Wired
The New Year’s Day holiday in 2022 has just ended, and mobile phone manufacturers’ new product launches have followed, and major manufacturers have advanced their flagship releases to around New Year’s Day.
As a flagship mobile phone, in addition to polishing the experience and performance, mobile phone photography capabilities have always been another key feature.
However, from the perspective of the flagship mobile phone that will debut in January 2022, the telephoto lens that was once proud of has been abandoned, and it has become an “outcast”, and the configuration of the camera is more practical as a starting point. Telephoto is no longer “fragrant”. How will the imaging capabilities of mobile phones be improved in the future?
Judging from the mobile phones that have been released so far, almost without exception, the three-camera configuration is chosen. From the configuration point of view, in addition to maintaining last year’s main camera plus ultra-wide-angle high-pixel “dual main camera”, the telephoto has chosen a practical 2x portrait lens.
Judging from these new flagship phones in early 2022, it seems that the telephoto lens is no longer the favorite of manufacturers and has been put into the cold palace.
If you want to buy a full-focus image flagship phone with a telephoto lens in the future, I am afraid that you will only have to wait for the manufacturer to launch a super-sized flagship like the vivo X70 Pro+.
Thinking back to 2019 three years ago, Huawei and OPPO successively launched the P30 series and the OPPO Reno 10x zoom version, which started the battle of mobile telephoto lenses, and the telephoto shooting of the moon on mobile phones also became one of the biggest marketing gimmicks in mobile photography at that time. .
In the next two years, the telephoto lens has almost become the standard configuration of the flagship of major manufacturers, and it is also a proof of the imaging strength of mobile phones.
In the launch of new mobile phone products since then, not only the image function takes the lead, but the zoom capability of multi-camera cooperation has become the most important content.
So much so that I think that in the future, with the help of multi-lens direct cooperation, coupled with the upgrade of image ISP computing power and the improvement of the algorithm, it can achieve a multi-focal shooting experience similar to that of a camera, and also allow the photos to obtain higher quality.
When Huawei released the P30 Pro, it introduced a “fusion algorithm”, and the main camera was responsible for shooting pictures within 3x telephoto.
The focal length between 3x and 5x is handled by the main camera and the telephoto lens at the same time, and the photo is processed by the algorithm. At 5x, the periscope telephoto lens is used to complete the shooting. At 10x, the three configured lenses participate together. Through the algorithm The way to composite the picture, wait until the final telephoto pie and effect.
In addition to Huawei, OPPO has also launched a similar 10x hybrid optical zoom technology, which allows the focal length of mobile phone shooting to cover the 10x zoom focal length from 15mm-150mm by means of ultra-wide-angle, main camera and telephoto lenses.
After that, the telephoto lens began to be improved by 50x, 60x, 100x, and 120x. It seems that the telephoto shooting function of mobile phones is advancing by leaps and bounds.
There was even a concept that “if the telephoto lens can’t take a good picture of the moon, it is not a good telephoto lens”. Although it has attracted great attention, in daily use, the frequency of use of the telephoto lens is far less than that of the main camera and super wide-angle.
In fact, users who know a little about the principle of the camera know that this ultra-high telephoto is actually digital zoom, and the moon shooting is just the result of rendering with the help of AI algorithm, which is far from real astrophotography.
In the era when the telephoto of mobile phones was booming, the periscope telephoto made the mobile phone have the ability to shoot farther, which was once regarded as the technical direction of the development of mobile phone imaging in the future. In fact, the periscope telephoto lens of mobile phones still has drawbacks that cannot be solved at present.
First of all, the module cost of the periscope telephoto lens is relatively high, the optical path structure is complex, and related software and algorithms are also required to be used, so the adjustment is also very difficult. Secondly, the small size of the mobile phone makes the camera more concealed, and the high-magnification telephoto mobile phone has also raised doubts about the problem of candid photography.
In addition, the most important reason why the telephoto lens no longer attracts the attention of manufacturers is the image quality. At present, the main camera sensor of the mobile phone is infinitely close to 1 inch, which can provide very good picture quality performance.
The telephoto lens is limited by the size, thickness and internal space design of the mobile phone, so the sensor size of the telephoto lens has always been very small.
This greatly limits the image quality improvement of the telephoto lens. Especially when shooting in low light or night scenes, the photos taken by the telephoto lens are almost unusable, and the current technology is difficult to solve the image quality problem of the telephoto lens.
In addition, friends who are familiar with photography know that the longer the focal length of the lens, the slight shaking will have a great impact on the picture, especially when framing, the slight shaking will make the framing extremely difficult.
The current mobile phones with telephoto lenses are not good enough in this regard, and the overall camera experience is not good. In terms of image quality, sometimes the photos taken by telephoto are not as good as the cropped effect of the 50-megapixel main camera.
Nowadays, manufacturers are more rational about the collocation of mobile phone cameras, and they have begun to subtract the telephoto of mobile phones. Through stronger AI algorithms, faster ISP processors, and high-pixel main camera plus algorithms to achieve zoom effects, the zoom effect can be 3x to 5x long. A good effect is obtained between the focal points.
However, the telephoto lens is still a useful lens. After all, the characteristics and perspectives of different lenses determine the perspective relationship and the final effect of the shooting picture. This is why the above-mentioned newly released mobile phones cancel the super telephoto lens. A 50mm equivalent “portrait lens” is retained.
If you use the 2x or 3x lens of the mobile phone to shoot portraits every day, with the algorithm effect, it can still meet the needs of daily shooting, but it is more practical.
As for those who like to take telephoto shots or want their phone cameras to cover a longer zoom range, I’m afraid you’ll have to wait.
In 2022, there will still be mobile phones equipped with periscope telephoto lenses, but compared to the situation in 2019, when a hundred flowers bloom, it will be much more deserted. Most of this year’s mobile phones with telephoto lenses are super large. Cup flagship model, presumably the price will not be cheap.
However, the current attitude of mobile phone manufacturers to give up telephoto for new products is obviously temporary.
With the development of technology, the ultra-telephoto technology of mobile phones will also continue to evolve and progress. For example, the design scheme of the physical retractable lens that has been exposed will definitely be commercialized in the future. Perhaps, at that time, the picture quality problem of the telephoto of the mobile phone can be fundamentally solved.
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