How was the dual camera of "AQUOS R2" made?

What is the unique usage of video?

--What are the features of this AQUOS R2?

Video communication is the keyword for this camera Mr. Kobayashi One of the features is the dual camera. As for the dual camera itself, various combinations such as "color + monochrome" and "normal + wide (wide-angle)" have appeared so far. What will Sharp do in that? That's why I focused on videos.

Smartphone users take videos really often. A survey found that half of the users shoot videos on a regular basis. Half of them even upload the video. On the other hand, even if you shoot for one minute and upload it as it is, you will not be able to watch such a long video. The background is that even though the usage of uploading videos is widespread, I think that customers may not be satisfied yet.

――What kind of usage scene was it supposed to be developed?

Mr. Ono of Sharp Mr. Ono I have a dog and go out for a walk on my days off. As anyone who owns a dog knows, taking a picture of a dog with a smartphone can be a daunting task. For example, if you take a picture from a human point of view, it will not be a good photo or video from the above point of view. However, it is difficult to shoot with a dog's eyes with a smartphone. That's why I used to enjoy shooting with an action camera attached to a stick.

This time I thought about what it takes to do this on a smartphone. The first answer is a wide-angle lens. If you try to take a picture of the dog's eyes, you cannot take a picture while looking at the screen as it is. The wide-angle lens prevents the subject or landscape that the dog is looking at from sticking out of the frame.

What I noticed when using the action camera was that the focus was stable and it was easy to see as an image. But smartphone cameras are basically autofocus, aren't they? If you can only have one camera, you can't say that you should design for deep focus. And in order to easily shoot videos while walking, high-performance image stabilization as explained earlier is essential. Video requires three performances: wide-angle, deep focus, and image stabilization.

Mr. Kobayashi Through market research, we have come to understand the main needs of shooting videos, such as families, children, pets, moving subjects and restaurants. On top of that, while there are various dual camera methods, as a result of considering whether to really do such a peculiar thing, as a customer's voice, the more the person who shoots the video, the more the camera is divided into two. I was convinced that it would be better to have it, so I decided to use a dual camera for video.

Mr. Ono It's easy to think that "dual cameras are good" on smartphones, but isn't it difficult to understand why two eyes are good and how they work? However, I think that "AQUOS R2" can simply convey the value of having two, "a camera dedicated to video and an ordinary camera."

Mr. Kobayashi There is also Sharp's DNA. What we are most worried about is not that Sharp will beat or lose to other manufacturers, but that the entire smartphone industry will not rise. Even if a new product comes out, it is very scary that it becomes a daily item and is not noticed by anyone or the lifestyle does not change. Therefore, I always want to propose new ways of using it. You must always have new ideas to keep proposing. This time a new idea was born. After the announcement, we recognize that we have received a good response.