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ZEISS CEO: ‘40MP is already more than enough’ for smartphone cameras
June 30, 2025
During an opening event for theMuseo Camera— India’s first museum dedicated to photography — Carl ZEISS AG CEO Michael Kaschke talked a bit about smartphone cameras and computational photography in general (viaIndian Express).
It seems Kaschke is impressed by advances in smartphone cameras over the past few years. However, it also seems he’s pessimistic that further advances inpixel binningwill do much good. He also seems to think professional photographers will never see the same photo quality from cameras as they can get from pro equipment.
As far as pixel binning goes, Kaschke is very clear:
In Kaschke’s opinion, smartphone OEMs are racing to outdo one another with camera features and new camera sensors becausesmartphone sales around the world are dipping. Even though a 40MP sensor is already overkill, according to Kaschke, that won’t stop smartphone companies from pushing the “feature” to sell more phones.
Here’s his statement surrounding that opinion:
Kaschke also thinks that smartphone cameras will never be as good as traditional DSLRs or other pro equipment. Although computational photography is making the amateur photographer’s photos much better than ever before, the hardware limitations of smartphones will always keep pro-grade equipment better and in demand.
Finally, Kaschke had some good things to say — as well as some criticism — about theNokia 9 PureView, which includes ZEISS optics:
In other words, the Nokia 9 PureView has some amazing optical quality, but the software and smartphone hardware working in tandem with those optics might not have been the best.
For the record, in theAndroid Authorityreview of the Nokia 9’s camera, we found images to be sub-par as compared to other computational systems currently available.
What do you think? Is Kaschke way off the mark with these statements, or is this some refreshing truth talk about smartphone cameras? Let us know your opinions in the comments!
NEXT:Nokia 9 PureView camera review: More isn’t always better
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