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

Unlike a big bulky camera that would be used for professional photography, there isn’t that much room for large lenses on a smartphone, nor much room for those lenses to move around to focus. Having multiple cameras allows:

* Different focal lengths i.e. wide and zoom
* Smart image filters. By taking the same photo from two slightly different angles, we can calculate a lot of information about depth, focus, and allow us to get a sharper image.
* Different spectrum sensors such as color and infrared. Used with the already mentioned smart image filters these can give even more data that allows to do more cool processing on the image.