Thanks to improvements in sensor design, iPhone and Android smartphones are gaining traction among enthusiasts and professional creators.
However, one area that has lagged behind advances in image sensors is image stabilization. In a significant development, a recent patent granted to Apple hints at a potential game-changer in this field.
Advances in sensor resolution, color reproduction, and w, workflow allow phones to be used in social media content creation, commercials and e, ven television, and film production.
However, even the best smartphone camera needs to catch up when motion is introduced, highlighting the limitations of optical image stabilization within relatively small smartphone camera modules.
While innovative, the digital stabilization used in smartphones like the iPhone is essentially a sophisticated form of cropping and object tracking.
These systems attempt to stabilize an image by centering the subject as it moves, but this results in a loss of resolution and compromised image quality.
The resulting footage has a lower resolution than the original footage because the cropped video is smaller than the original.
Even capable systems like the iPhone’s Action mode can’t compare to post-production stabilization in apps like Resolve and Premiere.
Optical image stabilization, sometimes called OIS, IS, OS, or VR, is already found in many interchangeable camera lenses. Optical stabilization moves the components of a lens to counteract movement.
While optical stabilization in smartphone camera systems is not new, it is not yet a standard feature. The most impressive OIS is found in Sony’s Xperia line, but these phones have yet to gain significant popularity in the US market. Other companies like Huawei, Vivo, and OnePlus also offer phones with OIS, although these brands have yet to achieve widespread adoption.
So Apple’s patent doesn’t break new ground regarding optical stabilization in smartphone cameras, but it does indicate that the company is actively developing improved stabilization. The patent describes the system that Apple would use to design and manufacture image stabilization systems.
The patent, “Optical Image Stabilization with Moving Coil Motor,” doesn’t make for exceptionally exciting reading, but it describes Apple’s engineering approach to resolving motion artifacts. In other words, Apple is not patenting image stabilization itself, but rather its novel approach to achieving stabilization.
Apple’s current image stabilization moves components in two axes to cancel motion. The patent describes a more advanced system that uses magnets and multiple motors to provide image stabilization in additional axes, which promises to improve performance and reliability.
Apple acknowledges that its current OIS technology is susceptible to certain high-amplitude vibrations, so it will be interesting to see if a different approach to stabilization may prove more durable. As of now, Apple recommends a vibration-dampening mount for certain users, especially those who connect their iPhones to mopeds, scooters, or drones.
As their name implies, moving coils are commonly used in microphones and speakers and can move quickly and with very low power. Using a voice coil as a driver for image stabilization is familiar, but getting the technology to move an image sensor in a small device like a smartphone is difficult.
The patent also describes how magnets within a smartphone’s camera system could precisely control the position of various components to ensure better image quality.
If a single part of a lens is not perfectly parallel to the image plane, for example, this can hurt the sharpness of the image. If Apple can use location measurements and corrective magnets to adjust components during use in response to specific user movement, that could help Apple engineers extract superior performance from the very small lenses inside the camera modules.
Smartphones do not indicate when or if a technology will come to market. However, since Apple was granted the patent, it is now free to manufacture devices with the optical image stabilization technology described.
Apple’s developments often lead other companies to follow suit, so this patent could activate image stabilization systems in the broader smartphone market. In any case, an iPhone with improved optical image stabilization is likely to arrive sooner rather than later.
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