Chinese smartphone maker Oppo is known for its innovative smartphone designs. The company recently showcased a rollable phone and another foldable phone with a crazy form factor.
However, the company has not shied away from experimenting with the camera placement as well and when almost all the smartphone brands were busy introducing similar-looking pop-up camera phones, Oppo introduced one with Shark-fin design camera module.
Continuing the trend, Oppo had last year applied for a patent of a new pop-up camera module that itself, if Oppo can successfully bring out, can be termed as an engineering marvel.
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This patent was awarded to Oppo late last year and according to LetsGoDigital, this smartphone will have a dual-camera camera setup that would pop-up when required and the phone may not have any camera sensor on the rear panel of the phone.
While we have seen smartphones with dual-selfie camera pop-ups, however, the design that Oppo intends to make is slightly different. The company wants to place two camera sensors (ideally a primary and an ultra-wide shooter) in the body of the phone but instead of facing towards the rear or front panel, these sensors will be pointed upwards.
The pop-up module will not have camera sensors, instead will have two prisms, each pointing at either side of the device allowing users to capture a selfie or a regular image and even videos. These prisms will be placed in a way that the light coming from outside will get reflected on to the sensor from where the information will be read and processed.
This is somewhat similar to the periscopic camera setup that a lot of smartphones come equipped with and offer crazy telescopic zoom feature crammed into a tiny module. Since this is a patent, the details and practical implementations are not very clear, however, it seems that both the prisms can be used to capture one image which means that this could work as a dual-camera setup.
Also, since the camera itself is still while the prisms can move, theoretically this module may allow users to even click 360-degree panorama photos or may let users capture images from both the front and rear camera at the same time.
We’re not sure if this camera module will ever make its way out in the market and not even sure if this technology is used by Oppo or by other related brands like Realme or OnePlus, but for sure it would be a very interesting implementation. And flexing off a smartphone without any visible camera sensor will surely let you earn quite a few geeky points in your circle. Isn’t it?
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