Why do we make double-triple-quadruple eyed cameras in smartphones instead of just improving the specs and keeping one lens?
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Didn’t see any mention of MARKETING here.
Like if you go through the specs of these TRIPLE+ cameras, especially in some budget phones, their sensor size is very small, hence the overall quality is SHIT.
But somehow, companies make you feel that these actual cameras are helping you take ***”AI portraits”*** etc.
An example is that Google Pixel is regarded as probably the best smartphone camera, and until the last 2 years, it only had one lens.
Like I can understand in some expensive phones like Iphones and Samsung flagships, as they have good Ultrawide cameras(which is my favourite), and even in Oneplus 9 that Ihave, the ultrawide sensor size is literally among the biggest in smartphones, so the pics are decent;
But yeah, in general, its a trend that started with the iPhone 7 plus, and rest companies followed the herd.
**Prime vs. Zoom lenses**
Prime lenses (aka fixed-focal length lenses) make fewer compromises than zoom lenses. In particular, prime lenses:
1. Prime lenses are “faster”; i.e., can let in more light and therefore can shoot in much darker conditions, without using additional lighting.
2. Prime lenses, when shooting with a wide open aperture creates very pleasing “bokeh”; i.e., blurring of out-of-focus regions in a composition. This effect causes your (in-focus) subject to “pop” visually.
3. Prime lenses have less optical distortion which must be dealt with using more expensive and complex mechanisms and coatings.
4. Prime lenses are more compact and lightweight.
Same reason we use a selection of knives, forks and spoons instead of just trying to make one perfect spork for all purposes.
Zoom lens are very complicated, and typically very long.
It’s much easier and cheaper to put 3 cameras. Chips really, than one sophisticated device that would stick out an inch.
So you have a normal/long, a wide angle. In the front and another for selfish.
Then video
If the lens has no moving parts, it has a fixed zoom (and focus), therefore you need several lenses for different zooms. Smartphone cameras have a tiny piece that moves for focus, but that’s it. If you zoom in digitally, you lose detail very quickly because you’re using less and less part of a sensor that it’s already too small.
They could add a few more moving parts to make the lens with zoom, but it’s hard to make and most probably will be thicker.
Even in big cameras, lenses that have a lot of zoom don’t perform very well overall, there are distortions and the image gets blurry.
It’s usually cheaper to have several sensors and lenses than engineering a lens small enough for a phone that can zoom and doesn’t break. The problem is the transition between the zoom levels, each sensor will give different colors and each lens different distortion.
Some manufacturers might try in the future for the single lens approach, but that will make the phone more expensive.
Close one of your eyes, is your vision better or worse?
To keep it simple, there are two ways to “zoom’ a camera lens… by increasing the physical focal length (on a regular camera an 85mm lens will be more zoomed in than a 35mm lens), or you can do it digitally, which is basically just taking a picture, then enlarging and cropping it.
Digital zoom will always look worse. It’s the equivalent of just getting a jpeg and enlarging it.
On a phone camera, you have a tiny lens and a tiny sensor. Having optical zoom like a normal camera’s zoom lens is difficult and expensive to manufacture to where it’s just easier to have multiple lenses with fixed focal lengths.
It’s like on my DSLR, I use multiple lenses. A short lens for landscapes, a mid-length lens for general use, and a longer lens for portraits. A phone has the same equivalents, just that they’re always mounted to the camera instead of being interchangeable.
Because of different focal lengths(you can think of it as view angle or zoom). Phone camera due to it’s size is already an extreme compromise in optical design, trying to add zoom mechanisms on top of it would be very hard and not result in anything good. Zoom lenses are not optically the best, that is why professional cameras always have interchangeable lenses, if you want the best result you pick the best lens for the job instead of zoom lens that fits most situations but at cost of quality. You can’t change lenses in a phone, so it’s easier to just add many cameras, each with a different lens.
The one key point perhaps not emphasized by other posts thus far:
* They do mention benefit of individual lenses having particular strengths to overcome each other’s weaknesses (zoom, macro, normal, etc.)
* They also mention marketing and product sales benefits of having “new features not seen before.”
What I haven’t seen described is perhaps another of the most important points.
These cameras are functionally and practically *better* than many full, proper cameras:
* Most cameras have one lens at a time. You can switch, but you have to purchase, carry, and actually switch lenses on the fly. Some scenarios it isn’t physically possible to switch lenses in time to capture a shot a few different ways in real time.
* Sensors are more sensitive each year, making recent iPhones more sensitive than DSLRs of years past.
* People mocking “photographs by AI” as shallow marketing jargon… well it’s partly jargon, but it’s also partly true. For layperson who doesn’t understand optics enough to know which lens to use here and there, the phone has freedom to choose for you based upon reasonably understandable settings. Cameras with the one lens? Not so much.
* Phones with multiple lenses can choose lens, capture image over time, then choose whether and how to stack those frames into one composite image. Cameras? Not so much — it’s possible, but high end and with high end software.
What’s remarkable to me, I used to mock phone cameras, from back when they were bad pixelated EGA images. They’re now comparable or better image quality than many cameras *and* most people always have it with them. One tap and the camera is ready to go. Cameras? Camera bag, lenses, film/SD CARD. (Remember film? Haha. And dark rooms? Haha. Still fun tho.)
Each lens is best at different distances. It is just like speakers. The tweeter, mid-range, and bass speakers are best at their own range. It isn’t possible to make a lens good for every distance. It isn’t possible to make a speaker that is equally good at all frequencies. It’s not a limit of manufacturing. It is a limit of how physics works for different size objects.
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