Some of the best moments happen within a split second. If you blink, you could miss something magic. Whether it’s a playful puppy shaking the water off its back or an incredible street artist performing acrobatics in a city square, it’s always reassuring to know that your smartphone has the capabilities to capture those fleeting moments.

Sony has been synonymous with astounding camera technology since 1988, with products perfect for everyone from professional photographers or casual snappers to the camera novice. In the Xperia smartphone range, this tradition continues.

Our latest flagship, Xperia XZ3, was designed with an intelligent 19 MP Motion Eye camera – the result of decades of Sony camera innovation and learnings from the past three decades. XZ3 pushes the limits of what a smartphone is capable of, meaning users are able to capture extraordinary detail in the everyday moments. With Super slow motion and Predictive Capture, you’ll be able to snap the finer details for exceptional picture quality.

To find out more about how the Sony team created the incredible camera, we spoke to Yosuke Someya, Senior Manager Product Planning, and Kensuke Mashita, Camera Engineer:

We can see that the Motion Eye camera takes incredible pictures and videos with true-to-life colours, even in low lighting conditions. How did you develop the technology?

Yosuke: Motion Eye is incredibly intuitive, which is why we have used it in many of our phones including the new Xperia flagship, the XZ3. Its stacked memory enables Super slow motion video capture in full High Definition at 960fps. Motion Eye was built using all the expertise and learnings from the Sony α and Cyber-shot camera ranges.

Kensuke: Thanks to its stacked memory, Motion Eye is able to achieve astounding videos through its super high-speed data transfer. By utilising the basic technology, we deliver high quality images, slow-mo videos and many other attractive features such as real time HDR with full resolution. There’s also less focal plane distortion. This essentially means that the focal-plane shutter allows light to pass to the camera sensor to help capture your subject as it appears before your eyes. All this helps to achieve that perfect shot to boost your Instagram game!

You mention that Motion Eye is key for capturing Super slow motion videos. How exactly does it do this?

Yosuke: The camera is truly unique and able to take captivating footage up to four times slower than slow-mo videos from other smartphones. It’s also 32 times slower than standard video recording. It’s able to do this because of the memory buffers. The technology holds large amounts of data for fast capturing. This is then transmitted to a fast processor for recording. Essentially, the camera shoots your subject at a high FPS (frames per second) rate and plays it back at a much slower rate.

Motion Eye allows you to take photos before the shutter is pressed. How does this work and what’s the main benefit?

Both: It’s a really clever feature. Predictive Capture means you won’t have to miss a moment. The functionality detects movement in front of the camera lens and starts to buffer images whilst you’re preparing your camera to take a picture.

Once you tap the capture button, your phone will generate up to four photographs from around one second before you tapped the button. So, if you were a little slow pulling your camera out, you can easily flick through the other images to find your favourite. Predictive Capture won’t work if you’re shooting a piece of art, for example, as the camera doesn’t detect movement.

Fancy testing out Super slow motion for yourself? Here’s how to access the function on your Xperia smartphone:

– Open the camera
– Swipe to Video
– To enable Super slow motion, tap the Super slow motion clip button, it looks like this

– To start recording a video, tap the record button
– Tap the Super slow motion clip button for a 0.18 sec Super slow motion
– Once finished, the record button is disabled for two seconds while the camera stores the captured data– To stop recording, tap the stop button

You can find the Motion Eye camera in the Xperia XZ3, Xperia XZ Premium, Xperia XZs, Xperia XZ1, Xperia XZ1 Compact, Xperia XZ2, Xperia XZ2 Premium and Xperia XZ2 Compact.

If you have taken any impressive Super slow motion videos on your Xperia smartphone, Tweet us @SonyMobileNews – we would love to see them!

The post Meet the Makers: the team behind Xperia’s Motion Eye Camera appeared first on Sony Mobile Blog.

Source: Sony Mobile Blog
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