eli5: What is the purpose and/or advantage of multiple cameras and lenses on a phone?

Question

As the title suggests, I don’t understand how this works.

In: 41

Answer 1

Typical camera lenses have a certain range of adjustment which increases or decreases their size. On phones, space is very limited, so even if you have a tiny moving lens, it still has a very small range. It’s therefore much easier to have multiple fixed lenses to cover a range of uses rather than trying to have an adjustable lens.