iPhone 11 Pro what does the bottom camera actually do on the 11 pro?

[BeeGood]

Point your camera at something on your desk/next to you/near you, switch to 2x. Cover the top camera. Does it block out the camera?

Ah...no it doesn’t. That’s interesting. I see now.

So what @delta0 said sounds right. Basically if the phone determines that your subject is close enough, it won’t use the telephoto lens....I’m not sure how I feel about that but I can see the logic.

 

[delta0]

The switch from telephoto to wide angle digital zoomed occurs around 0.6m. Objects closer than this will be wide angle digital zoom. Objects at this point or further away will be telephoto lens. Basically the telephoto can’t focus on objects closer. This is common with lens and telephoto do tend to have long focal lengths.

 

[bluespark]

It tries to pick the best lens for the situation based on light and distance to the subject. I remember people making similar observations about the 7 Plus when, for example, they were indoors.

 

[zakarhino]

The telephoto lens has done this since its debut with the 7. Essentially if there's not enough light to get a decent image, the telephoto module deactivates and uses digital zoom on the wide angle instead. Apple figures they'd rather keep the UX consistent (having the zoom options always there) rather than prevent you from zooming in if there's not enough light. Not sure if this is still the exact same behavior on the 11 Pro.

 

[DianaMR]

Strange, mine does the same. If I switch over to Time-Lapse or Portrait in 2x then that camera is actually being used. Photo and Video does not seem to use that camera, even using the slider for me.

Edit: Using a couple different camera apps (Lightroom and Slowshutter) both use the bottom camera as the telephoto, so it appears to be a bug in the Camera app.