Another day another allegedly high spec camera on Kickstarter. But no! This one as the blurb says is a “Never Seen Before A Camera that doubles As A Projector”. Except that’s not true and your Spidey senses should be tingling for a camera offering 48M photos and 2K video for under $140 for those not so lucky early backers.

There are some up front worries about this camera. Firstly the lack of spec. I mean we get all the headline stuff a 48MP, 2K video and a 8W power projector but erm that’s about except for the battery size and (as we’ll see importantly) the sensor model.

That should ring Alarm bells. But the resolution should worry you as well. Although you can get camera that are 48MP or higher (some mobiles now hit 200MP or more) that sort of resolution is confined to pretty highest end models. If you take DCW’s recent list of best compacts only 2 models came close. They were the £5K plus Leica Q (60MP) and the 40MP Fujifilm X100VI (~£1,600). The rest of the cameras had a resolution of around half or less than what the ProjeCamera offers and many still cost over a grand. The cheapest on the list the OM SYSTEM Tough TG-7 cost over £400GBP but offers a 12MP sensor.

Even going one of the few actual branded budget models that still exist like the Kodak branded version of the TG7, the Kodak PIXPRO WPZ2 which is cheaper than this camera cost at full price offers just 16MP.

Or this Asoka 20MP $200 Action camera often seen as a good budget Go pro.

And things get more interesting when you look at the sensor….

Oi ! Mr Hoity Toity -Knocking yet another brave innovator ? What do ProjeCamera say ?

So in fairness here’s the their video and their spec. You can see all this and more on the KS page

And here’s the headline spec. I suspect they haven’t really proof read it as it’s all over the shop.

• 48M pixel HD photos
  • Camera resolution 2460×1440 ???
• 2K HD video (2460×1440/1440P)
• 2.4″ HD display
• 8W bright 4:3 full HD projector
• Manual Focus for projector
  • Short throw 0.6-3m
• 2500 mAh battery
• H63P Sensor
• Full retail $278 Early Bird $148 (camera alone)

So is the resolution 48MP or 3.5MP ?

And keep that sensor in your head…..

Oh and there that false headline claim about being the first projector camera combo. You can also get this as a kit with a mini tripod and charging cable for $10 more

That video also shows the projector image stuttering heavily. In fairness that could be a mismatch between frame rates of the recording camera and the projected image. And the 8W as we’ll see is confusing

On a more positive note the video clip looks good but as we’llI have some concerns about the validity of that and the stills.

So What’s the problem ? Sounds cool new idea

Not so sure about the cool but anyway it’s not new by some margin.

What do you mean It’s not a new concept ?

A visit to Martyn Stevens’ wonderful cinerdistan.com site and others shows that back in even the interwar years cine cameras that doubled as projectors were an established thang.

And you might argue but this is digital !!!l But even there it’s not first by some margin.

In 2009 Nikon launched the first of 3 Coolpix cameras that had built in projectors the Coolpix S1000PJ. You can even still see the Nikon’s French promo video.

This was a 12MP 1/2.5″ sensor camera. It’s video is only of VGA standard but so was the projector. Now granted the later models shot more detailed video (the last SJ1200PJ was capable of 720p or HD ready in old money) and the projector was upgraded. But the resolution remained at VGA.

Sony just after launched their HDR-PJ series of digital video cameras that also offered a built in projector. These could capture stills as well as video although they were typical videocams. The best models exceeded 720p but didn’t reach full HD.

And they weren’t alone, 3M and others made one. There’s even a kids one made by Hasbro under their Playskool brand.

So no the ProjeCamera is not the first combo camera by a long shot.

It perhaps if the spec is true be the first HD projector camera combo. But that’s not what they claim.

And the projector TBH may not be so great here.

Shine a light dimly – a 8W projector

Look i’m not claiming any of the other combo cams were that bright but just how bright is this on ?

You see no one uses Wattage to describe projector brightness. It is usally specified as Lumens. As wikipedia defines this is the unit of luminous flux, a measure of the perceived power of visible light emitted by a source.

For projectors it is sometimes expressed to the ANSI standard.

Now I get given Lumens can actually be an issue especially with budget projectors

So what does 8 W equate to ? we’ll assume this an LED projector a 8W bulb puts out about 700 Lumens. It’s rare to find a projector that put such a low brightness out with even budget projectors putting out 2-3 times that brightness or more. and if it isn’t an LED…

Now granted the coolpix cameras couldn’t do more than double figures but even a cheap portable projector is going to much brighter.

And then there’s the lens

But Isn’t the lens obvious ?

Nope the big lens like thing is the projector. The kickstarter doesn’t help clear it up as they’ve labelled things awfully

Now note the front lens (2) on the rear and the rear lens (16) on the front. I think 16 is actually the lens a tiny wee hole beneath the projector lens. The playskool camera we discussed earlier is similar except it’s wee sensor sit in the faux pentaprism hump. So this ain’t gonna optically zoom. Although it may have a weird rear self camera they don’t discuss.

And as I’ve stated we have nada on the lens or the exposure system.. The video shows zoom by button press suggestive of digital zoom and the lens postion at the front bezel would move you away from any hope of optical zoom (especially on a lens barrel whose only movement is to focus the projector.

And then there is the issue with the resolution

But they said it was 48MP and 2K video !

Hmm they did.

