As a photography enthusiast, the telephoto lens has always been an unattainable product for Xiaolei, after all, it is far beyond the ordinary focal length lens in terms of weight and volume and price. Of course, the most important thing is that it is too difficult to carry, whether it is traveling or shooting, it is far more "difficult" than imagined. So at that time, Xiao Lei would rather spend thousands more to buy a Sony black card than buy a telephoto lens, which even made Xiao Lei want to use the black card as the main camera.
However, this long-standing problem was completely solved after the emergence of the Huawei P30 Pro and the OPPO Reno ten-fold zoom version. According to the official introduction, the P30 Pro is equipped with an 8-megapixel periscope 5x optical telephoto lens, coupled with digital cropping operation, which can give it a 50x zoom capability and a maximum of 1343mm equivalent focal length.
Although in a strict sense, the optical zoom technology advertised by these two models has a hint of marketing flavor, the emergence of these two products has indeed plunged the entire mobile phone market into the competition of "telephoto inner volume". Starting in 2020, almost every flagship phone will be equipped with a periscope telephoto lens, and exaggerated even use two telephoto lenses to achieve a stronger zoom effect.
However, this "ultra-telephoto" trend has only lasted for more than a year, and from the second half of 2021, major mobile phone manufacturers seem to no longer pay attention to ultra-telephoto lenses, but pay more attention to the so-called dual main camera combination: that is, two high-quality sensors to form the main camera and ultra-wide angle lens. And the recent exposure of several new machines are also using this configuration, is it true that the periscope telephoto lens is like the "100 million pixels" topic of the year, the direction is really wrong?
Are telephoto lenses on your phone really practical?
In the mobile phone market in 2020, there seems to be no periscope lens, and they are embarrassed to say that they are flagship machines. Huawei P40 Pro+, Xiaomi Mi 10 Extreme Edition, OPPO Find X2 Pro and other models have used a highly qualified periscope scene lens, and even achieved 10 times optical zoom, equivalent focal length of more than 200mm, which is a telescope in the mobile phone.
The telephoto lens has naturally become the focus and selling point of mobile phone manufacturers, whether it is a conference or an official website introduction, it will leave a certain position for it. In addition, from the perspective of consumers, for consumer groups that do not understand what is CMOS, what is called the bottom, and what is the algorithm (please note that this may actually be the vast majority of users), the promotion of mobile phone manufacturers on the "camera configuration" does have two parameters that are most easily "understood" and very deeply rooted, the first is the pixel, and the other is the maximum zoom magnification. At this time, the 50 times, 60 times or even 120 times zoom advertised by mobile phone manufacturers can play a role.
Having said all that, what exactly is the use of the periscope telephoto lens on the phone? First of all, we need to understand the question, why do we sometimes find the photos taken by the telephoto lens more attractive than the main camera?
Because if there is no telephoto, we have to press the shutter in a position where human beings are difficult to reach, and at the same time, telephoto shooting should also plan which scenes should appear in the photo and which should not appear, and integrate the creative elements into the photo, which is the moment when the mobile phone is really close to the camera, not just stacking pixels to "kill SLR". From Xiao Lei's personal point of view, a mobile phone with a telephoto lens is easier for users to feel the joy of shooting.
Shot by the Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra 5X lens
For SLR cameras, telephoto and super telephoto lenses are a must when shooting in specific scenes, such as shooting sporting events and wildlife. But smartphones are clearly not up to the task of shooting these scenes, even though they have a high-power optical zoom. However, the significance of the existence of telephoto lenses is obviously not just for birds. If you're passionate about recording what you see and hear while traveling, you'll know how practical a zoom-enabled camera (or phone) can be.
In fact, the more important significance of using periscope lenses to achieve high-magnification optical zoom lies in the ability of mobile phone manufacturers to solve problems. Perhaps the so-called 50x or even 120x zoom is just a publicity stunt, but it can achieve up to 5x or 10x optical zoom on a small mobile phone, which is enough for Xiao Lei, as a photography enthusiast, to pay for it.
Mobile phone photography may never be a substitute for professional SLR, even if they have a high-power optical zoom. But for the average user, it is enough to have the shooting ability even if it is close to a single reflex.
Manufacturers cancel telephoto lenses, is it a compromise or market demand?
As for why mobile phone manufacturers no longer focus on ultra-telephoto lenses, Xiao Lei believes that there are two main reasons, first, every technology of mobile phone photography will bring corresponding problems. For example, the pixel is high tolerance will decline, the lens can be shot at a wider angle will cause distortion of the picture, increase the portrait bokeh function will bring about the problem of keying, even if it is recognized to improve the quality of the "bottom of the big one to crush the dead", after being transplanted to the mobile phone, it still brings a coma, and the near object focus experience is not as good as the old mobile phone.
