A Samsung patent published this week describes a mobile phone camera with sensor-shift stabilization for future phones, and the document also explicitly mentions several future form factors in addition to the classic phone type that has always included the classic OIS lens in Samsung’s products. spring 2021 there were rumors that Samsung was testing a mobile phone camera with sensor-shift image stabilization, and now This is all being confirmed in the form of a patent document.
Samsung has recently published a patent application entitled “Camera module including image stabilization component”. Interestingly, these documents were filed in the spring of 2021.
In this patent, Samsung explicitly describes a special kind of camera for mobile phones: a telephoto camera with a periscope lens. Unlike the telephoto cameras of recent Ultra models, such as the Galaxy S22 Ultra and earlier, it has a camera sensor that can be moved and a fixed lens. Rival Apple has long used sensor-shift stabilization in several iPhone models, and it has sometimes worked better, sometimes not. But even Apple has yet to apply this technology to telephoto cameras.
Number 212 is the periscope lens and 242 is the camera sensor, which can be moved by coils 271-274 under mounting surface 241 with magnets 261-264 mounted in housing 233.
It is worth noting that Samsung writes in the patent application that the sensor-shifting camera is not just for “classic” smartphones. The Koreans explicitly refer to the entire arsenal of devices that could emerge thanks to flexible OLED screens: any electronic device that can be folded, slid, stretched and rolled. Samsung’s future plans are already infused with new form factors.
However, one cannot infer from this that next year’s Samsung Galaxy S23 or Galaxy S23 Ultra will feature a sensor-shifted telephoto camera. We are following such developments so that we can understand what Samsung’s developers are exploring and experimenting with, and indeed we cannot draw conclusions about specific future products based on patent applications.
