If you pay more attention to the digital circle, you should find such an interesting phenomenon - starting from 2021, the once-in-full-scale periscope telephoto lens will have fewer and fewer opportunities to "show their faces" on the new products of various Android flagships. You know, it was once almost the "standard" of Android flagships, one of the most colorful introduction links at product launches, but now it has become a "non-essential" option for mobile product managers when planning new machines.
Is it difficult to believe that the periscope telephoto lens is really useless, and when the tide recedes, everyone finds that it has been "swimming naked"?
Looking back at the beginning:
Periscope telephoto helps Huawei enter the high-end market
Before answering this question, let's first review the history of the development of periscope telephoto lenses to see how it has developed from "sparks" to "can burn the plains".
On March 26, 2019, Huawei released the Huawei P30 series at the Convention Center in Paris, France, where the Huawei P30 Pro was equipped with an 8-megapixel 5X periscope telephoto lens for the first time, supporting up to 50 times digital zoom, which caused a huge sensation in the industry.
Huawei P30 Pro
You know, the flagship mobile phone at that time generally used a 2X optical zoom lens, and the 5X periscope telephoto lens was simply the existence of "standing out". The P30 Pro 5X optical telephoto lens's image quality performance was a dimensionality reduction for other mobile phones at the time that used digital cropping to achieve 5X zoom. Many ordinary mobile phone users take pictures of the moon for the first time, which is also achieved through the periscope telephoto lens of the mobile phone.
Sample of a periscope telephoto lens
So, is the differentiated configuration of mobile phone images a success for huawei P series? From the perspective of sales, the answer is indisputable: after 85 days of listing, the sales of the Huawei P30 series exceeded 10 million units, 62 days earlier than the previous generation of huawei P20 series. In the entire product cycle, the sales volume of Huawei's P30 series exceeded 20 million units, which is also one of the few highlight moments for domestic mobile phones in the high-end market.
Huawei's P30 series sales exceeded 10 million
Overtaking in curves:
Periscope telephoto has won the recognition of the consumer market
Then again, from the user's shooting experience, the periscope telephoto does bring some different image experiences. Under the new shooting perspective, the periscope telephoto lens can better help us focus on the subject, giving people a kind of fun to close the shooting. The image quality advantage of optical zoom is also very intuitive, and users can see the difference between it and digital zoom at a glance.
Left: Xiaomi Mi 11Ultra 1X main camera shot
Right: Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra 5X periscope telephoto lens shooting
We must not underestimate the "interesting attributes" of mobile phone photography, when it becomes a trend and is accepted by mass consumer groups, the technical selling point of this "cusp" is equated with the expanding market share.
This is easy to understand, taking one of the main suppliers of mobile phone lens modules - Sunny Optics as an example, its stock price has risen by nearly 300% from 19 years to the present, with a market value of more than 230 billion Hong Kong dollars, and the first periscope telephoto lens on the Huawei P30 Pro uses Sunny Optics' periscope 5X optical zoom solution. The huge market demand has played an important role in promoting the development of upstream supply chain manufacturers, not to mention the Android mobile phone manufacturers in the center of the whirlpool.
Sunny Optics stock price chart
Huawei's efforts in mobile phone imaging have made the consumer market see more flagship choices in addition to international manufacturers such as Apple and Samsung. At the same time, the periscope telephoto also pointed out a bright way for other Android mobile phone manufacturers to hit the high-end - it turns out that in addition to the ultimate stacking cost performance, the high-end market is more willing to pay for technological innovation. Since then, periscope telephoto lenses have become an important track for Android mobile phone manufacturers to compete in the high-end market.
Mixed blessings and sorrows:
The disadvantages of periscope telephoto are becoming increasingly prominent
No one has a thousand days, and no flowers have a hundred days of red. While the development of periscope telephoto lenses is in full swing, some of its shortcomings have gradually begun to be exposed.
First of all, from a technical point of view, the focal length of the periscope telephoto is much longer than that of the main camera, which means that it has higher requirements for stabilization performance. It's like holding a 1-meter bamboo pole and a 5-meter bamboo pole, and the same hand shakes, and the amplitude of the 5-meter bamboo pole is more obvious than the 1-meter bamboo pole. Although each family's periscope telephoto lens is generally equipped with OIS optical image stabilization technology, but for handheld shooting when the large jitter is still powerless to return to the sky, the best solution is to use with a tripod, but this in turn violates the portable function positioning of the phone itself.
Not only that, under a long focal length, the aperture of the periscope telephoto lens is also difficult to enlarge (the aperture value of the lens = the aperture / focal length of the lens), the lack of light intake should be solved by increasing the exposure time or increasing the iso (sensitivity), and blindly raising the iso will lead to a serious deterioration of the picture quality. Therefore, if users want to ensure the film completion rate of telephoto lens shooting, they must practice iron skills well.
