Why so many cameras?
Do you remember your very 1st smartphone? I’m sure most of us do and certainly we also remember the number of cameras in it! Now compare it with the number of cameras in the smartphone you’re holding right now while reading this!
If I remember mine, It just had one rear camera. That’s it! And that too without a flashlight! I was excited just because the smartphone had a camera :D (Yes, I am from Stone Age :p)
The smartphone industry has evolved aggressively since the last decade, especially in terms of providing great photography experience to smartphone users by adding higher resolution cameras to smartphones!
Though it has totally devastated the camera industry (Look at the graph shown below). It doesn’t matter much to us as ultimately we are on the winning side but there is a catch!
Smartphone manufacturers are giving up to 6 cameras these days (4 rear + 2 front) and the picture shown at the beginning of the article, is a smartphone prototype by Light with 9 rear cameras, Light is the same company that partnered with Nokia to launch Nokia 9 Pureview with 5 rear cameras in 2019! (Recently, they gave up on manufacturing smartphones with extra-ordinary cameras)
Nokia 9’s five-camera setup didn’t work well as capturing data from five 12-megapixel cameras led to slow capture and processing times, which meant we were at risk for missing a follow-up shot!
Adding up one camera on a new smartphone is acting as a feature these days, the trend is going upwards!
Usually, the extra cameras are for various purposes such as Portrait shots, Ultra-wide shots, Macro shots (near to object), Digitally zoomed shots and hence it provides a DSLR (Digital Single Lens Reflex) camera like photography experience without burning a hole in your pocket!
So, What is the issue then? Let there be more cameras on smartphones!
Here’s my take,
“The more the better” is a myth! Smartphone vendors such as Google have launched their flagship phones with a maximum of 2 or 3 cameras but they’ve provided quality cameras with higher megapixels that beat the majority of smartphones with many cameras & when Google was asked about the fewer cameras on their smartphones. They said,
“We have expertise in machine learning (AI) to help us”
This simply means, with AI/Software, smartphone manufacturers can certainly improve the camera results and so, instead of giving 5–6 cameras, if they provide 2–3 quality cameras with software optimizations, Game would be perfect but they want more skin in the game by attracting the majority of customers by the number of cameras!
So, don’t fall in the trap of quantity! Quality was & is, in trend!
References: GeekyRanjit, Verge, CIPA, PCWorld, Livemint, Wired, Android Authority, , Dxomark
