Nowadays, the development direction of high-end smartphones is increasingly moving towards differentiated fields. However, since most mobile phone manufacturers do not have the strength to develop their own processors like Apple, Samsung and Huawei, other Android mobile phone manufacturers do not have much say and room to play in the supply chain.

As Luo Yonghao once said, "They are all supplied by suppliers. Why are you pretending to be a grandson?"

Basically, if manufacturer A can get the high-quality screens, new storage devices and other core components, manufacturer B will probably get them sooner or later, because the main purpose of such universal components is to make small profits but quick turnover, and strive to cover the R&D costs as quickly as possible through as much sales as possible. When it comes to consumers, if there is no deliberate differentiation in product positioning, the difference between brand A and brand B mobile phones will become very small. For example, for flagship mobile phones, are they all stacked with materials, look similar, and have similar performance?

Therefore, mobile phone camera functions that can leave consumers with an intuitive experience and have a certain technical moat have become an option that mobile phone manufacturers have almost no choice but to choose when pursuing differentiation.

In the past, sound quality could be used to differentiate products. Unfortunately, acoustics is too mysterious. Even hydropower and nuclear power can affect the sound quality. For ordinary users, it is even more difficult to highlight the difference. In addition, the improvement of sound quality by headphones is more obvious, so the way to create differentiation through mobile phone sound quality is cut off.

It is puzzling that mobile phone manufacturers frequently collaborate with camera manufacturers

In recent years, we can see that the focus of domestic mobile phone launch conferences is almost entirely on the camera part, and the camera evaluation organization DxO, a foreign monk who can chant sutras, has therefore frequently taken center stage.

But to be fair (DxO test results), domestic manufacturers have always found it difficult to surpass Huawei in the field of mobile phone photography. This is certainly due to the hard work of Huawei's professional camera team, but an important reason that cannot be ignored is that Huawei's collaboration with traditional camera manufacturer Leica has enabled it to take the lead in the field of mobile phone imaging.

There is no clear data to show how many more units Huawei has sold because of Leica. However, it is an indisputable fact that Huawei's mobile phone imaging capabilities have improved since the collaboration with Leica. Of course, there is also a saying that Huawei's rapid improvement in this aspect is due to the acquisition of Nokia's imaging team in the early years.

In short, due to various reasons, Huawei phones with the "Leica" cola logo have established the label of "great for taking photos" in the minds of consumers.

Maybe it’s because they saw that co-branding is really effective, or maybe it’s because they realized it too late. Recently, many mobile phone manufacturers have also started to engage in co-branding activities. For a while, the old-school camera brands around the world that have actually been struggling have all been proud .

For example, recently vivo and OnePlus announced their cooperation with traditional camera manufacturers Zeiss and Hasselblad respectively. This attracted a lot of attention for the two manufacturers. There are also reports that OPPO is also preparing to cooperate with Leica (manual dog head, what the hell is this?).

Despite the successful case of the collaboration between Huawei and Leica, the fact that a bunch of manufacturers are now collaborating with camera manufacturers has made people suspicious - is the collaboration between mobile phones and camera brands just a gimmick?

Before figuring out this problem, we need to first clarify which factors affect the photography capabilities of mobile phones, and then judge how much effect the co-branded camera brand can have on the imaging function of mobile phones. Is this a tonic pill or a powerful pill? The conclusion is not difficult to draw.

Software and hardware factors that affect mobile phone photography capabilities

Nowadays, electronic products are highly integrated. Apple’s first self-developed desktop-level ARM architecture chip M1 has integrated components such as memory, I/O chips, and Thunderbolt controllers.

The same is true for smartphones. If you remove the back cover, you will find that the area of ​​the motherboard is less than half the size of the battery. Excluding these two large parts, what remains is basically the imaging system, which is mainly composed of lenses, apertures, sensors and ISP image signal processors.

1. Hardware level

At the hardware level, the camera's capabilities mainly consist of these four parts.

1) Lenses are mainly divided into glass lenses and resin lenses. The main difference between the two is dispersion control. The ability of resin lenses is definitely weaker than that of glass lenses, but with lower costs, it has become the main force in smartphone camera lenses.

