More and more manufacturers are opting for a telephoto lens with 5x zoom instead of 3x. That may sound like progress, but in practice it is not always so. Don’t let the short telephoto lens go to waste!
A telephoto lens with 5x zoom is not always useful
Smartphone manufacturers love big numbers. A 108 megapixel camera appeals more to the imagination than a 50 megapixel lens. 24GB of RAM performs better in advertising than 16GB, although in practice you usually don’t notice much of it.
We have seen something similar in recent years with the telephoto lens of some high-end smartphones. The Google Pixel 9 Pro has a 5x zoom lens, just like the new one iPhone 16 Pro. According to rumors, the Xiaomi 15 Pro will also have such a camera, while the Xiaomi 14 Pro still had a telephoto lens with 3x zoom.
That may sound attractive on paper, because you can get the image even closer than before. It does mean that there is a huge gap between the different cameras. The wide-angle lens often has a focal length of 14-16 millimeters, while the main camera is about 24 millimeters. A telephoto lens with 5x zoom is no less than 120 millimeters.
In this case, you use digital zoom between 24 and 120 mm, which certainly does not improve the quality of your photos. A telephoto lens with 3x zoom has a focal length of around 75 millimeters, which makes the gap with the main camera a lot smaller.
In other words: if you zoom in 3x with the Pixel 9 Pro, your photos will be less good than if you do so with the OnePlus 12, which has a ‘real’ telephoto lens with 3x zoom. That’s where the problem lies for enthusiastic photographers: a focal length of about 75 millimeters is much more convenient in everyday life than 120 millimeters. That is often just too much zoom, especially in cities.
Best of both worlds?
There are smartphones, such as the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra and Xiaomi 14 Ultra, that have two telephoto lenses: one with 3x zoom and another that brings the image 5x closer. That’s the best of both worlds, of course. The Sony Xperia 1 VI has a variable telephoto lens, where you can zoom between 3.5x and 7.1x.
However, if a manufacturer chooses one, fixed telephoto lens, please let it be one with 3x zoom. The marketing team may benefit less from this, but the user will benefit all the more.
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Source: www.androidplanet.nl