Schematic diagram of how a mobile phone periscope lens works
From the perspective of manufacturers, the material cost of using periscope telephoto lenses is much higher than that of non-periscope lenses. According to the material cost analysis table of the well-known dismantling agency TechInsights, the camera module cost of the Samsung Galaxy S10+ (without a periscope telephoto lens) is $56.5, while the cost of the camera module of the next generation galaxy S20 Ultra (with a periscope telephoto lens) has soared to $107.5, nearly double that of the previous generation S10+.
You know, the wool is out of the sheep, mobile phone manufacturers will not do loss-making business, the increased cost of materials ultimately or consumers to "pay". Thinking like this, in recent years, the collective "price increase" of Android flagship mobile phones is actually not without reasons.
Samsung Galaxy S10+ bill of materials cost chart
Galaxy S20 Ultra Bill of Materials Diagram
While increasing the cost of materials, the periscope telephoto lens also puts forward higher requirements for the internal space and body weight of the mobile phone.
The reason for the use of periscope structure is because the thickness of the mobile phone can not meet the optical path design of the lens, and the optical path can only be changed through the reflective prism, and the lens is changed from the traditional thickness direction to the horizontal arrangement. In this way, the thickness and weight of the mobile phone is difficult to reduce, to the current several Android flagships that use periscope telephoto lenses, xiaomi 11 ultra body thickness of 8.38mm, weight 234g; Huawei Mate40 Pro+ thickness 8.8mm, weight 230g, Samsung S21 Ultra thickness 8.9mm, weight 227g, with a protective case after the weight is basically close to half a pound, no "Kirin arm", it is really not very good.
Faced with a choice:
Mobile phone manufacturers hand over different "answer sheets"
Under the trade-off of pros and cons, users and mobile phone manufacturers have come to the crossroads of choice. Periscope telephoto lenses, the technical selling point that makes people "love and hate", where to go? Mobile phone manufacturers have different solutions to the problem, here in order to facilitate everyone's understanding, we roughly divide the product strategy of mobile phone manufacturers into three factions - traditional, neutral and radical.
The traditionalists believe that the existence value of the periscope telephoto lens is irreplaceable, they insist on using high-specification mobile phone sensors to ensure the amount of light intake and picture quality performance of the telephoto end, through the top specification of the main camera cut or add a strategy to connect the lens to ensure the imaging quality of the middle focal length, and with the help of AI algorithms for software-level integration optimization, and strive to bring users a high-quality experience under different focal lengths. Users can choose this product solution to get the most extreme mobile phone image experience, but at the same time, they must also accept the shortcomings of their heavy body and high price.
Samsung S21 Ultra, 10X periscope telephoto lens
Centrists believe that the periscope telephoto lens has some existential value, but the price to pay for it is a bit too heavy. Therefore, they chose to use a non-periscope structure lens between 2X and 5X, and through the optimization of this "semi-telephoto lens", they brought a shooting effect similar to that of the periscope telephoto lens. In this way, it is possible to ensure a certain coverage of the focal length and optimize the thickness and weight of the fuselage.
Huawei P50 Pro, 3X optical zoom lens
Radicals believe that the value of the existence of periscope telephoto lenses is not high, rather than making a fuss about it, it is better to adopt a high-specification "main camera + ultra-wide angle" dual main camera strategy, after all, they are closer to the user's common shooting scenes, "100 million pixels", "50 million pixels" also look more gimmicky, more conducive to product publicity. However, some flagship models have begun to use the 1/2.76-inch Samsung JN1 sensor to do ultra-wide angle, which is much smaller than the previous top-level IMX766 (1/1.56 inch) ultra-wide.
OPPO Find X3 Pro, 0.6X ultra-wide angle lens
In general, the three product strategies of mobile phone manufacturers have their own advantages and disadvantages - the traditional school meets the strict needs of the ultimate image enthusiasts, the middle school takes into account the comprehensive product experience of the public users, and the radical school takes a different approach and focuses on the optimization of the common focus segments, and we can make different choices according to our actual needs.
summary
Now, let's answer the question asked at the beginning, is the periscope telephoto lens really useless? From the perspective of different genres and practices of mobile phone manufacturers, this view is not true, and the periscope telephoto lens still has its space and significance, but its opportunity to "show its face" on ordinary mobile phones will be less and less. Android's top image flagship is equipped with a periscope telephoto lens, which is essentially expanding the possibility of mobile phone images, and it is also an image differentiation competition for their biggest competitor, the iPhone. Under this trend, even Apple, which does not blindly pursue the trend, will upgrade the previous 2.5X telephoto lens to a 3X optical zoom lens on its latest iPhone13 Pro series.
Historical developments always have a certain similarity, after the periscope telephoto lens gradually faded its "mysterious color", who will continue to carry the banner of Android's high-end technology selling point? From the current situation, the folding screen may be one of the most potential seed players, as to whether it will go through a similar development process of periscope telephoto lenses, it needs to be tested by the future consumer market.
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