According to information from Weibo, the upcoming Sony Xperia Pro model will have a rotating camera ring that will control things like zoom, aperture, and focus, similar to a lens on a DSLR/mirrorless camera.
Unfortunately the original post is in Chinese and was discussed on the Japanese site sumahodigest, so there are language barriers left and right. From what we can understand, the camera layout will be similar to that of the Sony Xperia Pro-I except for a rotating ring surrounding the lenses.
Apparently, this will be a single ring that will control one of the three features at a time. The Pro-I already has a variable aperture on its main camera and will apparently borrow the variable zoom lens from the Xperia 1 series.
People who shared the leak expressed doubt that Sony will be able to build a system that can smoothly adjust the aperture: on the Pro-I you can go from f/2.0 to f/4.0 but nothing in between . On the other hand, having ring control would be overkill. An old rumor claimed that the new Pro will be able to go between f/1.2 and f/4.0, so multiple steps seem like a possibility.
For a long time, Sony has kept a two-stage hardware shutter button on its phones, a holdover from an era when physical controls were more common. But even in those days nothing so elaborate existed.
There’s something else: The ring might not just be for the Xperia Pro’s cameras. Sony phones (not just the Pro ones) can work as external displays for the company’s mirrorless cameras. This could work as an additional control for the connected camera.
The Sony Xperia Pro-II could be released next year, three years after the Pro-I hit the market. We should start seeing more detailed leaks as launch day approaches. The Pro-II (or whatever Sony calls it) will upgrade all three camera modules, according to a previous leak. The Xperia 1 VI and 5 VI could be revealed at MWC next year and the new Pro model could join them or could be reserved for a dedicated launch.
Start a new Thread