Light posts insights how its tech will work on smartphones

Stipe | 14/01/2019 | Nokia, Phones | 3 Comments

HMD Global, the maker of Nokia phones, is soon set to introduce its first cameraphone that is rumored to be called Nokia 9 PureView. The unique feature of this phone, that carries the famous PureView branding and is speculated to be released at the end of January, is a penta-lens camera setup on the back. In June of 2018 info surfaced that the penta-lens setup could be from a company called Light, and it’s most likely that is the case.

Light is a young startup company doing business in the field of computational photography. The product they’re known for its the Light L16 camera, which comes with a 16 camera array with multiple cameras working together in taking a photo. Light is also a partner of FIH Mobile, HMD’s manufacturing partner and a interesting thing is that the co-founder and CEO of Light Dave Grannan worked for Nokia from 2004 to 2007.

On its company pages, Light published a page dedicated to their technology in smartphones. The page features similar insights we saw in the leaked Nokia 9 promo video, that include (more than) five cameras working at the same time and the ability to take in up 10 times more light. Light boasts that it developed a 14nm Lux Capacitor – “dedicated chipset that can control and transfer image data for up to 6 cameras (or more if you use multiple chips in parallel). This chip was built specifically for computational imaging applications and optimized for mobile phones.” This chipset Works with the Snapdragon 845 platform, that the Nokia 9 PureView is rumored to launch with. There is no mention of Snapdragon 855 SoC on the page.

Light also has a self-developed software pipeline built to handle multi-aperture image fusion, that supports combining up to 50 images, generating “a depth map with over 1,000 layers, compared to less than 10 with most other smartphone makers.” If Nokia 9 PureView uses Light’s technology, the Nokia 9 will most likely feature this additional set of hardware and software features as well. It will be interesting to see how good this camera solution will be compared to other phones on the market.