iPhone 6s Will Feature Three-Sensor Camera for Precise Color and Low-Light Performance

By Staff Writer

Mar 26 2015, 05:30 AM EDT

First thought to be the biggest camera jump in the history of the iPhone, Apple is finally making this vision turn into a reality as an Apple patent shows up that describes a "digital camera with light splitter."

The Apple patent published on March 24 describes a new iPhone camera structure that uses a light-splitting cube to break down entering rays into three color modules, which will each be netted by three different sensors.

Granted by the U.S Patent and Trademark Office with U.S. Patent No. 8,988,564, "Digital camera with light splitter" scans the opportunities of entrenching a three-sensor prism-based camera component within the body of a tinny wireless device, like the iPhone. Light splitting structures need not to have color channel dispenser, thus taking full advantage of pixel array resolution.

All current iPhone cameras can capture red, green and blue colors. However, they are all sifted through one image sensor where each color would get only one-third of the space on the sensor.

With the three-sensor camera, which can be found in pro-consumer video cameras and handheld camcorder devices, it rips incident light incoming to the camera lens into three wavelengths through prisms. The light usually identifies into red, blue and green. Imaging sensors located in or near the prism face will capture the split images. Three-sensor imaging also achieves infrared images as the cube can be adjusted to overpower color components, or the other way.

For the light splitter, a cube system is used with four duplicate polyhedrons that emerges at dichroic interfaces. Light-splitting technology also supports polarization effects even without sifting through occasional light which improves image data, suitable for computer vision applications.

This camera development of Apple uses similar techniques applied in camera devices of Philips, Canon, and Panasonic, among others.

This patented technology answers recent reports regarding Apple using mirrors and optics technology to attain optimal image stabilization without requiring too much space.

However, Apple has not officially announced yet whether or not iPhone 6s will officially be the first iPhone to have the three-sensor camera.

The iPhone 6s is reportedly slated to be launched in September 2015.