"LG's smartphone-making days may be over, but LG Innotek -- a major supplier of mobile camera modules -- is alive and well. It's introducing a new telephoto zoom camera module at CES 2023, offering true, continuous optical zoom."

"While most other long smartphone cameras use image-quality-degrading digital zoom to reach beyond their native focal length, LG's design uses moving lenses -- much like a traditional DSLR camera lens -- which preserves image detail. This camera module also uses a folded-optic design, also referred to as a periscope lens, keeping the overall size down. The result is a lens that covers a 4-9x range, with true optical zoom in between."

By "folded-optic design", they're referring to a system for using prisms so light, instead of going through lenses that are stacked parallel to the phone surface, the prism will redirect the light from going perpendicular to the phone surface to going parallel to the phone surface inside the phone, enabling lenses to be stacked perpendicular to the phone surface inside the phone. One prism redirects light as it enters the phone and a second redirects it before it reaches the sensor. If you're having trouble visualizing this, get the PDF document linked below (Apple patent).

LG Innotek is ready to put true optical zoom lenses in the next wave of flagship phones / The camera component supplier has unveiled a telephoto module with real moving optics to cover a 4-9x range — no digital zoom required

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