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That mobile phones have destroyed the compact camera market for non-professionals is obvious to us. The quality of the sensors, the computational photography and the integration into a device that we already wear left the cameras to the professionals.
However, there are some things that we haven’t seen massively in all smartphones yet, and one of the biggest is the optical zoom or telephoto. There are two reasons why this is so, and they are very valid.
It is an expensive item
When Samsung launches a Galaxy S or when Apple presents an iPhone Pro, it is almost impossible to expect a mobile without optical zoom. This is one of the lenses that more advanced users and photography enthusiasts appreciate. And these are mobiles over 1000 dollars.
The latter is essential because it turns out that Optical zoom cameras can be more expensive than main cameras, although the latter have a better sensor.
The reason is in the lenses, especially in the periscopic systems that we have seen in the Samsung, Huawei or ZTE models. A manager of the latter company explained it on Weibo.
Despite this, the executive conceded that a true high-end mobile cannot do without such cameras.
The question is, I add, in high-end mobiles but which do not have four-digit prices. A good example is the realme GT that was presented last year, a terminal that lacks an optical zoom camera, which also happens to almost all gaming mobiles.
As soon as the price of a mobile phone drops below 500 dollars, it is really strange to see an optical zoom, and the price has a lot to do with it.
A lot of people don’t use them.
Despite what has been said, if users asked for zoom cameras, manufacturers would surely find a way to implement them on their mobiles, but this is not the case.
I remember having a meeting with representatives of Vivo during which we talked about their high-end mobiles. I asked them why having the Vivo X51 had two sensors with a telephoto lens in its next iteration which was lost. The reason was clear “consumers don’t use it much”.
The reality is that in a mobile with a triple camera system (angle, wide angle and telephoto) 50% of the time the main camera is used, between 20 and 25% of the time the wide angle and only one 10 to 15% of the time the time the telephoto lens was used.
Knowing that it is not uncommon for it to be the most expensive of the three cameras, it seems obvious that it is a good element to trim when you want to adjust the price of your next mobile.
As a telephoto enthusiast, I hope that reality changes soon and that we see cheaper solutions and more people using this type of sensor, which works so well in portraits.
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