Features of Smartphone Cameras

Smartphones have come a long way to become an essential part of our daily life. One of the biggest advantages of Smartphones, apart from its other capabilities is the camera.  Smartphone camera fulfils the majority of tasks in everyday life from selfies, social media posting to event photography and video recordings. Smartphones are smaller, thinner and lightweight as compared to digital cameras, and can easily fit into the pocket or purse. Due to the convenience and camera enhancements in recent years, many professionals prefer smartphone cameras over digital cameras. Although, Smartphone cameras has not replaced digital cameras, but they is fast gaining the advance features through their hardware and software enhancements.

Nowadays, smartphones with duel lens front and triple or quad lens back camera are common even in budget phones. Multiple camera lenses help to take best photos without worrying about advance setting controls. So, how to decide which Smartphone to Buy, that has best camera. In this article, we are providing an overview of the various types of lenses and sensors comes built-in with the smartphones with the features they provide:

Standard/Main Lens:

This is the singles lens camera with all the features combined into it. It is just gives an option to take picture without many essential features. It is not ideal for photography.

Wide Lens:

A wide are lens captures the maximum width possible. Even ultra-wide lens are getting in more phones, which goes even further width, which wide angle lens can’t cover. It is ideal for taking landscape shots. Although, ultra-wide lens may produce some amount of distortion in the pictures, but the modern Smartphones’ software adjustment capabilities maintains the natural looks.

Telephoto Lens:

Telephoto Lens with the second lens and a sensor, allows you to further zoom in without physically moving towards the object and take photos. Some phones combine the optical and digital zoom to create a hybrid system, which can zoom even closer. By merging the data from multiple lenses, telephoto lens blurs the background to focus more on the object, creating the beautiful bokeh effects in the picture.

Macro Lens:

Macro Lenses are used to create detailed close-up, macro level photographs. They take very high quality photos of extreme close-up. They are best for smaller/tiny objects in greater detail.

Monochrome Sensor:

Monochrome Sensor is a dedicated sensor to takes black and white photos. It comes with many smartphones which has its own benefits. The real benefit of black and white pictures is the crisp and sharp image. That is why many photographers prefer them. Another one is their vintage look and feel. Although not many phones have monochrome sensors, but those who have this feature (which can be found within the camera app’s settings), increase the versatility of pictures taken.

Depth Sensor and 3D ToF Sensor:

Depth sensor also referred as ToF (Time-of-Flight) sensor (mostly in newer flagship phones), creates depth effects to the image. With augmented reality rendering, it produces the professional style blur effects which are known as Bokeh Effects.

OIS or EIS:

Image Stabilization is vital, as without it, the pictures will get blurred and videos will have a jelly-like effect, because of shake of the hands. To avoid it, mobile phones cameras are coming equipped with OIS or EIS or a combination of both. OIS (Optical Image Stabilization) is a hardware driven approach which uses MEMS (Micro-Electromechanical System) gyroscope to detect movement and regulate the camera, accordingly. Whereas, EIS (Electronic Image Stabilization) is a software driven approach to do the same. OIS is mostly beneficial for low light photography, whereas, EIS makes the videos as smooth as possible.

We have tried to explain the different variations in mobile phone cameras in simple and non-technical way, so that even a grandma could understand them easily.

Let us know what do you think about it in the comments.