Samsung Electronics has lifted the lid on its rumoured 200-megapixel Isocell HP1 camera sensor.

Designed with 0.64μm pixels, the sensor manages to remain small enough for smartphone use, yet offer ultra high resolutions.

It also tackles the issue of low light photography, that can be affected by smaller pixels - smaller pixels mean less light getting to each pixel - through what Samsung calls ChameloenCell technology. This is a pixel-binning technology that adapts the sensor use to reduce resolution for increased low light support.

It effectively changes pixel reception to two-by-two, four-by-four or full pixel layout depending on the lighting circumstances.

Therefore, the sensor can change into a 12-megapixel configuration, with 2.56μm pixel sizes when lighting is poor, and back to up to 200-megapixels when bright.

The Isocell HP1 is also capable of capturing 8K video at 30fps with minimal loss. It merges pixels to create an 8192 x 6144 video resolution, which enables capture at 7680 x 4320 (8K) without the need to crop or scale down the image.

There's every chance that Samsung will adopt the Isocell HP1 in its 2022 flagship phone releases - perhaps the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra will be its first? Other manufacturers are also interested in adopting the new sensor.

Samsung has also announced the Isocell GN5, a 50-megapixel 1.0μm image sensor that uses Dual pixel technology for the first time.

This greatly boosts autofocus capabilities, specifically.