Huawei with the P30 Pro and OPPO with the Reno are still the only manufacturers to offer folded-tele-optics in their respective smartphone camera systems. According to South Korean technology publication The Elec they might soon be joined by Samsung, though.
The company started mass production of a 5x optical zoom camera module back in May. In in its report, The Elec claims the new tele camera will debut in the next generation Galaxy S11 device and will be accompanied by a 108MP main camera.
Like other recent high-resolution smartphone sensors, the 108MP juggernaut will likely not be designed to output full resolution images but instead deliver image data that can be subjected to all sorts of computational imaging trickery, resulting in better detail, lower noise, a wider dynamic range and better zoom performance among others.
Samsung Electro-Mechanics has released a video which shows the new lens design and how it works in detail. The module is only 5mm tall which means it fits even in thin smartphone bodies without protruding too much. Light is diverted onto the sensor via a prism. The latter is tilting to provide image stabilization which makes a lot of sense for the lens long maximum focal length.
Samsung launched the Note 10 flagship series with a more conventional camera not too long ago but we should be able to see the new design in the S11 models which are expected to launch sometime next spring.
. dpreview.com2019-9-26 17:58
