Dr Hoch's team extended this idea, arguing that as a plant starts to disassemble its light-gathering apparatus in preparation for winter, its leaves become particularly sensitive to light damage.

ECONOMIST: The science of autumn

That may sound impossible, but it apparently works by concentrating the extra light-gathering area of a full-frame lens down to the smaller E-mount sensor area, turning an f4.0 lens into an f2.8 lens, for instance.

ENGADGET

The idea behind UltraPixels is to combine a physically large sensor with big pixels capable of gathering more light.

ENGADGET: HTC One imaging in depth: UltraPixel camera and Zoe Share