However, these features, which were once regarded as gimmicks by some users, have now become the focus of most mobile phone manufacturers. So now that the mobile phone telephoto technology has been quite mature, why not continue to be used by mobile phone manufacturers? Li Nan once made such a statement on social platforms.
From Li Nan's speech, we can roughly understand that the ultra-telephoto lens of mobile phones is far from maturity in technology, but it has become the end of the marketing level. In order to win the championship of the camera arms race, major brands have to rush the ducks to the shelves, bring out the "sparse" picture quality that is far from the wide angle and telephoto, and then expect consumers to be intimidated by the numbers of advertisers, and spend money to pay for it without knowing it, which can indeed be recognized.
But Li Nan's paragraph actually has a lot of rebuttals, people who take pictures or take videos with telephoto can really only get a shaky film? There is also a common problem, the dithering that is not easily noticed at the wide-angle end is multiplied as the focal length increases. This is a great test of the lens's stabilization performance. At present, the periscope lens with 5x optical zoom can achieve a good stabilization effect through OIS technology, and there is indeed a large room for improvement in 10x and 20x.
Shot by Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra 10X zoom
But this does not mean that the telephoto lens is really a gimmick, if the truth is as Li Nan said, then the mobile phone equipped with the telephoto lens should have been quietly submerged in 2021, and why is there today's debate? This also fulfills the saying that as long as nothing is done, there will be no problems, and there will be no need to solve any problems. But isn't doing anything the biggest problem in itself?
As long as some users can enjoy the fun of telephoto lenses, then it has a meaning of existence.
Second, and the most fundamental reason that Xiao Lei personally believes, is that the periscope lens will indeed further reduce the space inside the mobile phone. As mentioned earlier, the booming years of periscope telephoto lenses are 2019 and 2020, which is the era when 5G mobile phones have just been introduced and popularized, and the 5G mobile phones at that time left the deepest impression on us, in addition to being expensive, it is "thick".
The picture shows the parameters of a flagship mobile phone in 2020
At that time, the thick fuselage just allowed the periscope telephoto module to have a certain space for development, and with the continuous iteration and improvement of mobile phone manufacturers' technology, today's 5G mobile phones have basically taken off the hat of "brick machine", and even the weight has dropped to about 170g. But the so-called sacrifice must be gained, mobile phone manufacturers in order to "lose weight", the first to give up, is naturally the periscope lens of the "heavyweight player".
The dual main camera high-pixel scheme that can not only ensure the overall shooting experience, but also allow users to achieve manual zoom through cropping, has become a helpless move for mobile phone manufacturers. After all, according to their market research, the dual-main camera solution is far more popular with consumers than the more aggressive telephoto lens. In this case, high-quality ultra-telephoto cameras have actually become a means of "showmanship" for a few flagship machines, rather than the function points that most users generally pursue.
However, for Users who are keen on telephoto lenses like Xiao Lei, they still hope that the mobile phone market can launch several mobile phones that do not care so much about the thickness and weight of the fuselage and are equipped with ultra-telephoto lenses, after all, for Xiao Lei personally, the mobile phone is not as heavy as the SLR, but because of the portable performance of the mobile phone to enhance more desire to take pictures.
Telephoto lenses need to be retained, but the direction cannot be wrong
According to the previous discussion, it is not difficult to see that Xiao Lei is a user who has a positive attitude towards mobile phone telephoto lenses, but this does not mean that Xiao Lei hopes that mobile phone manufacturers will continue to create 100 times or even 200 times zoom lenses for the so-called gimmicks two years ago.
As far as the current technology is concerned, in the problem of "shooting well" and "shooting well", it is difficult to take care of the periscope lens, and with the higher the zoom multiplier, this contradiction is becoming more and more obvious. Therefore, Xiao Lei's personal view is that the telephoto lens can be retained, but there is no need to sacrifice too much internal space, installing a lens with a focal length of more than 200mm that is not commonly used. About 5 times the optical zoom, has been enough to meet the needs of extreme users such as Xiao Lei, as for the so-called 10 times optics or even 20 times, in the short term should not exist in this small mobile phone.
When mobile phone manufacturers no longer dance in the "10x optical zoom" and "120x hybrid zoom", but concentrate on improving the imaging quality of 2x telephoto lenses and 5x periscope lenses, this "telephoto battle" will return to the right track. However, as far as the several models currently exposed, the top flagship model in 2022 still does not seem to have obvious progress in the configuration of the telephoto camera, and perhaps This expectation of Xiao Lei is afraid to fail in 2022.