode, it theoretically resulted in 0.78MP (12.5MP/16) image resolution. With in-sensor zoom, however, the selected area to be zoomed in on is selected from the entire scope and remosaiced, which allows the sensor to maintain the original 12.5MP resolution and enable video to be shot much more vividly.

I ask everyone to watch the below video, which provides an idea of what users can expect from this technology. Samsung notes that it’s still under development, but given the timing and the mention of Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, expect to see it on the Galaxy S24 Ultra.

// Samsung