Modern smartphones are often equipped with camera lenses, called a camera cluster (or bump). This is why your phone’s camera isn’t flat: the lens needs space between the sensor. The more lenses, the more space is required. But why on earth do we need multiple lenses in our smartphones to begin with? Well, it’s simple. Each lens performs a specific task, such as a prime (wide) lens, an ultra-wide lens, a telephoto lens, and/or a macro lens. The macro is useful for close-ups, and the telephoto lens allows you to capture objects at a distance while taking in more of the landscape. You’ll use the prime lens for other types of photos, like portraits. Using software, these photos can be tweaked or even combined to create shots using computational photography.
Essentially, smartphones offer a selection of cameras and lenses to give you, the user, the choice of how to take your photos. Your primary lens will likely absorb the most light for standard use. This is called aperture, and it is measured on the F-stops. The lower the F-stop, the more light your lens lets in, so be sure to check what aperture each lens on your camera phone offers. Typically, ultra-wide lenses offer a slightly higher aperture because less light is absorbed to provide a much greater depth of field, allowing you to photograph large landscapes. When it comes to macro, many manufacturers use ultra-wide to capture macro photos because it can also focus on subjects at close range. Camera bumps exist to give us options so our phones can handle any shooting situation.
Adapt your smartphone cameras to what you are filming
One of the main features to consider when buying a smartphone is the type of camera lenses it offers. Typically, smartphones offer three lenses on the back, although some camera groups that once offered a dedicated macro lens have switched to a zoomed ultra-wide lens for a similar effect. You can see this on devices from players like OnePlus, which only uses a monochrome lens in its cluster. Competitors like Samsung and Google also offer an ultrawide capable of zooming for macro instead of a dedicated macro lens, ensuring they offer a choice of best budget and expensive phones for photographers, regardless of your brand or shooting preferences.
The quality of a smartphone’s camera is considered a major selling point, and rightly so, given that 91% of phone users regularly use their smartphone to take photos. Cameras are a very commonly used feature. For comparison, only 80% of smartphone users actually use their phone to make calls. So not only are the cameras built into our phones a normalized feature these days, but they’re more important than the original use of these gadgets. The quality of these cameras can easily make or break a phone; that’s simply how important technology is.
So if you’ve ever wondered why almost every smartphone has a ridiculous camera cluster on the back, there’s a very good reason for that. Consumers absolutely demand great cameras in their smartphones, which is why Google, Apple, and Samsung have all been fighting neck and neck for over a decade to bring the best and most popular smartphone cameras to the public.
