HandsetsVideo

New LG G4 teaser touts the device’s f/1.8 aperture camera [VIDEO]

18

lg g4 camera

We’re expecting the LG G4 to be a worthy addition to LG’s most successful line of flagship Android smartphones, and the company isn’t shy about teasing it well ahead of its April 28th revelation. The latest teaser gives us some insight into the camera LG will be using, namely that it’ll sport an aperture limit for f/1.8.

What does this mean? In photography, the size of the aperture determines how much light can hit the sensor. The lower the number, the wider the aperture, the more light can get in. Having a wide aperture is not only crucial for improving low-light photography, but also for creating certain effects in the final image such as the blurred backgrounds (commonly referred to as “bokeh”) you see in a lot of photos such as this one:

Josefina_with_Bokeh

This technique is achieved thanks to the lens’ wider aperture providing enough depth-of-field to separate the foreground from the background. A smartphone camera lens isn’t quite large enough to provide an effect as strong as the one you see above, though, so it’s accurate to say that a wider aperture on a smartphone camera only serves to improve low-light photography.

To provide some context, most modern flagship smartphones top out at anywhere between f/2.0 and f/2.2. The Samsung Galaxy S6 boasts an aperture of f/1.9, while the HTC One M9 and Apple iPhone 6 are still sitting at a respectable f/2.2.

Of course, aperture size alone isn’t enough to guarantee the LG G4 will provide a quality low-light photography experience. Things like optical image stabilization (which rumors suggest it will have), lens size and quality, backlighting techniques and more will all have to come into play.

That said, while LG’s camera isn’t necessarily the greatest you’ll find in a smartphone the company hasn’t been known to disappoint in this area. We’ll have to wait until we get a look at the thing in person later this month to judge for ourselves.

Quentyn Kennemer
The "Google Phone" sounded too awesome to pass up, so I bought a G1. The rest is history. And yes, I know my name isn't Wilson.

Download: LG G Pad 8.3 Google Play Edition getting Android 5.1 Lollipop, here’s the OTA file

Previous article

HTC enlists Robinson Cano to smash competitors’ phones with baseball bats for latest ad [VIDEO]

Next article

You may also like

18 Comments

  1. It’s a great time to be an Andork, lol. Sounds good LG just make sure you continue with the same awesomeness we saw with the G3 and you have yourself a winner. Sheesh. The S6 is a beast. People can complain about the slight refinements made to the M9, but it still rocks. Now the G4 seems to pushing the envelope. Got a G Note rumored. Sammy probably brings out all the stops for the Note 5. New android wear devices and virtual reality seems to be taking off. Sorry for the rant, lol.

    1. Samsung is technology and Android especially when it comes to understanding what a phablet is and exactly what it’s suppose to do. LG is a comical fraud at best look at that silly Nexus 6 it was so useless.

      1. It was Motorola that did Nexus 6.. lol.. need to get your facts straight.

      2. LG got close to nailing it on the G3 (it’s not perfect, but definitely a contender). The screen is beautiful, although I still wish it was AMOLED. The camera is fast and sharp, with dual color flash and OIS (it’s main problems are in ISO control and the coolness of the final picture). Expandable storage, replaceable battery, IR blaster, 3gigs of RAM, fast updates, aawesome UI. If they had thrown in qi along with NFC for the US variants, made it waterproof, and took care of my above quibbles, it would have been completely perfect.

        1. totally agree with you there. It would be nice to go to something slightly less wide though.
          Oh, and add a “glove mode” :)

        2. At least adding QI wireless charging is cheap and easy…

      3. A phablet is defined as “a smartphone having a screen which is intermediate in size between that of a typical smartphone and a tablet computer”. So by that definition, any manufacturer that makes a smartphone with roughly a 5.5-6.5 inch screen has successfully made a phablet.
        You have no clue what you’re talking about.

      4. Lg didn’t make the nexus 6, Motorola did… You wuss

    1. Damn. That’s pretty great to have on a smartphone.

  2. F number is merely a ratio of focal length and aperture diameter, and with the sensor size of a smartphone I highly doubt G4 will blur the background as much as the portrait above. For example, Sony RX100 has a 1″ sensor which is bigger than any smartphone camera sensor (Lumia included) ever released, and the background gets just slightly blurred in portraits even with f1.8. Sure, f1.8 may give you better low-light performance, but expecting bokeh blobs is a bit of a stretch.

    1. I don’t think you read the article. They mentioned it won’t be anything like the example picture.

      1. Or didn’t read at all and just jumped to a conclusion. Darn it. Where’s my coffee.

        1. Yea, I should have made it more clear that a smartphone camera’s aperture is less about effects like bokeh and more about its benefits for low-light photography.

  3. See the Great = Great Camera/Screen
    Feel the Great = Leather back? (When the screen fades from black, it kinda looks like the G is being branded into leather, which would feel great)

  4. It should be interesting to see what they come up with. However I do agree that their f/1.8 lens will not be the same as a Sigma f/1.8 they’re 2 different beast. On a side note they need a new promotions team, that’s some terrible music and graphic teaser. Not to mention that sounded more like bacon sizzling at the end rather than the sound “leather” would make …..

  5. Verizon is trading my G3 in Friday for an S6 at no cost, can’t wait!

    1. How did you manage to swing that? Are you on Edge… Which size memory dir you get? I am on the fence about th S6 and want to see what LG has for the G4

Leave a reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

More in Handsets