Xiaomi shows a smartphone with a retractable zoom lens

Xiaomi founder and CEO Lei Jun likes to talk about planned innovations or developments. So now in a new post on the Chinese Weibo microblogging service. This time he was chatting in front of the cameras and showing an extendable telescope for the smartphone.

For some, memories of the Galaxy Zoom or the camera accessories Sony offered at that time are likely to awaken. Some people may even think about the look of a classic compact digital camera. Anyone who remembers such solutions knows how much space such solutions occupy, which of course was also reflected in the size of the device. Different with the retractable optics, which Xiaomi has developed for smartphones and which CEO Lei Jun has already demonstrated in a short video.

According to the company, the technology used has two main advantages: it is possible to incorporate a large screen, which allows a “300 percent higher” light incidence. Also, the image should be up to “20% clearer” with stabilization technologies. At the moment, larger sensors are being used more and more frequently in the smartphone industry, which also offer better results in the dark and also guarantee beautiful natural bokeh. This is accompanied by an ever-increasing camera bump, so you’re now hitting the limits of accommodating the appropriate optics. A possible remedy: the solution shown by Xiaomi.

I am very curious if the Xiaomi solution will be based on a variable opening, because unfortunately we are left in the dark about more details. The technology is currently still under development. However, it is already showing in what direction the development of smartphone cameras could progress in the future. I’m curious to see when the prototype phase comes out and we will see retractable camera optics of this type in market-ready devices. Last but not least, pixel smartphones in particular show that software can do a lot in the field of smartphone photography. But obviously the whole “look” cannot be replaced with it.

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