Optical Zoom

This year at MWC, Oppo showed off a smartphone prototype that used a new implementation of dual cameras to offer a 5X optical zoom. The company did not reveal anything about the actual plans to use it for products, nor did they reveal the cost of its implementation, but it is likely that it will reach the market sometimes in the future. Imaging capabilities of smartphones have been evolving rapidly since the introduction of the first handsets with cameras. Throughout the history of phones making photos, manufacturers have developed new lens packs, new CMOS sensors and extensive ISPs (image sensor processors) in order to improve the capability and/or quality of images. For a while, a number of makers tended to install higher-resolution sensors simply because...