What image breakthroughs have been achieved by self-developed NPU chips Mariana X and OPPO Find X5 Pro?

# oppoffindx5 # Since photography entered people's sight, it has been labeled as "professional". After all, professional photographers mostly use professional cameras to shoot, but with the appearance of portable and professional smart phones, the "photography myth" of professional cameras has been broken to some extent, making "mobile phone photography" an important part in the field of photography.

Generally speaking, there have been two great changes in the history of mobile phone photography. First, the change from scratch. At the beginning of this century, mobile phones with their own cameras appeared for the first time, but there is no doubt that being able to make calls at that time was the most important function of mobile phones/PHS, which made the cameras that first appeared on mobile phones look bleak.

Subsequently, Nokia, Motorola and other brands brought the image of the mobile phone at that time to the extreme on the function machine. The typical features of this period are relatively fast hardware upgrade, large-size sensors, mechanical shutters, optical zoom, iris diaphragm, hernia flash and so on. What can only be seen in the camera is gradually appearing on the mobile phone.

With the advent of the era of smart phones, camera functions and algorithms have become the focus of attention of major manufacturers, from specialization to ease of use. At the same time, with the continuous upgrading of CMOS suppliers such as Sony, the mobile phone image experience is not the same as that of 20 years ago.

In the upgrade of functions and algorithms, we can be divided into several stages. The current mobile phone market is in the cycle of 5G video+computational photography. In essence, this is the performance of mobile phone manufacturers to strengthen their investment in video shooting and algorithms. Different manufacturers take different paths in computational photography, and OPPO chooses a relatively difficult path: Mariana X, a special NPU chip for self-developed images.

What improvements can this chip bring to mobile phone photography?

What exactly is computational photography?

The term "computational photography" has become very popular in recent years. Anyone familiar with camera algorithm should know that the essence of image information processing is the process from sensor data to ISP chip, so the quality of image sensor, ISP chip and algorithm is closely related to the final imaging quality.

In recent years, the upgrade of hardware specifications of CMOS sensors has slowed down, or in the limited space of mobile phones, if CMOS wants to achieve qualitative changes in parameters such as sensitivity and aperture, it is better to realize the breakthrough of mobile phone images through customized requirements and customized algorithms. However, how to make the appropriate processing in the appropriate scene through the algorithm, and whether the graphic processing process involving a large number of calculations can be completed efficiently and smoothly only by ISP chips?

In this context, Mariana X was born.

Mariana X is an image-specific NPU chip, which is built with the new gold architecture concept of DSA and 6nm technology. Its computing power is as high as 18 tops, and 1 sec can complete 18 trillion operations, which can complete image information processing more quickly and help OPPO find X5 Pro to evolve in images and videos.

Through the integration of self-developed chip and self-developed algorithm, self-developed chip and general platform, chip and deep customized camera, OPPO has realized a more targeted image solution on Find X5 Pro, which has promoted the further development of OPPO's image strategy.

What can Mariana X do?

For most consumers, the understanding of chips may stop at CPU or GPU. After all, the quality of CPU and GPU can be clearly perceived by users when using mobile phones. Mariana X, as an NPU chip, belongs to a class of image chips. Its benefits, implemented in practical functions, are the actual improvement of image experience.

The first is to support 4K ultra-clear night vision. Shooting night scenes is a huge challenge for all mobile phones. For example, when we usually take a night scene, it often takes some time to finish shooting after pressing the shutter in order to get a normal exposure photo, and this is just a single photo. If we shoot a video, the required computing power will increase exponentially, which is unbearable for ordinary mobile phones. Video shooting is noisy and of poor quality. However, with the support of super Mariana X, OPPO Find X5 Pro has turned 4K ultra-clear night vision into reality, and can shoot high-quality videos even in dark nights.

From the overall brightness and purity of the picture, it is not difficult to see that OPPO Find X5 Pro's 4K night vision effect is outstanding, the overall noise of the picture is less, and the highlights hardly overflow. Most of the "credit" should be attributed to Mariana X, which supports the pixel-level processing of video frames, and makes the intelligent HDR fusion algorithm run in the front end of the self-developed image processing unit MariLumi. The dynamic range of the picture can reach 20bit 120db, which is amazing.

The other promotion is more "professional" and more related to the field of professional creation. Everyone should know the file in RAW format. Compared with the common photos in jpg and PNG formats, the advantage of RAW format is that it records a lot of original data, leaving a large space for later creation. Thanks to Mariana X's powerful chip computing power, it supports direct processing in RAW domain, and outputs higher quality original image information for the whole image link, making the video quality more pure.

At the same time, RAW domain computing can also improve the effect of calling the camera by the third-party application of the mobile phone. Because the third-party application calls the native camera to take pictures, it often takes one of the frames in the video preview, so the picture quality is often poor. On the premise of RAW domain computing, turning on the camera in third-party applications can also get high-quality images like native cameras.

The vertical integration of algorithms implemented by Mariana X can maximize the potential of mobile phone image hardware. OPPO Find X5 Pro adopts IMX766 dual main camera and13 megapixel telephoto lens, which can help users unlock better shooting methods and effects in many shooting scenes.

From Hasselblad to suspension anti-shake, mobile phone images are innovating.

The most famous Zeiss, Leica and Hasselblad in the photography circle have all been "won" by domestic mobile phone manufacturers. Of course, co-branding doesn't mean getting the original lens experience completely, but it can get relatively similar effects on mobile phones, and the experience is quite novel. Hasselblad is probably the first camera that young people want most, and it is now available on OPPO Find X5 Pro.