The top figure is 48M which we assume is 48MP. Now as I’ve said this is odd on such a cheap camera but the 2K video is informative as you can happily shoot much higher resolution video on much smaller pixel-wise sensors. The 20MP Tough TG7 mentioned earlier can do as could all of the camera on the list including the 17MP Panasonic Lumix LX100 II

In fact the Fujifilm X100VI could actually do 6.2K video

So why does the ProjeCamera offer 48M but only 2K video ? That just sound odd. Unless this isn’t 48MP….

So lets take a look at the claimed sensor

The H63P Sensor in the ProjeCamera

The ProjeCamera uses a generic sounding H63P sensor.

Now folk like me will go prodding and I found that sensor. Now I will caveat this by saying I guess there may be more than one sensor with that specification. But I couldn’t find another. And I could find this sensor spec on several bits of gear as well as a OEM supplier of the sensor.

And funnily enough that 2K video is quite often mentioned

The H36P Sensor turns out to be used in a few cameras but not exactly high end ones nor exactly typical compacts.

It turns up on several cheap security cameras. And I found at least one cheap action cameras using it. The security camera above are legion and can be found on walmart ($36.43) and the likes of aliexpress plus loads more under different names. Similar but different styled security cameras with the same sensor also exist. These are waterproofed dual lenses wifi connecting cameras with night vision and 2 way sound.

They all share the same spec. Now granted theis is a tad confusing but bear with me. The H63P is described as 1/4″ HD 1MP CMOS sensor. I’ve also matched that off some Chinese part wholesalers whom sell the sensor unit alone like this one (in Chinese)

I’ll let that sink for a moment.

One megapixel.

1/4″

That said most of these cameras also quote a resolution of 4MP and a 2K video support. The action cameras which Alibaba sources for a mere $15 before tax and postage do have a higher still resolution for stills with a weird choice of models with same senor but different resolutions. The max one (10.5MP) is still no where near 48MP

Okay so where is the ProjeCamera’s 48M coming from ?

We have some serious upgaming the sensor. We’ve seen that on some of the more dubious cameras like the Protax FHD, Wish camera and the frankly worst camera I’ve ever used, the non name vlogging camera. The Protax to be fair was better than you might think and I also spotted the same issue with the Amkov Vlogging kickstarter. The Latter claimed 48MP but used a reasonable Sony sensor but only 12MP mobile phone sensor

So how do we get from 12MP to 48MP (and goodness 1MP to 48MP)

All of these camera use a image upscaling sometime called interpolation.

Basically the camera (or software) takes the original image samples it and reconstructs it at a higher resolution by interpreting the pixels around each pixel.

Take this image. It is a scaled down 500×331 pixel jpeg of an original much larger (3091×2048) scanned analogue image

Now I’m just gonna crop the sign to 160×100 pixels

For reference this is the sign from the full size image cropped and resized down to 500px width like these below. We’re not going to get that when we enlarge but…

If we take our wee 160x100px image and just simply resize it to a 500px width (so a over 300% enlargement). You go quite blocky.

But running this through photoshop resampling aka interpolation produces a much softer image

Its not perfect but it was just a quick auto-resample on photoshop but you get the idea.

So increasing image sizes are possible. And it’s likely the 2-4x increase the security camera do from the 1MP sensor are okayish. The Protax actually images were okay although with a native 13.1MP sensor I had no idea why you’d bother with the 33MP upscale. The scameras were just awful whatever resolution you used.

But taking that 1MP to a 48M ?

That isn’t gonna be great. I mean my workstation PC with a a RTX card and 64GB of ram might be able to have a crack in photoshop at that taking a few minutes. But in this plastic lump with a big bulb…

But the sample ProjeCamera images & video looks good

They do look alright but keep in mind the stills are little more than VGA in size (680×462) and I’m not sure how high res the video is

And then I did some reverse image searching. I didn’t get an exact match but one of the 2 images on the KS (the one with the tree is very similar to this one on a Japanese nature photography blog (6images down on the page). It’s not the same image but is very, very close.

And then there’s the video..

I can’t find a video match but a still image that is nigh on identical to these scene and focus is to be found on stock site called pngtree. The image was uploaded in 2021. It could be a strange coincidence with the ProjeCamera video but…

Make of that what you will

Final Comments on the ProjeCamera

Yeah, you’re potentially buying 1MP sensor camera with no idea of lens spec and features with a projection mode of really unknown brightness (and the projected video images look jerky in the video). The 1/4″ sensor in context is smaller than the sensor in my very basic 2002 Olympus Camedia C-120 and tiny by even budget smartphone standards. And neither of those will interpolate.

I must be clear I could be wrong about this but the info given is confusing, limited and does not even use standard measures in the case of the projector. I’m also a little suspect about the sample images. But again they may just by chance have found a set of identical flowers to that wallpaper image. Nor have I had the camera to try and equally I have no axe to grind with the makers of ProjeCamera

TBH use your mobile and buy a projector. Radio times’ recent budget round up had one priced as low as £39 in their recent group review and whilst it wasn’t spectacular it was felt alright for the cash. Spend a little more an you get a 4K budget unit on that list for less than £100 with better image quality (I must point out I have no particular skill base on projectors – I would read reviews from different sources before buying). But whilst people might complain about these budget projectors you can at least see the spec and read reviews on them. They also use standard lumens ratings

And if you must have a camera with a projector. track down a Nikon S1xxxPJ model. They sell for less. And at least you get a historic and okay for its time budget compact with no funny interpolation. Or go fun with the Playskool.

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The ProjeCamera Kickstarter is open until the 7th of September