Why do we need 4 - 6 cameras in smartphones?

  Today's smartphone market is flooded with smartphone devices having 4 or 5 cameras. Did you know why do we need those?lets see!

In DSLR cameras, we can change the lens according to the type of photo we need to take. But in smartphones, the lens cannot be changed. So the manufacturers provide a different type of cameras.

Types of cameras:

There are many types of smartphone camera sensors used. They are,

1. primary sensor
2. secondary sensors
• wide angle sensor
• macro sensor
• telephoto sensor
• monochrome sensor
• depth sensor

Primary sensor

The primary sensor is the default sensor for the third party apps. If you open the camera application, primary sensor is enabled in default.

Secondary sensors

Wide angle sensor

As the name says, this sensor is used for capturing a wide prospect of images, ranging from 100° to 123° field view.

Macro sensor

This sensor is used for capturing photo of a object within an Inch. It means, it's used to take a good Closeup shots.

Telephoto sensor

These cameras are used for taking zoomed picture. It goes upto 2X zoom. These cameras are also known as periscope camera.

Monochrome sensor

A monochrome camera can serve as the underlying physical camera of a logical multi-camera device to achieve better low-light noise characteristics.

Depth sensor

Depth sensors are used for clicking a good quality images. It calculate the depth of the object to give a good quality of blur.

These sensors are provided with seperate and respective type of lenses for their work.

Do we really need four to six cameras?

Let’s see with an example. Take Pixel phones and iPhone as an example. These smartphones come with a maximum of three cameras,

1. Primary sensor
2. Wide angle sensor
3. Telephoto or periscopic sensor

These smartphones have great software background. They take macro photos using ultra wide sensor using software. Thus there is no need for a macro sensor.

They use software to calculate depth. So there is no need for a depth sensor. To mention, recent iPhones come with a LIDAR (LIght Detection And Ranging). This have the same purpose of calculating depth.

Some people may ask, “ Why can’t we do all these work with a single camera? ”

The answer is IMPOSSIBLE. In order to do that, we need to change the lenses for each work. In smartphones, it’s very tough to change the lens of the camera. Remember how the lenses are changed accordingly in a DSLR cameras.