In typical Oppo fashion, the company has teased at some new camera tech for smartphones that it’s been working on.

The brief video, tweeted by the company on Tuesday, shows a “self-developed retractable camera” which does exactly what you’d think. The camera extends out of the phone’s body and then retracts back inside in what we believe is known in some circles as ‘ground hogging’.

The short piece of cinema also alludes to the fact that the mechanism is waterproof as seen from the sprays of water onto the device and camera module. If you tend to drop your phone often and want to get your hands on Oppo’s newest tech but are scared you might drop and break the extended camera, then fear not. Oppo made a big deal of the camera automatically retracting when the device is dropped.

Good work (probably), Oppo

Most pop-ups are annoying…

But not our self-developed retractable camera! 😉

Explore more in INNO WORLD on 14/12.#OPPOINNODAY2021 pic.twitter.com/33hgJSw8If

— OPPO (@oppo) December 7, 2021

Oppo hasn’t made any claims about how this will affect picture quality but it could have some implications for telephoto capabilities. We’ll have to wait until Oppo’s Inno Day 2021, the annual tech event hosted by the company, on 14-15 December to find out more details. All we know so far are the specs on the camera sensor module. The module is marked as having a 1/1.56in sensor, an effective 50mm lens and an aperture of f/2.4.

This isn’t the first time we’ve seen companies innovate in the smartphone camera space. Popup cameras were all the rage a few years ago. The first to market was the Vivo Nex in 2018. That was followed by devices from the likes of OnePlus with the 7T Pro, Asus put one in its Zenphone 8 Flip and Oppo gave it a try with the Reno 10x Zoom and its sharkfin-style popup camera. But this will mark the first time a smartphone camera has moved about the z-axis.

Source: The Verge