LG has developed a breakthrough new telephoto camera component for smartphones that will allow users to zoom in from long distances without loss in picture or video quality. The company announced their Optical Telephoto Zoom Camera Module on Tuesday, explaining that the new zoom lens will adopt similar telescopic functions as a DSLR camera, resulting in clean image quality even when transitioning to 4x or 9x zoom ranges. LG Innotek, LG’s electronic components subsidiary, said that the company will do a full reveal of the new optical zoom camera at Consumer Electronic Show (CES) 2023.
According to a press release from LG Innotek, the new camera will be mounted on the rear side of a smartphone and will allow for optical zoom while filming in all possible magnifications in the 4x to 9x range with one camera module.
Existing telephoto lenses only allow for optical zoom during filming in certain fixed magnifications, with digital zoom applied between the fixed magnification ranges. Smartphones would have to mount multiple zoom cameras to allow for filming high-definition videos in different magnifications.
LG‘s new camera, on the other hand, achieves the same in a single module, thus making more space available on the phone for other components and also improving battery efficiency, the company claimed.
LG developed a new zoom actuator, a camera component that moves the lens to change the focal length, for their new optical zoom camera. The actuator provides more accurate and faster zooming capabilities, the company claimed. The camera module will support OIS as well.
Additionally, LG Innotek claims that their new camera module is thinner than existing modules, thus reducing the infamous camera bump. The company said it’s also working with Qualcomm to bring software optimisations like auto-focus, auto-exposure, and auto-white balance to the camera for the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 platform.
The new camera module could soon be coming to major smartphones and LG is set to reveal the new component at CES 2023, which begins January 5.