Samsung will make a continuous zoom lens for smartphones

Samsung makes not only phones, tablets, and other mobile devices, but also a lot of internal components used inside those products. One such component is a camera lens, and the South Korean firm will make an innovative continuous optical zoom lens for smartphone cameras.

Chinese smartphone brand Tecno has announced two optical zoom lenses for phones: Dual-Mirror Reflect Telephoto and Freeform Continuum Telephoto. Samsung and Largan (Taiwanese firm) will manufacture these telephoto modules. Tecno says the Dual-Mirror Reflect Telephoto module is ready to go into phones as soon as next year, while the Freeform Continuum Telephoto module will take at least a year before it is ready for commercial use.

The Dual-Mirror Reflect Telephoto module uses two mirrors to focus the light and is also 50% smaller than traditional zoom lenses. It also creates donut-shaped bokeh effects and is similar to mirror lenses that have been available for DSLR and mirrorless cameras.

The disadvantage of this design is that it reportedly loses one stop of light, thereby halving the amount of light hitting the sensor. You can watch its video below.

The Freeform Continuum Telephoto module is somewhat similar to Sony's and LG's continuous optical zoom lens modules. It is a single periscope lens module with continuous zoom that covers 1x to 9x of the optical zoom range. So, there is no need for a separate telephoto camera, as the primary camera does all the heavy lifting when it is paired with this new module. This results in the following advantages:

You can watch the explanation of how the Freeform Continuum Telephoto module works in the video below.

However, there is one disadvantage that has been found in the Sony Xperia 1 VII that uses a similar continuous zoom module: the sharpness isn't as good as fixed telephoto lens setups. It remains to be seen if Tecno has solved that issue with its continuous zoom lens module. If that is the case, we could see similar setups on high-end phones in the future.

If this solution is viable, Samsung should consider bringing something similar (even a better version) to Galaxy phones in the future. The South Korean firm has already developed a more compact telephoto module called All Lenses on Prism (ALoP). It is not only smaller but also offers more light intake for brighter, cleaner, and sharper images. However, it doesn't offer continuous zoom.