Xiaomi just updated its flagship smartphone, filling it with even more Leica camera tech, but apparently, that’s not enough. The company has also announced a concept called the “Modular Optical System,” which asks: “what if you could magnetically attach a Four Thirds sensor and lens to the back of your phone?”
A video posted to Xiaomi’s YouTube channel shows the module, which includes a sensor with a “Light Fusion X sensor” that “delivers true 100MP clarity,” paired with a 35mm equiv. F1.4 lens in a relatively small package. The company says it produces “strikingly sharp images” despite its size. The module magnetically attaches to the back of your phone, with no mechanical latching system or pairing process required.
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| Image: Xiaomi |
While an increasing number of phones include magnetic rings on the back thanks to the Qi 2 charging standard, the system will still require a specially-designed phone. That’s because it uses lasers to get data from the camera module to the phone. While that sounds exotic, consumer devices have long used lasers to transmit data, such as in the case of Toslink in audio equipment, or fiber internet connections. Of course, that means your phone has to have a window for the laser to travel through, as well as hardware to receive the signal.
Xiaomi says this allows it to achieve mere nanoseconds of latency, which is important when you’re trying to preview your image. The company also promises Raw files with 16EV of dynamic range, though the video implies that it’s doing that by combining multiple exposures – that’s standard fare for phone photography, but it does mean that the resulting image won’t be Raw in the purest sense of the word.
Xiaomi is one step closer to achieving the dream of smartphone photography
There are no details on when this system will make it into a commercial product that you can actually buy, if that’s even in the cards at all. However, it does make it seem like Xiaomi is one step closer to achieving the dream of smartphone photography: dedicated camera quality from a device that you already own and always have with you.
It’s a goal that many other smartphone makers have pursued through similar means: Sony was mounting camera modules to phones in 2013 with its QX series, and companies like Samsung and Zeiss have experimented with devices that were hybrid Android phones and compact cameras. We’ve also seen cameras that achieve much smaller lenses by pairing them to the sensor, such as the Ricoh GXR, Sony RX1 and Fujifilm X100 series. But while the concept may not be new, Xiaomi’s concept is one of the slickest we’ve seen in the smartphone space.
That doesn’t mean that it’s absolutely seamless. Of course, it still requires a separate component that you must carry around. However, it’s still substantially smaller than a whole separate camera, and it doesn’t require its own batteries or storage. It also gives you all the upsides that come with phone photography, such as the immense image processing power and the ability to share your photos instantly. If Xiaomi can pull this off, it could be a big step in the evolution of smartphone photography, especially if it expands on the system, adding additional lenses or even giving you just a bare sensor and a lens mount, letting you use traditional glass with your phone, though the latter would be a big ask for a purely magnetic mount.
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This article comes from DP Review and can be read on the original site.
