iPhone 11 Pro Is the 11 Pro really a 2x zoom?

D

DEMinSoCAL

macrumors 603
A zoom lens allows the user to adjust the lens focal length from a minimum to a maximum range with a usable range in between.

It seems the 11 Pro, having a fixed telephoto lens, doesn't actually have a "2x optical zoom" at all. It has 3 lenses, and Apple is quoting the focal length change from Ultra wide to telephoto (all fixed length) as "zoom"?

That's like having a DSLR with three separate lenses and saying it has a zoom lens.

Do any of the lenses actually "zoom" on the 11 Pro?
 
There is no traditional ZOOM lenses on any iPhone to date. There is no mechanism inside the camera housing to fit an actual mechanical zoom. There is however digital zooming. Going from 1x 26mm to the 52mm 2x lens is digital cropping. These are essentially prime lenses and they are good at what they do.
 
So (silly me) thought that the telephoto had 2x optical, so on vacation last week, I was using the telephoto lens at 4.0x. Realizing now that I was probably digital zooming, the pics still look very sharp.
 
Everything is done via software processing with hardware assist. If apple made a real mirrorless camera you can bet that it will kill every single model out there in the industry - that’s main body excluding glass. If they somehow allowed adaptable lens mounts from all big 4 photo companies, they would essentially be king.

None of the camera bodies on the market come close to the processing power of apple’s hardware. THis is strictly speaking for still image photography.
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Also to add, apple has “caught up” finally in the camera dept with android at least. Over on sammie’s side you already have triple fixed lenses that offer great photo quality...but of course apple in this generation is much better (subjectively speaking) than the android competition even though they are late to the game
 
dmylrea said:
A zoom lens allows the user to adjust the lens focal length from a minimum to a maximum range with a usable range in between.

It seems the 11 Pro, having a fixed telephoto lens, doesn't actually have a "2x optical zoom" at all. It has 3 lenses, and Apple is quoting the focal length change from Ultra wide to telephoto (all fixed length) as "zoom"?

That's like having a DSLR with three separate lenses and saying it has a zoom lens.

Do any of the lenses actually "zoom" on the 11 Pro?
Click to expand...

11 pro has 3 separate COMPLETE cameras (each camera with not only its own (fixed) focal length lens, but it’s own separate 12MP sensor as well). No phone has ever had a mechanical zoom lense. That is the way it has to be on a device so thin. But...it is an amazing upgrade vs. single camera iPhone....and it most definitely has a ”2x optical zoom” (but not a 1.9 or 2.1x).......

I have dual camera iPhone X, and was so shocked by the increased quality of “zoomed“ photos vs. my previous single camera 6s, I investigated more...below is description of way my iPhone X works, you can extrapolate to 11 pro 3 cameras..
nothing has changed on zooming.

When zoom from 1x to 1.9x it stays on the “regular“ lens (camera). I.e., 1x - 1.9 x is all digital zoom.

When get to 2x, the phone automatically switches to the separate (2x optical) telephoto lens (Camera). From 2x to 10x zoom it stays on that telephoto camera, all digital zooming.

What you get is much better quality zoomed photos.

For ex, at 4x zoom, I get 2x optical zoom (because it switched to telephoto lens/camera at 2x). And 2x digital zoom. 2x x 2x = total 4x. With a single lens iphone, the entire 4x would be digital zoom (significantly lower quality photo).

An anomaly is caused by this camera switching. For example, take a photo at 1.9x (regular 1x camera and 1.9x digital zoom) and another at 2x (separate telephoto camera and no digital zoom). Compare them and the 2x photo is much better quality.

PS, I determined which lens/Camera it was using vs. zoom setting by holding a finger over one or the other camera, and looking at screen before taking photo. Note that on my X, if it is dark, phone will never switch to telephoto....Apple programed it to do that I guess as telephoto lens aperture (f stop) was not as good as regular camera re low light. So if you do finger test to see it automatically switch cameras as you zoom, do it in daylight.
 
Puonti said:
There have been a couple, just not in an iPhone.

Here's one from 2015:

Asus Zenfone Zoom ZX550 - Full phone specifications

www.gsmarena.com www.gsmarena.com

Here's a more recent one:

These are actual, mechanical zoom lenses arranged like periscopes to allow for the lens assembly to move.
Click to expand...

Was aware of true continuous optical zoom phone such as Galaxy S4 Zoom, which to me looks like a point and shoot zoom camera.

Looks like the Asus model mentioned actually also did have a true mechanical (moving) continuous optical zoom. It is periscope design, meaning light makes 90 deg turn to allow longer focal length in reasonably thin body. After the turn, a small cam actually moves the lenses to get the optical zoom. Interestingly, looks like they have gotten away from that in more recent phones, opting instead for multiple fixed focal length cameras.

The Oppo phone mentioned, as well as the Huawei P30 Pro, also use the 90deg turn periscope design on 1 of the cameras, to get a much longer focal length telephoto lens in thin phone. But these are fixed focal length lenses...nothing moves. They achieve their advertised “optical zoom” in same way multi camera iPhones do, fixed focal length lens cameras, with digital zooming (cropping) between fixed camera/lens “steps”.

Looks like much of the phone industry has landed on this “hybrid zoom” solution, and they seem to have no problem marketing the ratio of the focal length of the longest fixed lens camera, to the shortest fixed lens camera, as “optical zoom”. Apple does it as well.
 
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