2) In addition to the lens material, there is also a coating that can affect the transmittance of the lens. The transmittance is very important for camera imaging. Low transmittance will cause ghosting in the image.

At present, Carl Zeiss is the world leader in coating technology. Its exclusive T* coating can provide very high light transmittance. In addition, Fuji's EBC and Pentax's SMC also have strong strength.

3) Mobile phones do not have aperture hardware, and everything is achieved through computing power, so there is not much technical content in this aspect. A smaller aperture can provide great help to the camera's background blur capability, that is, it has a large depth of field capability.

4) Finally, there are the sensors and ISP, which are the most important parts. Smartphone camera sensors are basically a competition between Sony and Samsung. If you want to achieve excellent mobile photography capabilities, there is basically no choice except these two.

Samsung's sensors have great advantages in terms of pixels and size. The size of the recently released GN2 has reached 1/1.12; while Sony is better at providing customized sensors for mobile phone manufacturers.

In terms of ISP (Image Signal Processing), the capabilities of the mobile phone processor are mainly considered. Since Apple's A series chips and Huawei's Kirin processors are not sold externally, mobile phone manufacturers only have Qualcomm and MediaTek to choose from.

The stronger the ISP computing power of the processor, the larger the maximum pixel it can support, the faster the background blur calculation can be, and the imaging speed also relies heavily on the computing power of the processor.

Since the development of processors is extremely difficult and costly, mobile phone manufacturers must use whatever processors Qualcomm and MediaTek provide, and cannot accept customization. This often determines slight differences in camera image quality.

2. Software level

Because smartphones are highly integrated devices with large size restrictions, the size of the camera sensor is definitely not comparable to that of traditional cameras. However, there is still a place where mobile phone camera photography can surpass traditional cameras, and that is the algorithm.

The imaging algorithm of mobile phone cameras is mainly reflected in the shooting of different objects in different scenes. For example, when taking pictures of delicious food, the camera will automatically increase the image saturation.

Unlike hardware, which is difficult for mobile phone manufacturers to intervene in, they have sufficient say in software. They can develop algorithms themselves or purchase algorithms provided by mature suppliers on the market.

Contrary to what most people know, software algorithms actually play a greater role in visual presentation than hardware level. For example, moderate beauty, such as taking pictures of the moon and stars. Most of the popular jokes in the mobile phone industry come from this.

What kind of support can camera manufacturers provide to mobile phone manufacturers?

1. Limited participation at the hardware level

For more than a hundred years since Daguerre's flag was raised, every camera manufacturer that has survived to this day has its own "exclusive secret book" and has accumulated some kind of know-how and technology in camera research and development.

However, due to the particularity of mobile phones as terminals, camera manufacturers can generally only provide support for lens materials and coatings, required parameters for customized sensors, and some algorithm adjustments at the software level.

Taking the recent collaboration between vivo and Zeiss as an example, the T* coating that vivo has been promoting is Zeiss's exclusive technology, and because it is equipped with Zeiss optical lenses, it can be said to have inherited the "true teachings" of Zeiss in terms of light transmittance and chromatic aberration control.

In terms of sensors, generally speaking, public version of mobile phone camera sensors are difficult to meet the tuning needs of camera manufacturers. If camera manufacturers want to improve the imaging level of their own cameras as much as possible, they will basically put forward specific requirements to sensor manufacturers in terms of pixel size, focus scheme and light intake.

2. Imaging requirements test the optical adjustment capabilities of camera manufacturers

In terms of algorithms, camera manufacturers mainly provide algorithms that enable mobile phone cameras to simulate the imaging style of one of their own classic cameras when taking images, so that the image colors tend to be closer to the style of that classic camera.

However, if you want to accurately simulate the imaging style of your own camera, you still have to rely on camera manufacturers to participate in the research and development of mobile phone cameras, and hardware coordination is an indispensable part of it.

In this process, the biggest challenge is how camera manufacturers can achieve this effect on small devices. If camera manufacturers do not have sufficient accumulation of optical imaging capabilities, reproducing the imaging style may be a futile attempt.

