The next Sony Xperia Pro is rumored to have a rotating camera ring

According to info coming 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 it was discussed on the Japanese site sumahodigest, so there are language barriers left and right. From what we can gather, the camera arrangement will be similar to that of the Sony Xperia Pro-I except with a rotating ring encircling the lenses.

By the sound of it, 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 cam and, by the sound of it, it will borrow the variable zoom lens from the Xperia 1 series.

The people sharing 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 switch between f/2.0 and f/4.0 but nothing in between. Then again, having a ring control this would be overkill. An older rumor claimed that the new Pro will be able to go between f/1.2 and f/4.0, so multiple steps sound like a possibility.

For a long time now Sony has kept a hardware two-stage shutter key on its phones, a remnant from a time when physical controls were more common. But even back in those days there was nothing quite as elaborate as this.

Here’s something else – the ring might not be just for the Xperia Pro’s own cameras. Sony phones (not even just the Pros) 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 slated for a release next year, three years after the Pro-I came to the market. We should start seeing more detailed leaks as launch day nears. 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 might be unveiled at the MWC next year and the new Pro model might join them or it might be reserved for a dedicated launch.

Via (in Japanese)