8MP pictures are all less that 1MB in size

[dcruff]

Is it really possible for an 8MP picture to be that small of a file size. The pictures don't even appear to be of a high resolution. They look less than 2MP.

 

[tgyberg]

Have you pulled one off of your phone and checked the size? It's got to be bigger than 1mb.

 

[dcruff]

Yep, that's when I first noticed the small file size. Then I looked at the DCIM folder on the phone and verified that the pictures were all around 900k.

 

[tgyberg]

I've got one here that is 3264x1840 and it's 2.12mb. And that was with my camera set at 6mp.

 

[dcruff]

I'm set at 8MP and I just cleaned the lens and got a new picture at 1554 KB. Still much smaller than it should be.

 

[dcruff]

Actually, I had it wrong. At 6MP (wide screen) all of my pictures are about 950k. Now when I choose 8MP, the pictures are about 1.5MB

 

[dcruff]

I just took another 8MP picture indoors with the flash and the picture came in at 1200 KB

 

[Arkbird]

You guys have to remember how small the sensors are in these things. They aren't going to be 5mbs you're used to with your camera because they aren't picking up as much detail with the smaller sensor.

 

[dcruff]

I understand that, but 8MP is 8MP. Doesn't each pixel take the same amount of bytes no matter how small the sensor is?

 

[tgyberg]

My shot that made it over 2mb was an outdoor landscape shot. A lake with lots of greens and I think that's why it was bigger.

 

[dcruff]

I'll have to try it again tomorrow during the day. But I still thought that the file size should have been bigger. Thanks.

 

[C3-PO]

I'm sure it has to do with the compression algorithm that the phone is using. Try taking a picture with lots of different contrasting colors and see if this affects the file size.

 

[kptphalkon]

If the picture has a lot of the same/similar color, it will be smaller. Jpeg compression works like heuristic file compression.

 

[lykofos]

The file sizes you are getting are pretty spot on for an 8mp phone camera. I do photography as a side business and a lot of people get confused by this. Megapixels (MP) and megabytes (MB) are not the same thing and are not really directly correlated to one another.

Megapixels are the unit of measurement for the sensor image resolution while megabytes are the unit of measurement for data storage. As others said, the saved size of your image depends on the phone's jpeg compression algorithm and how much detail, color, lighting, etc. are in the photo. Now if you're saving in a RAW format (which most basic cameras don't do), then you're file sizes would be much larger b/c there's no compression going on.

 

[tgyberg]

^ That would be hilarious of a phone came with the RAW format option! Maybe one day!