Can a mobile phone really make a microscope? Huawei's equipment "new features" are exposed, and it is difficult to keep a low profile
Photography has become a new battlefield for mobile phone manufacturers, in order to attract consumers to buy their own products, what one inch, 10x optical zoom, 200 million pixels, telephoto macro, etc., etc., and with each self-developed camera algorithm, so that mobile phone images progress faster and faster, many photography enthusiasts have begun to regard mobile phones as a "replacement" for cameras.
(Image source: Photographed by Lei Technology)
But this is not over, mobile phone manufacturers realize that mobile phone images still have a lot of potential to be tapped, just recently according to the relevant patent office released documents, Huawei company obtained a mobile phone microscope technology patent. According to reports, when the distance between the lens and the subject is maintained at about 0.5 mm, it can be magnified 20-400 times.
(Image source: Tianyancha)
According to the published documents, Huawei filed the patent application in 2021, when the world was still in the midst of the epidemic. Therefore, in the patent description, Huawei emphasizes that it can not only be used for ordinary shooting, but also directly identify the types and quantities of microorganisms (such as bacteria) in the subject, and provide hygiene advice.
Judging from this document, Huawei's microscope technology seems to be a little "over standard", if it can really photograph microorganisms, then where is its practical value? Could this be a new technology for the sake of gimmicks?
Huawei, what new tricks do you want to do?
According to the information points revealed by the patent, this function is completed through the main camera and the macro lens, first through the main camera to identify the objects and scenes, and then let the macro camera access for microscopic shooting. After the shooting is completed, Huawei will also comprehensively analyze the general camera information and the microscope camera information to accurately determine the condition of the object, and finally describe the hygiene of the object through voice and text, and provide appropriate hygiene measures suggestions.
Huawei also outlines some application scenarios in the patent, including food safety assurance, kitchen appliance maintenance, personal hygiene assessment, table cleanliness, children's toy inspection, and pet hygiene monitoring.
From the description, this patent seems to be really interesting, consumers now pay special attention to food safety, but some harmful substances remaining on the ingredients can not be captured by the naked eye, if it can really make a publicity effect, then Huawei's patent does have a good practical value.
In fact, as early as 2021, the OPPO Find X3 series was equipped with a microscope lens with a maximum magnification of 60 times, in order to make this microscope lens shoot more details, OPPO was also intimately equipped with a ring fill light. This highly innovative microscope lens also made the OPPO Find X3 series a success, not only used by digital bloggers to identify the pixel arrangement of mobile phone screens, but also ordinary consumers used it to photograph some small parts in daily life.
(Image source: OPPO official website)
I have to say that the OPPO Find X3 series microscope lens does have a certain degree of playability, which is a good attempt in the development of mobile phone photography, but its actual role is not as big as we imagined, and there are not many practical use scenarios in daily life, which can be said to create demand for yourself. Perhaps because of this, the OPPO Find X5 series does not retain this "creative" microscope lens.
However, many manufacturers have brought more practical telephoto macro lenses based on the OPPO Find X3 series, which can not only shoot distant objects like ordinary telephoto lenses, but also can be used as a microscope under certain circumstances. But there are still very few users who pay attention to this lens.
(Image source: Xiaomi official)
Going back to Huawei's patented macro camera, the document shows that Huawei can zoom in on a full 200 times to photograph a close object. What is the concept of 200 times? A 100x microscope can basically see the villi on the insect's legs, and most microscopes on the market have a magnification of about 180 times, and only some professional optical microscopes can do more than 1000 times, but ultra-high magnification microscopes do not seem to match the daily scene at all.
Mobile phone as a "microscope"? It's really unnecessary
Even if consumers are really interested in mobile phone microscopes, they can directly go to third-party e-commerce platforms to buy microscope components that can be directly clipped to mobile phone cameras. Although the imaging quality of these components cannot be compared with those professional equipment, but it is absolutely enough to play daily, mobile phone manufacturers really do not need to do such a "seemingly chicken, but actually more chicken" function to the mobile phone, not to mention the images that consumers pay the most attention to today.
Even if some netizens really say that they need a microscope function, then the mobile phone can not be replaced, for example, the imaging of the traditional stereo microscope is the three-dimensional sense seen from the eyepiece, if it is replaced by a mobile phone, it will lack this three-dimensional sense, because the mobile phone is simply magnified, even if it is through software algorithms to digitally amplify, it is completely incomparable to the amplification done by optical structure.
(Image source: Jingdong Industrial Miqi)
Of course, mobile phone microscope technology is still facing many problems, such as how to ensure the shooting effect while minimizing the volume and space occupied by this lens, after all, the space inside the mobile phone is very "expensive"; How to achieve the perfect integration of microscope camera and camera; For example, how to lower its threshold for getting started, so that ordinary users can easily get started, these problems are what mobile phone manufacturers will face, if not completely solve these problems, it will only make a chicken rib semi-finished product.
But in any case, the idea that mobile phone manufacturers are willing to innovate is correct, the mobile phone industry has developed to today, even low-end mobile phones can have good image performance, and some manufacturers with very innovative ideas have begun to make articles outside the optical lens. It is foreseeable that in the next few years, this non-traditional optical lens may be increasingly carried on mobile phones, becoming a new innovative symbol of mobile phones.
(Image source: Photographed by Lei Technology)
The continuous improvement of mobile phone pixels, the continuous increase in the number of cameras, and the continuous optimization of the photo effect are inseparable from the continuous breakthrough and innovation of countless engineers, and it is the efforts of these innovators that allow us to press the mobile phone shutter at any time to record the beauty in life.