Qualcomm has announced Qualcomm Clear Sight, its new dual camera technology powered by Qualcomm Spectra ISP (Image Signal Processor). “This technology is designed to mimic the attributes of the human eye and will give your photos improved dynamic range, sharpness, and less noise in low light,” says Qualcomm.
Clear Sight features two cameras, each with its own lens and image sensor. The lenses have identical focal length, but each camera has a different image sensor: one color image sensor, and a separate black and white image sensor. This is almost similar to Huawei P9 that uses its own technology.
The color sensor and black and white sensors are the same, except that the black and white sensor has had its top layer’s color filter removed. Without it, the sensor is unable to capture color, but its ability to capture light increases by 3x, which is helpful with low-light environments.
Without the color filter, these black and white photos have much better contrast, and in low light have less noise and improved sharpness. When color information from the other photo is merged the image quality will be brilliant, says Qualcomm.
Clear Sight technology is supported by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 and 821 processors that feature Qualcomm Spectra ISP, a technology core dedicated to cameras.
Regarding the Qualcomm Spectra and Clear Sight, Qualcomm said:
The Qualcomm Spectra ISPs inside of these Snapdragon processors are engineered to merge and quickly processes data simultaneously from both cameras to create a high quality photograph, even in very low lighting, by using algorithms to blend the images captured from each of the two cameras intelligently.
Clear Sight consists of a single, fully integrated hardware module that contains two cameras, plus computational low light imaging algorithms that enable Qualcomm Spectra ISPs, designed to take photos at the exact same time and merge the two photos together, instantaneously, with outstanding image quality even in low lighting.