The Team Behind Xperia’s Motion Eye Camera

BY Diane Marini

The Team Behind Xperia’s Motion Eye Camera – Nov 17, 2018 – Tokyo, Japan (Techreleased) – 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.

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.

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.

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.