Of course, after measuring the resolution of my Canon T2i 18 MPz digital SLR, I thought that it would be fun to balance my IPhone 4S on the tripod and see what resolution it has.  Recognize that this is automatic focus and also has JPEG compression.  So this isn’t really an apples to apple comparison.  Still, I was curious how it would perform, since I am endlessly amazed at the ability of this little camera that is carried everywhere by millions.

The IPhone 4S has a remarkable camera.  It produces 8 M PZ (3264 X 2448) images on a 7.9 mm (on the diagonal) sensor.   This means ~ 2 um pixels. It has gyro-stabilization and a f/2.4 five element lens with an amazing autofocusing mechanism.  We really need to discuss some of this in greater detail.

For now, following the procedure described in the last two blogs, I found the resolution in the long axis to be 2466 line widths in the long axis and 2101 line widths along the short axis.  This is 1.3 pixels per line on the long axis and 1.2 pixels per line on the short axis. So we are again very close to the pixels limit on resolution.  So, bravo for Apple!  This is a very impressive little camera and hardly an after thought on a smart phone design.