Therefore, if you just add a co-branded filter without participating in the specific research and development and adjustment of the mobile phone camera, it cannot reflect how much help the camera manufacturer has provided for the imaging capabilities of the mobile phone camera.

For example, the recent cooperation between OnePlus and Hasselblad. Although both companies have done an excellent job in marketing and attracted considerable attention at home and abroad, the final result may not satisfy you.

First of all, in terms of hardware, OnePlus only mentioned the customized sensor but did not mention the lenses. The main reason is probably because Hasselblad does not have its own lens technology.

The cooperation between Huawei, vivo, Leica and Zeiss all clearly mentioned that camera manufacturers were involved in the manufacturing and coating of lenses.

Therefore, in terms of hardware, Hasselblad, which is good at making medium-format cameras but not good at digital imaging, should have limited capabilities and limited participation. Even if consumers can eventually understand the unspeakable reasons, it still makes people wonder about the value of this collaboration.

In terms of software, Hasselblad, which has been on the moon, is not outstanding in image adjustment capabilities, at least not better than Zeiss and Leica. As we all know, due to business reasons, the Hasselblad brand was acquired by China's drone brand DJI as early as 2019.

Therefore, the biggest selling point of this cooperation between the two parties may be Hasselblad's color grading style.

According to Hasselblad's Natural Color Solution (HNCS), its core component "Hasselblad RGB color space" is achieved through image processing algorithms and color processing modes, and combines factors such as sensor sensitivity. This complex color processing mode cannot be achieved through simple software algorithms.

But as mentioned above, Hasselblad is not deeply involved in the hardware aspect of mobile phone research and development, so the final imaging results are still an unknown.

At present, we can see from the official sample photos released by OnePlus that in low-light indoor conditions, the picture has a lot of noise and the dynamic range is not excellent, which also indirectly confirms that the photosensitivity of this custom sensor is not excellent; the color is also dull like tap water, which is quite different from the "Fiji Water" of the real Hasselblad camera.

Although it is a direct sample, the color looks more like it has been desaturated in post-production, and it is not possible to achieve the integrated algorithm of hardware and software to directly simulate the imaging style that is most like the Hasselblad color style.

This is a sample of a landscape photo from the Hasselblad Photography Competition. Although it is not eye-catching at first glance, the richness of the color of the photo can still be felt at a glance. In this sense, the Hasselblad sample still seems to have a story, background and connotation. Simply reducing the color saturation of the film to imitate the clear water color style can only be regarded as a poor imitation.

The co-branded mobile phone camera made without in-depth cooperation between the two parties is actually not much different from a camera manufacturer providing a classic camera filter. It can only be regarded as a marketing gimmick. As for the imaging capabilities of OnePlus' new mobile phone, it will probably have to be developed by itself or the parent company's camera team. Apart from the LOGO, its relationship with Hasselblad is probably like that of the third lady's sixth aunt.

Conclusion

The photography capabilities of smartphones have improved rapidly, which is the result of manufacturers' self-developed algorithms and mature algorithms of the supply chain, combined with high-quality components.

Due to the cross-category nature, the improvement in the actual strength of mobile phone cameras co-branded with professional camera manufacturers is very limited, and there are many difficulties in the research and development process.

Zeiss and Leica's high standards for mobile phone camera components have resulted in good performance for their co-branded mobile phone cameras, but cooperation with camera manufacturers that do not have much exclusive technology or digital imaging technology is mostly a gimmick.

When we consumers judge whether such co-branded mobile phones are just a gimmick, the factors mentioned in the article are very useful reference means.

Although the camera capabilities of mobile phones are mostly related to the improvement of the level of industry components, judging from the current situation where mobile phone manufacturers are actively fighting back offline, co-branding with well-known camera manufacturers will still play a significant role in enhancing consumer brand awareness.

As for whether this means that you can achieve the imaging effect of cameras worth tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of yuan by spending a few thousand yuan on a mobile phone, this is just for fun. If you take it seriously, who would you sell the camera to?

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.