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[00:00.42] When the Visualphone VP210 hit the market in 1999, it advertised a never-before-seen feature: a camera.

[00:08.12] With only 0.11 megapixels and storage for 20 photos, the Visualphone is a relic compared to modern devices sporting three distinct cameras, each with up to 100 times more resolution.

[00:20.07] But while this technology has improved dramatically in the 21st century, engineers are rapidly approaching a hard limit on phone camera quality.

[00:28.04] To understand this limit, we first need to know how phone cameras work. Just like any other digital camera, when your phone takes a picture, light enters through its lens.

[00:37.61] This lens focuses the light onto an image sensor covered in a grid of photosites— microscopic light sensors roughly 100 times smaller than a grain of sand.

[00:47.17] There are millions of these sensors, and each one is covered by a red, green, or blue filter, allowing it to measure how much of that color is in the light hitting its location.

[00:57.00] Then these measurements are simplified, rounding them to less detailed numbers.

[01:01.78] This step sacrifices some data, thus lowering the final images’ quality, but it’s essential for the camera’s processor.

[01:07.89] This computer can only handle so much information as it decrypts the three sets of color data to assemble a digital recreation of the image.

[01:15.59] While the quality of this final photo depends on every part of the camera, nothing determines the look of a digital picture more than the image sensor.

[01:23.29] And engineers judge the quality of image sensors based on their performance in three areas.

[01:28.61] The first is resolution, or level of detail.

[01:31.53] Sensors with higher numbers of photosites offer better resolution, as the camera can collect more granular light data.

[01:38.17] Second and third are dynamic range and noise.

[01:40.56] Dynamic range is the span from light to dark within a single photo, and noise is the graininess that can come from poor lighting, long exposure times, or an overheating camera.

[01:50.13] Both these factors can be improved by using larger photosites, which can capture more light overall.

[01:55.97] This wider range of data helps processors better measure the intensity of the incoming light, adding contrast and reducing noise.