OPPO SmartSensor provides three-axis stabilisation in the smallest package on Earth

From cave walls to our smartphones in pockets of our pants, imaging as a whole as gone through the generations and transcended the way we document the moments of our lives. Our photos live in many ways across many illustrations and the way we capture them have now moved to the little sensors that occasionally give our smartphones a camera hump and visors.

Now that our cameras are handheld and no longer require tripods, the image stabilisers that live within these lenses are all we require. They’re very important these stabilisers, without them our photos would be a blurry mess.

The SmartSensor that OPPO just announced is the first of its kind. Collaborating with MEMS Drive, the duo now has upped the smartphone camera game.

Putting all three-axes of stabilisation with their new image stabiliser could mean that OPPO smartphones could be as steady as an SLR camera. In the past, this wasn’t possible as smartphone cameras were usually too small to have a lens-based image stabiliser.

Using a lens-based sensor has limitations – only two axes of motion instead of three. Sensor-based stabilisation goes for the full three and is possible with advancements in MEMS tech. The sensor itself is as thin as a couple of sheets of paper and makes quick adjustments with monocrystalline silicon.

Image stabilisation in just 15 milliseconds.

Lens-based on the left, SmartSensor on the right

Another plus point is that the SmartSensor doesn’t suck up much power and the lens doesn’t heat up as much. Sony could probably make use of this since their smartphones heat up like a hotcake when taking photos but their amazing SteadyShot stabilisation makes up for that – you can see it in action here. Lens-based stabilisation is also 10 times more pinpoint when compared to its alternative.

Why does this all matter? Simple – OPPO smartphones will now produce less jittery images on their cameras.

As an afternote, Malaysia made its way onto the projector at Barcelona when OPPO looked at some market research. The study by Nielsen aimed to prove that we Malaysians prioritised camera functions the most in OPPO smartphones.

Regarding the new image stabiliser, we’ll test this out in person before saying anything but if it works as advertised it’ll be a God sent for people with tremoring hands.