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Oppo's 10x optical zoom system really works
Oppo has come to Mobile World Congress this year not with a phone, but with a promise. That promise is a lossless 10x optical zoom that you'll be able to obtain from a new triple-lens cameraphone system the company just unveiled. I tried it out from myself, and while I wouldn't say that the results are quite as pristine as having a dedicated camera with a true optical zooming system, this is definitely the closest we've yet come to conquering the seemingly insurmountable challenge of injecting real zoom into the tight confines of a smartphone.
The key component to Oppo's system is a periscope setup inside the phone: light comes in through one lens, gets reflected by a mirror into an array of additional lenses, and then arrives at the image sensor, which sits perpendicular to the body of the phone. That's responsible for the telephoto lens in Oppo's array, which has a 35mm equivalence of 160mm. Between that lens, a regular wide-angle lens, and a superwide-angle that's 16mm-equivalent, you get the full 10x range that Oppo promises.
Also at TechCrunch and Android Police.
See also: Galaxy S10 shows us that triple-rear camera phones are taking over
Previously: Oppo Smartphone Camera System Includes 10x "Hybrid Zoom"
(Score: 3, Informative) by FatPhil on Monday February 25 2019, @01:08AM (4 children)
And "lossless" is not a word that should be used in that context.
marketteers gotta marketee.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 3, Funny) by RandomFactor on Monday February 25 2019, @01:24AM (2 children)
They're just blurring the lines a little
В «Правде» нет известий, в «Известиях» нет правды
(Score: 3, Insightful) by bob_super on Monday February 25 2019, @06:23AM (1 child)
There's so many other thing than cameras we'd rather have them focus on.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Monday February 25 2019, @04:15PM
Personally, I would like cheaper, better cameras in my smartphone. Though, maybe that's a parent thing. The best camera is the camera you have after all. My DSLR doesn't do me any good when it's at home and I don't lug it around with me everywhere.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 1) by pTamok on Monday February 25 2019, @10:20AM
Yes, it is three cameras: a fixed wide-angle lens, a fixed medium-angle lens, and a fixed telephoto lens, plus some software trickery to blend the three to emulate a zoom between the focal length of the wide angle lens and the telephoto lens. The innovation in the telephoto lens is to use a prism to direct the light path through 90 degrees, so the length of the telephoto lens can be hidden within the phone body, rather than sticking out of the front. I image it is not a real zoom lens as incorporating a robust (against drops) and accurate moving element is not possible at the moment (and makes the lens design more difficult).
For those who are not familiar with the nomenclature, a telephoto lens is not a zoom lens. A telephoto lens is a fixed focal length, whereas a zoom lens allows the focal length to be varied. In the old days, when people used 35mm SLR cameras, it was possible to buy telephoto lenses, or, if you had less money and didn't mind having a lens that produced dimmer images, a 'teleconvertor' that you placed in between the primary lens and the camera body. Zoom lenses, with their moving elements and more complicated lens design were a great deal more expensive, and heavier.
Using a prism to reflect the light through 90 degrees is obvious. Many astronomical telescopes do this in their eye-pieces, and many microscopes use prisms or mirrors to set the eyepieces at an angle suitable for easy use on a bench. To get a true zoom, you'll need a camera body at least as thick as the lens diameter + moving support, and for decent results, that puts a minimum diameter on the lenses, and hence a minimum thickness for the phone.
This looks like it is an emulated zoom in software, using input from two or three fixed focal length optical systems.