From the UI interface of the camera, we can see the changes of OPPO Find X5 Pro compared with ordinary cameras. The color of the shutter is changed to orange, which is Hasselblad's classic shutter button, and the shutter sound of taking pictures is closer to Hasselblad's mechanical shutter sound.

Functionally, OPPO Find X5 Pro restores Hasselblad's classic XPAN camera, and the wide format mode looks more cinematic. When in use, we can quickly switch between black and white and color films to obtain different film effects.

On the filter, OPPO Find X5 Pro teamed up with Ambassador Hasselblad to bring three master filters to show Hasselblad's color charm. Master fairy tales, master portraits and master landscapes can be used in different scenes, and you can shoot a large piece of texture at will. For example, the contrast between the original film and the master fairy tale, the color after turning on the master fairy tale filter is more pink, and there will really be a fairy tale atmosphere in the amusement park scene.

At the same time, there are two kinds of filters in Jiang Wen's film style: black and white and brilliant. Jiang Wen's films are always full of humanity. When using these two filters, people will inevitably think of those classic shots in Jiang Wen's movies, and photos and videos can be used.

Dual main camera sensors and better lenses have achieved a new breakthrough in color for OPPO Find X5 Pro. By customizing the 1G6P glass lens, the chromatic aberration of the main lens can be greatly reduced. The 13 channel color temperature sensor can effectively improve the white balance and restore the natural color. You can see the color of the sky below, which is close to the real color.

Ultra-wide-angle lens with free-form surface will have better anti-distortion effect than conventional lens.

When the automatic HDR is turned on, the details of the dark part are well preserved in the external environment with good light on that day, and there is no blackening, which shows that the imaging quality of the super wide-angle lens is basically the same as that of the main camera.

The telephoto lens of OPPO Find X5 Pro supports 5X hybrid optical zoom and 20x digital zoom, which can bring better zoom imaging. In the city, you can get better results under 2 times optical zoom, which is also the common focus of street sweeping. The color of the telephoto lens sample is the same as that of the main shot, which maintains a high sharpness, so it looks very good in bright weather.

The effect of night view is also remarkable. In the shooting environment facing the advertising big screen, the highlights on the big screen did not overflow at all, and the details and purity of the dark parts were excellent.

Even if the night scene mode is not turned on, high-quality imaging can still be obtained by shooting night scenes in portrait mode.

This has to mention the suspension anti-shake technology of OPPO Find X5 Pro. This is the industry's first dual OIS anti-shake scheme, which supports dual anti-shake of lens and sensor. Suspension anti-shake can support 3 anti-shake and 0. Seven rotation anti-shake angles can realize five-axis anti-shake of X axis, Y axis, pitch axis, yaw axis and roller. The safe shutter time for taking photos is reduced to 0.5s, which greatly improves the light intake while ensuring the quality of night scene proofs.

The most direct gain brought by suspension anti-shake is the improvement of OPPO Find X5 Pro in video anti-shake. For most people, video shooting is handheld. If you want to get stable and high-quality video material without a pan/tilt, the effect of mobile phone anti-shake is very important. You can simply watch a video we shot with skateboarders. In the case of hand-held shooting, there is only slight jitter, and there are no defects on the ground, including jelly effect and blur.

Even if you don't turn on Super Anti-shake Pro, you can get better video effects with the effect of suspension anti-shake. For example, the picture effect when we shoot 4K night scenes.

The effect of suspension anti-shake is not limited to this, it can also improve the capture effect of mobile phones, focus quickly and accurately, and the film quality is high, such as our skateboard.

From the proof effect, OPPO Find X5 Pro is outstanding in color and color accuracy. After joining hands with Hasselblad, it provides users with more colors and styles to choose from.

Of course, what is even more surprising is the innovation brought by OPPO Find X5 Pro in video shooting. Whether it is 4K night vision or 20-bit super HDR and RAW domain processing, the video shooting specifications are closer to the professional field, and then more easy-to-use video shooting methods are brought to ordinary users through suspension anti-shake, which lays the foundation for OPPO Find X5 Pro in short video tracks. On the basis of Mariana X, OPPO Find X5 Pro accelerates the progress in mobile phone images through computational photography.

Write it at the end

There are many directions for mobile phones to break through, but why chips and video chips? These two questions have been answered by OPPO executives before.

Chen Mingyong, founder and CEO of OPPO, said: "Without the underlying core technology, there will be no future." For mobile phone products, the chip is the core technology at the bottom. The reason why we chose the image chip, OPPO jiang bo also said that the image has always been the core of OPPO mobile phone products, and consumers have always recognized it. OPPO takes noise reduction, HDR and other image effects as the breakthrough point, and accelerates the image breakthrough through self-developed chips to enhance the user's shooting experience.

Through OPPO Find X5 Pro's high standard hardware, Hasselblad natural color and suspension anti-shake, you can feel its great upgrade to the image. The most surprising thing is the commercialization of Mariana X. As a product designed by OPPO through user needs, it has more possibilities in the OPPO ecosystem, and its higher computing power can handle more image information. Targeted adjustment can better release the potential of image hardware and improve the photographic effect of mobile phones.

For users, the professional and easy-to-use OPPO Find X5 Pro is the best choice for mobile phone photography.