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Apple wins an iPhone Camera Patent that covers a Multiple Lens System with Multiple Zoom Levels, Adaptive-Flash Photography & more

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Today the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office officially granted Apple a patent that relates to multiple lens systems, each having different fields of view, such as a wide-angle lens system, a telephoto lens system, and an ultra-wide-angle lens system.

Apple's granted patent covers a camera arrangement with one or multiple lens systems. With one lens system, there may be different digital zooms achieving different fields of views.

With multiple lens systems, each may have different fields of view, such as a wide-angle lens system, a telephoto lens system, and an ultra-wide-angle lens system.

A field of view of an image captured by the camera arrangement may be based on a combination of the fields of view of the different lens systems, such as a combination of a field of view of a wide-angle lens system and a field of view of a telephoto lens system, or a combination of a wide-angle lens system and an ultra-wide-angle lens system.

In addition, a camera arrangement may be configured to capture photos at multiple zoom levels using a combination of the different lens systems, such as a combination of the telephoto lens system and the wide-angle lens system.

For example, a camera arrangement may include a camera with a telephoto lens system and another camera with a wide-angle lens system, or may include a camera configured to operate both a telephoto lens system and a wide-angle lens system to achieve intermediate optical zoom levels between a full optical wide-angle mode and a full optical telephoto mode.

The mobile computing device also includes a light source module embedded in the mobile computing device or coupled with the mobile computing device. The light source module includes an array of illumination elements configured to emit light through a projection lens. For example, the one or more illumination elements may be one or more light emitting diodes (LEDs).

Different scenes of objects at different distances within the camera arrangement field of view may have quadrilateral shapes. As a distance from the camera is increased in a composite camera arrangement field of view, scenes corresponding with cross-sections of the pyramid composite camera arrangement field of view at the increasing distances may have quadrilateral shapes with increasing areas.

A controller may determine an illumination pattern for a composite camera arrangement field of view based on a level of inclusion of a telephoto field of view or a wide-angle field of view in the composite field of view. The level of inclusion may vary in a spectrum from the composite camera arrangement field of view being primarily based on the wide-angle field of view to the composite camera arrangement field of view being based primarily on the telephoto field of view. In some embodiments, a controller may be configured to receive information indicating a camera optical zoom level, a camera mode, such as a wide-angle mode or a telephoto mode, a digital zoom level, an estimated distance to objects in a scene to be captured by the camera, or other camera information, such as auto-focus information.

The information may correspond to a level of inclusion of a wide-angle field of view or a telephoto field of view in a composite camera arrangement field of view that varies. The controller may further be configured to infer the level of inclusion of the wide-angle field of view or the telephoto field of view in the composite camera field of view based on the optical or digital zoom level of the camera, the distance to the scene, and/or the camera mode.

Apple's patent FIG. 3A below illustrates a composite camera field of view;  FIG. 3B illustrates a camera with a single lens component providing variable fields of view; FIG. 3C illustrates a light source module with adjustable illumination array and projection lens embedded in a mobile computing device, according to some embodiments.

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Apple's patent FIGS. 4A-C above illustrate a light source module with adjustable illumination array and projection lens illuminating scenes at different distances.

For camera buffs, review the full details of this invention by checking out granted patent 12132996.   

10.52FX - Granted Patent Bar