Oppo, using a prism, gets 5x lossless zoom on phones

Chinese brand Oppo might not be very well known locally, but it’s a rather innovative smartphone manufacturer in China. We’ve seen the company launch a smartphone camera on a swivel (who needs a separate selfie camera?), VOOC wireless charging and a host of other cool things.

However, Oppo used MWC 2017 to reveal its latest innovation, in the form of 5x lossless zoom and more effective optical image stabilisation (OIS) for smartphones. Interestingly enough, Oppo says the new tech is only 5.7mms thin, which means it should easily fit in today’s phones.

The new take on smartphone zoom uses “unique periscope-style dual camera technology” to deliver results.

“It uses a unique periscope-style structure to divert light through a prism and into a telephoto lens nested inside the smartphone, set at a 90° angle to a rear-facing wide-angle lens.
By shifting the light’s path, Oppo is able to achieve a lossless 5x zoom. even within the confines of a thin smartphone,” the company explained in a post.

Oppo has delivered a crazy 5x lossless zoom solution at MWC 2017, but when can we see it in a real-world smartphone?

The OIS has also seen attention, with Oppo claiming improvements of 40% compared to traditional OIS tech.

“Both the prism and the telephoto lens group in Oppo’s periscope-style camera module intelligently sense vibrations and make corresponding compensations in real time,” the brand explained.

The technology isn’t in a production smartphone just yet, it has to be stated. Still, expect Oppo to be hard at work on a phone that uses this tech.