Oppo has been keeping up with the bleeding edge of the technology quite nicely. And it was already confirmed that they’ll be announcing the new technology at MWC Shanghai 2019. So, today being the first day of MWC Shanghai 2019, Oppo has revealed the under-display camera technology at the event.
Oppo had already teased this technology enough and it was about time to be revealed. Through this new technology, Oppo would allow us to have full screen experience without any notches. Well, even though notch-less design is possible with some moving mechanisms, it won’t be as durable as the ones without them. And this technology does it all without any mechanisms included in the device, which makes it unique and different than the rest.
How does the under-display camera technology work?
Oppo’s under-display camera is completely hidden and the pixels on the screen are working, just like a usual screen. But when one activates the camera app and turn on the selfie camera, the under-display camera starts operating.
To make this under-display camera work like a normal camera, Oppo had to introduce a customized display as well as the camera module. The layer of the screen which is right above the camera module is made of a unique, highly transparent material. It also has a redesigned pixel structure that ensures optimal transmittance of light. The camera module is also specially developed for this technology. It has a large aperture, a bigger sensor and greater pixel size through which it can combat any light refraction.
A normal camera would capture a picture when the light hits the camera sensor through the glass (lens) on the front. But when you have a solid material, in this case – the screen, on the top of that glass, it would end up capturing a blurry picture. To fix this, Oppo said they have worked on three different algorithms to enhance the camera performance without having any adverse effect on the display’s performance.
The first algorithm is for White Balance. Oppo had to make targeted adjustments and had to calibrate the colour against any light sources which might obstruct the image. The second algorithm in place is the HDR algorithm. This helps in reducing overexposure of highlights and underexposure of shadows. And the final algorithm is the Haze Removal algorithm. This is the main algorithm which works to eradicate the issues created by having a solid material on the top of the lens. Also, this algorithm increases the sharpness of the image. It looks like this algorithm would be doing similar things what the “Dehaze” option would do in Adobe Lightroom.
Will we see devices with this technology in the future?
Oppo said that it will be delivering a “futuristic, notch-less, unibody and a highly-recognizable smartphone” but it also said that it’ll launch “in the near future”. This was pretty much obvious as the technology is still nowhere near perfect. As good as the technology is right now, the image quality is still affected and needs some more work before releasing it into the market.
But even this announcement of technology and some insights into that puts a smile on my face. The future is going to be exciting.
