A patent by Apple has been published, showing a new camera technology that uses a prism to split light into three colors, each of which are captured by a different sensor.
The technology will maximize pixel resolution because it does not require color channel processing. In other words, the technology would not need to separate colors on a pixel-by-pixel basis. The technology would be especially helpful during video capture.
There would, of course, be a downside to the technology. First of all, it is likely to be much more expensive than the current camera technology inside the iPhone.
Second, it would take up more space, which is something that Apple generally tries to avoid as it creates thinner and thinner devices. The fact that it produces more accurate colors and better performance in low light might help balance out those downsides, however.
The patent shows that current digital cameras that are found in smartphones contain one single sensor with a color filter split between red, green and blue colors. After an image is captured by the light sensors, it is reconstructed using samples of the color from the filter. This can lead to images that are a little blurry.
The concept of the technology is not completely new. In fact, it is often found in professional video cameras and, in recent times, in camcorders.
It is currently unclear if Apple intends to include the technology in the next iteration of the iPhone, but Apple has been known for making one of the best cameras on the smartphone market, despite the fact that the number of megapixels on the camera remains relatively low compared to other smartphones. Of course, simple megapixels do not make a good camera, but we now see displays with higher resolutions.
Apple has been pushing its camera tech as a main selling point for the iPhone 6, with advertisements of stunning scenic photos boasting "shot on iPhone 6."
The iPhone 6 features the best iPhone camera ever made, with the iPhone 6 Plus taking things a step further. The iPhone 6 Plus features optical image stabilization, which is essentially a hardware stabilization technique that leads to clearer images and less shaky video. While software solutions to this do exist, they are often less natural and take more processing power from the device itself.
