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The smartphone manufacturers have been offering various zoom solutions and now Xiaomi is now going one step further with their new camera patent, which aims to have an optical zoom similar to the DSLR cameras!
Optical zoom on smartphones
Most of the OEMs offer multiple camera setup to achieve the different focal lengths on a smartphone. They mostly function rather well, but when changing lenses, you must digitally zoom till you reach the dedicated focal length. They do a decent job on photos but on videos, that may cause unsharp images or stutters while switching between lenses.
Samsung released K Zoom and S4 Zoom with variable focal length cameras in the past. Galaxy K Zoom has a 10x optical zoom with a focal length the 35mm equivalent of 24-240mm. 10x optical zoom for an 8 years old smartphone is incredible, but there’s a catch and unfortunately it’s the size.
Samsung didn’t release Galaxy Zoom series for a long time. We have no idea why Samsung discontinued their Zoom series, but the major issue was the huge camera size causing very little space for battery. Sony released Xperia 1 IV recently and it also has variable focal length which is capable of zooming between 3.5x and 5.2x optically. That doesn’t sound like a lot of zoom, but Xperia 1 IV has the same thickness as usual smartphones.
Xiaomi’s new camera patent reveals they use bigger single camera sensor that has variable focal length, meaning no ultrawide or a telephoto camera on the back.
Xiaomi’s new camera patent
Digital Chat Station on Weibo (Chinese social media platform) has published a camera patent from Xiaomi.
The smartphone has single camera lens, as seen in the image. There isn’t detailed information available about the new smartphone, but it appears Xiaomi is very likely to release a good one for camera enthusiasts. Xiaomi released Xiaomi 12S Ultra and it got attention with massive 1″ sensor. Read our recent article to learn more about Xiaomi 12S Ultra from here: Take a look the impressive camera performance of the Xiaomi 12S Ultra
