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German engineers remove camera bump from phones with new design

by 7 Comments

German engineers are developing a new concept that might change the design of smartphones and the concept of smartphone photography. In an attempt to avoid camera bump, they have created a prototype of the phone which has the camera that slides from the side of a device.

With smartphone cameras, there’s always an issue of space. High-quality photos require more advanced lenses, and these take up more space. As a result, we have the camera bump on the back of most modern devices. At least on those that make amazing photos. Therefore, for the sake of reducing the camera bump on smart devices, German engineers from Fraunhofer Institute have re-imagined the concept of smartphone camera.

They have created a prototype that would simply slide from the side of the device. It uses four image sensors rotated at 90 degrees and a set of tiny mirrors. The original concept predicted one mirror, but it faltered at close range. Then the second one was added so the images would be stitched together, but then you could see the stitching errors. Finally, the engineers added the second set of sensors and mirrors, so the phone was able to calculate and eliminate any stitching errors. Also, they flip around, so it’s possible to take photos from the front and the rear of the phone.

The prototype model is only 3.5 millimeters thin, yet it produces images at 20 megapixel resolution. In addition, it also has focus and optical image stabilization.

According to the developers, the concept works and resolves the issue of camera bump. But it might be a challenge to convince smartphone companies to adopt this system, as it’s largely different from the concept currently in use. Aside from camera bump, this could solve a bigger issue. The camera can’t take photos until it slides out of the phone. So, this could prevent snapping the photos of people secretly without their knowledge.

For now, this is only a prototype, but I’d like to see a camera like this in action, along with some sample images. What about you? What do you think of this idea? Do you think it could work and develop further?

[via PC World]

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  • Renato Murakami

    Honestly? I’d rather keep the camera bump, which is flattened by the case I always use anyways, than having to deal with problems of wear and tear of a pop-up mechanism.

    Problems I can immediately guess on a design like this:
    – harder to make the phone dust and water resistant;
    – pop-up mechanisms always tend to get dirty, grimmy and stuck after a while – this will highly depend on quality of materials and engineering put on it;
    – it gets in the way of taking photos/videos. The extra step is, of course, popping the camera module out;
    – occupies extra space internally. Not a huge deal but something manufacturers would have to consider. Internal space is kinda precious, if you fill the top of the smartphone up with something like that you’ll need to find extra space to put speakers, buttons, headphone jack module, ambient light sensor, etc. It usually eats away at how big a battery you can put in there;
    – If it’s a smartphone controlled automatic pop-out mechanism, then it’ll use some battery for the action. Might not be a huge deal depending on how it’s designed, but still.

    Advantages:
    – privacy. Camera module will be physically blocked while not in use… of course, this can be easily accomplished with a plastic cap or something on a regular smartphone camera;
    – this possibly allows (depending on configuration) for close to zero bezel on the smartphone screen… which seems to be a tendency. But only if used for selfie camera I guess, not ideal;
    – a 360 camera module? If that’s something people want on a smartphone;
    – aforementioned removal of camera bump. Though camera bumps are not a rule of smartphone design or anything… just remember that the Sony XZ Premium that probably has the most advanced sensor (since Sony makes most of camera sensors anyways) has just a tiny camera bump in comparison to other phones. Furthermore, a pop-up mechanism will only work up to a certain smartphone thickness… you still need to fit the camera module there, plus assembly case and all – this means no phones with Moto Z like thickness;

    So… not too sure about that. It’s not only always hard to tackle well a mechanism like that, they tend to add as points of failure.

    • Dunja0712

      Wow, thanks for such a detailed opinion! I like your point of view and the reasoning.
      Personally, I don’t see camera bump as a major problem, although I don’t count Samsung Galaxy K Zoom. That “bump” is a lens larger than my 50mm. 😀

      Still, I’d love to see this design in action, it intrigues me how it would work and what the photos would be like. As Snugge Dr. mentioned, the use of mirrors would probably reduce image quality, and I’m curious to see how they resolved this issue. I hope some sample images will appear online so I can check out if this thing really works. And if it ever gets implemented, I hope it will have a sensor from Sony. 🙂

  • Snugge Dr.

    wouldn’t using mirrors reduce both light (fstop) and details (image quality)?
    two very important factors for a camera.

  • What about no.

  • My huawei has no camera bump…

    • Dunja0712

      Cool! As far as I could see, Huawei takes really good photos. My LG doesn’t have the bump either, but it takes really crappy photos. 🙂

  • alexk

    aren’t phone makers trying to remove all movable hardware?

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