What is the point of 2x/5x lens with lower megapixel ? (with one small request)

[mikael_schiffer]

First of all, i dont own a phone which has a dedicated zoom lens , so i may be a little ignorant here.

Now, the big advantage of a high megapixel count is cropping. Cropping helps overcome the need for a zoom lens. If there is a performer on stage and i take the snap from afar, i can crop in on the performer and still have a clear picture.
Now i have issues with cellphone that pack a dedicated zoom lens, but with very low megapixel count, like 8mp or 5 mpx. What is the point of that ?​

I therefore request any person here who owns a phone with dedicated 2x or 5x lens to take a picture of a subject (flower, person, any object basically)from the main camera, and then in the same frame take a picture with the 2x or 5x lens.
Now then take the first picture and crop it to make the frame area similar to the picture taken with 2xor 5x lens, and kindly post it here.
This will really help us all in deciding whether its really worth choosing a phone with a dedicated 2x or 5x lens over a phone which does not have that.​

 

[whitestar_999]

@izzikio_rage @nac @sujoyp

 

[nac]

Reviewers may have done the kinda comparison you asked. Google and see if you can find any.

High MP count not necessarily means you can crop and get the same kinda image taken using a zoom lens camera. Sensor quality matters as well and how low the MP in zoom lens camera. If it's pathetically low like VGA quality, can't expect good image from a zoom lens camera.

2x is not that significant amount of zoom. Barely noticeable, I expect.
With 5x I expect zoom lens camera would produce better image than the cropped one.

 

[mikael_schiffer]

Reviewers may have done the kinda comparison you asked. Google and see if you can find any.

High MP count not necessarily means you can crop and get the same kinda image taken using a zoom lens camera. Sensor quality matters as well and how low the MP in zoom lens camera. If it's pathetically low like VGA quality, can't expect good image from a zoom lens camera.

2x is not that significant amount of zoom. Barely noticeable, I expect.
With 5x I expect zoom lens camera would produce better image than the cropped one.

cant find any online

 

[omega44-xt]

High MP doesn't mean you can get a better cropped image.

My old Z3C phone had a 20MP camera but it was so noisy. My parents have a Sony HX60V digital camera with 20MP sensor & 30x optical zoom. If the optical zoom is not used, my S8 easily takes a better picture, even if I crop it, even though S8 just has a 12MP sensor. But if I use the optical zoom on the digi cam, it can definitely take better pics of objects far away as it uses physics instead of upscaling (like digital zoom) to take a pic. So even though the secondary zoom lens isn't as good as primary lens of a camera, in many cases it takes better pic of the far away object or at least it will try to. In some phones, the zoom lens might be useless as cropping the pic of primary lens results in a better pic.

I would agree that it's better to just walk forward & use the primary lens but in some cases, it is not possible. Surely the use case is pretty limited, so for most users zoom & ultrawide lens are just nice to have features. Among them, I'd say ultrawide is more useful than zoom.

 

[sujoyp]

My D7000 is just 16 MP but without a great lens I would not be able to take a clean and sharp picture to crop it further.
I can crop the picture taken with it to some extent but the picture quality will keep degrading with a crop.

Where if I take a shot of comparable thing like a bird with D7000 and professional Lens , the picture will be significantly better in quality.

There is always a difference between digital zoom and optical zoom. Huawei P30 has 10x optical zoom and 50x digital zoom.
10x optical will help retain the quality as much as possible, but 50x digital zoom is like cropping. you will definitely find the video in youtube.

 

[billubakra]

Man wait for the next iteration of the Pixel, I am sure they will hit hard on the zoom part without upping the MP game, they will just rely on their software.

 

[sujoyp]

currently i am completely satisfied with the p30 camera in the reviews , its lowlight performance is best, its optical zoom is great and in general camera is best against S10 and iphone XA except the HDR scenes.
I am waiting for the day nikon releases F mount mirrorless. Z mount mirrorless is as good as getting into Sony or Canon. I will have to depend on adapters.

 

[omega44-xt]

Man wait for the next iteration of the Pixel, I am sure they will hit hard on the zoom part without upping the MP game, they will just rely on their software.

They are doing great things with software, but I hope they integrate that with hardware as well (another lens). Nokia 9 can compete with DSLRs in terms of the bokeh produced. I know Pixel 3 produces good bokeh with just 1 lens, but still it's not as good as DSLRs in many cases. It would be great to see an ultrawide lens on next Pixel, I hope they don't make Pixel 4 ugly as well (XL is already ugly).

 

[billubakra]

They are doing great things with software, but I hope they integrate that with hardware as well (another lens). Nokia 9 can compete with DSLRs in terms of the bokeh produced. I know Pixel 3 produces good bokeh with just 1 lens, but still it's not as good as DSLRs in many cases. It would be great to see an ultrawide lens on next Pixel, I hope they don't make Pixel 4 ugly as well (XL is already ugly).

If you want to compare mobile cameras with dslr's then as of today nothing beats s10+ and p30 pro. Coming to the pixels more lenses will mean more $$'s. If anyone can do it with software then it's skynet.

 

[billubakra]

They are doing great things with software, but I hope they integrate that with hardware as well (another lens). Nokia 9 can compete with DSLRs in terms of the bokeh produced. I know Pixel 3 produces good bokeh with just 1 lens, but still it's not as good as DSLRs in many cases. It would be great to see an ultrawide lens on next Pixel, I hope they don't make Pixel 4 ugly as well (XL is already ugly).

And in other news-
HMD Global is investigating Nokia 9's insecure fingerprint scanner

 

[omega44-xt]

If you want to compare mobile cameras with dslr's then as of today nothing beats s10+ and p30 pro. Coming to the pixels more lenses will mean more $$'s. If anyone can do it with software then it's skynet.

Pixels aren't exactly cheap for avoiding the extra lens. Moreover, software development isn't cheap as well. I would say Nokia 9 is better than both of them but not so good for casual users as editing each pic is mandatory, which most won't do. Also the processing time for each pic is another annoyance. I hope Nokia optimizes their algorithm in the future & they might have a proper flagship for the masses.

 

[billubakra]

Pixels aren't exactly cheap for avoiding the extra lens. Moreover, software development isn't cheap as well. I would say Nokia 9 is better than both of them but not so good for casual users as editing each pic is mandatory, which most won't do. Also the processing time for each pic is another annoyance. I hope Nokia optimizes their algorithm in the future & they might have a proper flagship for the masses.

Skynet has tons of $$'s for the software development, they will keep on relying on their softwares afaik. Coming to Nokia, unfortunately it might go down the drain I hope it becomes the good old Nokia but chances are slim.

 

[omega44-xt]

Skynet has tons of $$'s for the software development, they will keep on relying on their softwares afaik. Coming to Nokia, unfortunately it might go down the drain I hope it becomes the good old Nokia but chances are slim.

It won't become the big old Nokia, Samsung is too far ahead without any chances of falling down as Nokia did. But I hope they at least breach the top 5.