Over the last couple of years, at least most of us have had a chance to test and use various ultrawide smartphone cameras, they’ve revolutionized the way we capture photos and in some rare cases reduced the once popular feature –panorama redundant. But from the current rumors and trends we’re getting, soon the superzoom era will beckon and it’ll be just as interesting to see how it plays out.
I remember the first time I had a chance to own a phone with ultrawide lens – the LG G5, it was like the smartphone camera was born again. The experience was enormous being a first timer and couldn’t see anything that could prove better. From what we’re getting from reliable sources, smartphones will soon get over the wide-angle lens craze and instead embrace superzoom. The subject has been a bit thorny for phones and at least this is why we still have the point and shoot cameras rocking the segment.
Up until now, superzoom has been a feature only wished for in the smartphone photography and for all of us who thought it was achieved by the so-called digital zoom, think again coz the real deal is yet to come. Digital zoom basically achieves the same effect as using a simple editor to crop out un-zoomed photo. And for most of us, we haven’t really used the feature for a simple reason; why zoom at all when the lens can’t quite get any additional data?
With the ultrawide feature, it was simple for manufacturers to tweak lens to capture a wider angle than traditional modes, it was brilliant and having a ton of us all accommodated in a single shot sounded futuristic. Unlike the digital zoom feature which only achieved a blurry and rather noisy photo, ultrawide lenses were able to gather more data eloquently except for the fish-eye effect we experienced on some manufacturers who overdid it.
Some manufactures have already announced handsets that can-do zoom such as Oppo’s Reno 10x and Huawei P30 Pro and from the early reports we’ve been getting from users, this will be a must have feature on flagship devices from serious manufacturers. Once manufactures discover that consumers are looking for this feature, we expect the likes of Samsung and Apple to come onboard for something more than Apple’s current mild-zoom “portrait” lenses.