Search

US-12619126-B2 - Dual-aperture zoom digital camera with automatic adjustable tele field of view

US12619126B2US 12619126 B2US12619126 B2US 12619126B2US-12619126-B2

Abstract

Disclosed herein are digital cameras including an upright Wide camera configured to provide a Wide image with a Wide field of view (FOV W ) and a folded Tele camera configured to provide a Tele image with a Tele field of view (FOV T ), wherein the Tele camera includes a rotating OPFE operative to provide a folded optical path between an object or scene and a Tele sensor, wherein rotation of the OPFE moves FOV T relative to FOV W .

Inventors

  • Gal Shabtay
  • Ephraim Goldenberg
  • Eran Kali
  • Noy Cohen
  • Gil Avraham
  • Ruthy KATZ

Assignees

  • COREPHOTONICS LTD.

Dates

Publication Date
20260505
Application Date
20230615

Claims (7)

  1. 1 . A mobile device, comprising: a screen on a front side of the mobile device; an upright Wide camera having a first field-of-view (FOV1), a first resolution, and a first image sensor that lies in a plane parallel to the screen; and a folded Tele camera having a second field-of-view (FOV2), a second resolution, a Tele lens module, an optical folding element (OPFE), and a second image sensor, wherein FOV2<FOV1, wherein the OPFE is a prism having a reflective surface, the prism configured to receive light from a first direction and redirect the light to a second direction different from the first direction, wherein the reflective surface of the OPFE has an angle α with the screen that fulfills 30≤α≤60 degrees, and wherein the upright Wide camera and the folded Tele camera are disposed on a back side of the mobile device, the back side being opposite to the front side.
  2. 2 . The mobile device of claim 1 , wherein the folded Tele camera is an auto-focus camera.
  3. 3 . The mobile device of claim 1 , wherein the first resolution is different from the second resolution.
  4. 4 . The mobile device of claim 1 , wherein the mobile device is configured to display a first icon and a second icon on the screen, wherein the mobile device is configured to display a first scene captured by the upright Wide camera when the first icon is selected, and wherein the mobile device is configured to display a second scene captured by the folded Tele camera when the second icon is selected.
  5. 5 . The mobile device of claim 4 , wherein the first and second icons are displayed along a same axis on one side of the screen.
  6. 6 . The mobile device of claim 5 , wherein a ratio FOV2/FOV1 is between ¼ and ¾.
  7. 7 . The mobile device of claim 6 , wherein the mobile device is a smartphone.

Description

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS This application is a continuation of US patent application 17,882,640 filed Aug. 8, 2022, which was a continuation of US patent application 17,846,203 filed Jun. 22, 2022 (now U.S. Pat. No. 11,599,007), which was a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 17/145,309 filed Jan. 9, 2021 (now U.S. Pat. No. 11,392,009), which was a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 16/699,577 filed Nov. 30, 2019 (now U.S. patent Ser. No. 10/935,870), which was a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 15/525,059 filed May 6, 2017 (now U.S. patent Ser. No. 10/578,948), which was a 371 application from international patent application PCT/IB2016/057366 filed Dec. 5, 2016 and claims priority from U.S. Provisional Patent Applications No. 62/272,367 filed on Dec. 29, 2015 and 62/361,150 filed on Jul. 12, 2016, both of which are expressly incorporated herein by reference in their entirety. FIELD Embodiments disclosed herein relate in general to digital cameras and in particular to thin zoom digital cameras. BACKGROUND Host devices or “personal computing and/or communication devices” (such as smartphones) having two back cameras (also referred to as “dual-camera” or “dual-aperture camera”) are known, see e.g. U.S. Pat. No. 9,185,291. The two back cameras have two image sensors (or simply “sensors”) operated simultaneously to capture an image, and have lenses with different focal lengths. Even though each lens/sensor combination is aligned to look in the same direction, each will capture an image of the same scene but with two different fields of view (FOV). Dual-aperture zoom cameras in which one camera has a “Wide” FOV (FOVW) and the other has a narrow or “Tele” FOV (FOVT) are also known, see e.g. U.S. Pat. No. 9,185,291. The cameras are referred to respectively as Wide and Tele cameras that include respective Wide and Tele sensors. These sensors provide respectively separate Wide and Tele images. The Wide image captures FOVW and has lower spatial resolution than the Tele image that captures FOVT. As used herein, “FOV” is defined by the tangent of the angle between a line crossing the lens and parallel to the lens optical axes and a line between the lens and any object that is captured on the respective image corner. The images may be merged (fused) together to form a composite image. In the composite image, the central portion is formed by combining the relatively higher spatial resolution image taken by the lens/sensor combination with the longer focal length, and the peripheral portion is formed by a peripheral portion of the relatively lower spatial resolution image taken by the lens/sensor combination with the shorter focal length. The user selects a desired amount of zoom and the composite image is used to interpolate values from the chosen amount of zoom to provide a respective zoom image. Hereinafter, the use of “resolution” in this description refers to image spatial resolution, which is indicative to the resolving power of a camera as determined by the lens focal length, its aperture diameter and the sensor pixel size. Dual-aperture cameras in which one image (normally the Tele image) is obtained through a folded optical path are known, see e.g. co-invented and co-owned U.S. patent application Ser. No. 14/455,906, which teaches zoom digital cameras comprising an “upright” (with a direct optical axis to an object or scene) Wide camera and a “folded” Tele camera, see also FIG. 2B below. The folded camera has an optical axis substantially perpendicular (orthogonal) to an optical axis of the upright camera. The folded Tele camera may be auto-focused and optically stabilized by moving either its lens or by tilting an optical path folding (reflecting) element (e.g. a prism or minor and referred to also as “OPFE”) inserted in an optical path between its lens and a respective sensor. For simplicity, the optical path folding element is referred to hereinafter in this description generically as “prism”, with the understanding that the term may refer to any other optical path folding (reflecting) element that can perform the function of folding an optical path as described herein. For example, PCT patent application PCT/IB2016/056060 titled “Dual-aperture zoom digital camera user interface” discloses a user interface for operating a dual-aperture digital camera included in host device, the dual-aperture digital camera including a Wide camera and a Tele camera, the user interface comprising a screen configured to display at least one icon and an image of a scene acquired with at least one of the Tele and Wide cameras, a frame defining FOVT superposed on a Wide image defined by FOVW, and means to switch the screen from displaying the Wide image to displaying the Tele image. The user interface further comprises means to switch the screen from displaying the Tele image to displaying the Wide image. The user interface may further comprise means to acquire the Tele ima