Double, triple, or quad rear cameras are now a thing on smartphones, with the aim of allowing you to obtain a photographic experience. A lot of times, the average person desires a cool smartphone with a need to understand all terms, while the enthusiast researches for a cool smartphone to the depth of its features.
How enthusiastic you are about the phone rear camera is probably what has led you here, and frankly, it is a desire to kick off from scratch.
Having a good rear camera serves a well-known purpose. But with double, triple, or more, what could be the essence? Can it be that the more camera sensors we have, the better image quality we can get? Let us obtain step by step the reasons for the use of sensors and see if, together, the more rear camera sensors you have, the better the image quality.
Lesson 101
Photography is not just a hobby for a lot of people; it’s a business, it’s a trend, it’s a culture, and it’s a very important branch of entertainment. It captures our great moments physically rather than mentally, and shows us exactly when we want to see them. Without it, we probably have mere stories of events without proof or just mental memories. Imagine losing your memory and having no images or pictures to remind you of who you are or were. It’s not going to be quite as easy as
While the world has accepted this very important piece of art, the idea of what it can do is already known and not a debate. This innovation has come to stay to the point that its advancement is a major buildup and investment. Why companies want to improve the picture quality of cameras is quite understandable, but how do you know when a camera has stepped up?
Well! Some things add up to this, but a very vital area to note is the camera sensors, which is the main area we are looking at generally and even in the rear cameras.
What is an image sensor?
An image sensor is the part of the hardware of a camera responsible for capturing light and converting it through a viewfinder into an image.
Understanding the mechanism of this isn’t so hard. It is okay to say, we see images due to the amount of light they emit and how our photosites (responsible for capturing the lights we see) capture this light and transform them into an electrical signal that can be interpreted.
Cameras, on the other hand, use this same mechanism, whereby the sensor is given the task of collecting incoming light when the shutter opens, converting it into an electrical signal.
With these explanations, how important can we say the camera sensors are? This is very important, but this still doesn’t tell us if there is a standard for how much sensor a camera should have. And the more sensors it has, the better the photo quality. Let’s take a ride on it.
A camera’s image sensor can be said to be responsible for determining the quality of the image produced. This is due to its very crucial task in the process of making images; that is, the ability to take in photons or light. The larger the sensor, the greater its ability or space to capture photons, and that is significant in the image creation or output.
For a digital camera, the sensors have quite an impact on photos, and we expect it to be similar even in smartphone cameras. Let’s find out the general impact of camera sensors on photos.
Impact of Camera Sensors on Photos
Remember, the word photography was derived from two Greek words: PHOS (also referred to as photos, meaning light) and GRAPHE (meaning drawing or writing). Photography, according to its derivation, means the “drawing with/of light”. This definition will help us understand that pictures are the drawing of or with light that a camera sees. And the device responsible for capturing this light is the sensor. This can further explain that the more light captured, the more quality you get.
The sensor size of your camera has quite a tremendous effect on your image quality, affecting different areas.
1. Resolution
When checking out camera qualities, we all go to check the resolution of their images. We know that the higher the resolution, the better images are captured by the camera. But how does the sensor influence the resolution we all crave?
Resolution is measured in pixels and megapixels, and a pixel is the smallest element of a picture. A camera sensor is a device that contains photosites with the ability to capture light that can be translated into pixels. The more the sensor, the larger the photosites, the more light captured, the more pixels are made, the more resolution you have. Therefore, the camera sensor has a significant effect on the resolution.
2. Low-light Performance
Have you ever struggled to take a picture in the dark without the camera flash? It’s that hard to see a lot of details as you desire. A higher camera sensor improves this. A larger sensor possesses larger photosites, giving it a better ability to capture low-light photos than a smaller sensor will do.
3. Image Noise and Crop Factor
Zooming your pictures can bring about blurriness, image noise, or grain. This is one of the reasons people prefer higher resolution, which is proportional to larger sensors.
Your camera’s crop factor, or focal length, describes your camera sensor size and a 35mm film frame. We can explain the crop factor this way.
Putting a lens in a camera projects a circular image at the back of the camera. When the image finally gets to the crop factor, we can say it is cropped from being in a circular format to a rectangular format, losing some details. The larger your sensor, the more details you can keep, despite the crop factor. Having a full frame sensor would bring out the exact image in the view finder, so there would be no crop factor effect.
After understanding how camera sensors work generally, I hope we are getting closer to answering if the more rear camera sensors we have mounted on our smartphone, the better quality we are to get? Let’s keep going.
Lesson 102
Multiple rear camera sensors
We’ve come across the best of smartphones or our top smartphone brands practicing a new or modern culture of multiple rear cameras. It takes being a phone geek or nerd to understand the mechanism of such actions. Although we can perceive averagely that these companies won’t practice this act if it doesn’t improve the quality of the image we get. But is that truly the case or just an assumption?
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The first and basic essence of multiple rear cameras is to give a photographic effect. The way photographers pick up the zoom lens, the fisheye lens, or different lenses in order to get the angle they desire is the basic function of multiple rear cameras.
Each rear camera serves as a different camera unit with a different lens that offers a different angle or dimension, with your phone being able to switch so quickly between cameras or lenses, or all work together to give you great quality. The primary reason remains to switch between the different cameras or different focal lengths that each camera offers quickly. So it’s like having two to four lenses at once on your device, with the ability to switch between them.
Let’s take, for example, Samsung Galaxy phones, which, on a usual note, possess two or more rear cameras. These rear cameras work separately but in harmony to bring you the derived quality image you obtain.
Having known the primary function of multiple rear cameras, we can say it offers an advantage in terms of extra lenses and focal length, and this feature is cool as it gives you the ability to take different angles, zoom, etc.
But multiple rear cameras will come with multiple sensors, and from Lesson 101 above, the function of a camera sensor was explained. Can we say this is also an advantage? Can having multiple rear cameras that come with multiple sensors come in handy in improving camera quality?
A smartphone with multiple rear cameras can mean better image quality in comparison with a smartphone with just one rear camera. And yes, a larger sensor definitely means better image quality, as already stated, but smartphone manufacturers know their way around this.
Wrapping it up…
Let’s take a look at Google Pixel 3; it is one of the best smartphones for mobile photography (though lower on the list of the best), yet possesses just one rear camera. This is possible because it is able to use software algorithms, AI and machine learning to produce features like the optical or digital zooming that multiple rear cameras offer.
Therefore, multiple rear cameras offer features like additional lenses and more sensors, but having one rear camera that still figures out a way to perform all these tasks was made possible with the Google Pixel 3.
It should also be known that the best smartphones for photography are
- iPhone 11 Pro
- Samsung Galaxy S20 ultra
- Huawei P40 Pro
- Google Pixel 4XL
- Samsung Galaxy S10
All of these phones possess dual or more rear cameras. It is conclusive to say, while some smartphones have proven one rear camera can still produce equal or better quality photos than some multiple rear cameras; multiple rear cameras have the edge in picture quality and photographic experience. The features of each rear camera should be checked, be it one rear camera or multiple rear cameras, and can then be compared with the specifications of another phone to decide which is better.