OPPO Pop-up Telescopic Camera is Provided by Sony For the Chip

From single-shot to multi-shot, from low-pixel to high-pixel, to faster autofocus and optical image stabilization; mobile phone manufacturers have never stopped on the road of optical innovation. A few days ago, at the third OPPO Future Technology Conference 2021 (OPPO INNO DAY 2021) of “Being Good and Moving Forward”, OPPO Pop-up Telescopic Camera was officially unveiled, which can be regarded as another major issue in the field of mobile phone optics.

According to Jiwei.com, the telescopic camera can not only break the deadlock between the outsole and the telephoto, so that the thickness of the phone is no longer limited, but it can also provide a larger optical zoom to achieve a similar SLR effect.

Recently, the pop-up telescopic lens has attracted widespread attention in the industry. Judging from the published prototype parameters, the pop-up telescopic camera equipped with the prototype has a 1/1.56 inch sensor, an equivalent focal length of 50mm, and a super configuration of F2.4 aperture. It not only supports waterproof but also automatically retracts when dropped. Function.

Specifically, OPPO’s prototype exhibited this time, the main camera sensor of the mobile phone is an ordinary wide-angle outsole main camera when in the contracted state. When switched to a specific mode, the main camera will automatically pop up. After popping up, the focal length reaches 50mm, which is converted into a portrait lens with 2X optical zoom capability. In turn, the main camera has the functions of a wide-angle + portrait lens. The retractable design can also make the design more compact and save the internal space of the fuselage.

It can be seen that the structural design of the telescopic camera introduced by OPPO this time can be said to be another exploration of camera design. Jiwei has learned that the camera chip of this prototype is supplied by Sony, while the phone lens and motor are from Chengrui Optics.

In fact, OPPO has always had its own unique ideas about the design of the camera form. However, why did OPPO work on the pop-up telescopic camera this time? Perhaps the reason can be traced back to “I want a telephoto experience, but don’t want the phone to become heavy”.

In fact, looking at the entire mobile phone camera market at present, when the pixels continue to be upgraded, the lens needs to be continuously upgraded, and because of this, it can be seen that the number of lenses is constantly increasing.

However, as the number of lenses increases, the weight of the lens will increase. On the other hand, when the camera chip is the same, the focal length is thicker than the shorter focal length lens. And this is why most of the flagship models with multiple main cameras only use the outsole camera chip in the super wide-angle and wide-angle, but still use the small bottom chip in the telephoto.

It is understood that the emergence of telescopic cameras makes the thickness of mobile phones no longer a limitation. When shooting is not required, the thickness of the camera is equivalent to that of the mobile phone. When shooting is required, the camera pops up to the designated focal length for shooting. Secondly, the telescopic camera can be matched with an outsole sensor and a large aperture lens, so the image quality is better than traditional cameras.

However, the application of telescopic cameras on mobile phones is not easy. According to public information, around 2008, mobile phone manufacturers had launched products with telescopic lenses in order to achieve product differentiation, but they were extremely thick and lost portability. Since then, it has been a major issue in the industry to explore how the telescopic camera can be applied to the smartphone side.

And now, the release of a prototype equipped with an OPPO Pop-up Telescopic Camera means that the product may not be far away from us. Jiwei has learned that with the support of the telescopic camera, the outsole sensor installation can be applied to thinner mobile phones. At the same time, in the case of the equivalent module, the telescopic lens can provide greater optical zoom, and can capture more details from the image sensor compared with the conventional telephoto module.

In addition, it is worth mentioning that in the environment of continuous upgrade of mobile phone camera pixels, higher technical requirements are put forward for mobile phone lenses and motors. For lens manufacturers, it means increasing lenses. For motor manufacturers, today’s VCM motor can no longer meet the requirements of high-definition shooting in the background with blurred background.

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In other words, the retractable camera can not only achieve the effect of SLR but also solve the above-mentioned contradictions. In my opinion, the era of successful application of retractable cameras on smartphones has come.