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"
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Oppo Introduces MeshTalk – An Ad Hoc LAN With 3km Communication Range
Chinese smartphone manufacturer Oppo has had an eventful time at the Mobile World Congress, Shanghai. The company became the world's first to introduce a new camera technology that will become mainstream in due course of time. Additionally, it also surprised everyone by launching an inter-device communication framework dubbed 'Meshtalk'.
[...] Oppo's MeshTalk is a first of its kind technology that's introduced by a smartphone manufacturer. Prior to MeshTalk, apps like FireChat allowed users to send each other messages and photos in the absence of traditional mediums of data exchange such as Cellular, WiFi and Bluetooth networks. MeshTalk, according to Oppo, will also allow users to make calls and send voice messages within a 3km radius in open fields. This radius can also be achieved in urban environments through a phone's relay claims the company.
Our early look at the technology suggests that it's nothing more than an application of the principles of wireless mesh modes to Oppo's smartphones. A Mesh network works by configuring a device to send and receive data packets from another device. For a smartphone, this means that a gadget's WiFi and Bluetooth radios can be configured to send and receive information from other similarly configured smartphones. The aforementioned FireChat app, for example, works according to these principles. However, Oppo claims that a 'custom chip' is behind MeshTalk, so maybe we're looking at a novel approach with the new technology.
Also at The Verge, BGR, and Android Authority.
Related: Oppo Likely to Release the First Smartphone With 10 GB of RAM
Oppo Smartphone Camera System Includes 10x "Hybrid Zoom"
Oppo Demonstrates 10x Optical Zoom for Smartphone Cameras
A Bunch of Mobile World Congress 2019 Stories
Oppo confirms 10x zoom camera for smartphones
Oppo has confirmed that it's developing a smartphone camera system with a 10x zoom lens, as rumored. The tech is similar to the 5x zoom prototype the company showed off a couple of years ago, making use of the phone's lateral width to enable the necessary physical depth through the use of a periscope-style prism.
This time around the camera is 15.9-159mm-equivalent, meaning it'll start with an ultrawide perspective and zoom into medium telephoto. It's essentially three prime lenses in one, so Oppo's claim of "lossless" zoom might not quite be accurate throughout the entire zoom range, but it should be considerably [more] flexible nonetheless.
The system has optical image stabilization, but so far Oppo isn't saying anything about aperture, which has been the drawback of previous experiments with zoom lenses on phones. The Asus Zenfone Zoom, for example, had a 3x f/2.7-4.8 lens, and the results weren't great. Even the 2x f/2.4 "telephoto" lens on the iPhone XS turns in worse results than simply cropping the wider, faster primary camera except in the very best of lighting conditions.
The camera will be shown off at Mobile World Congress 2019 in February.
Also at Engadget.
Related: Nokia (HMD Global) Partners with Zeiss for Optics Capabilities
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 24 2019, @11:35PM (3 children)
10x zoomed upskirt photos!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 25 2019, @12:50AM
^ cunt!
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 25 2019, @01:01AM (1 child)
Yeah! You'll see the nits! Eww!
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 25 2019, @01:07AM
But that's his fetish.
(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.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Monday February 25 2019, @02:07AM
What happened to all that fancy flat lens technology [bbc.com]?
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..