Is periscope telephoto a gimmick or a great progress in taking pictures?

In terms of camera matching, the camera combination of Android phones hangs on the iPhone, grinding apples on the ground, and there are many arrangements and combinations, such as super wide angle+wide angle+telephoto+black and white+macro +ToF, etc. Every mobile phone basically starts with 3 lenses, and more than 5 lenses. Anyway, whether it is used or not is a matter for users, and whether it is used or not is a matter for mobile phone manufacturers.

Among the lens combinations, periscope telephoto lens is an alternative lens with complex structure, which meets the pain point of high zoom and becomes a major selling point of mobile phone manufacturers. However, Apple started computing photography from iPhone X. Later, both Xiaomi and Huawei began to develop in this direction. The CMOS of mobile phone is very small, but the algorithm compensation just solves this pain point. Through the pixel-by-pixel analysis of mobile phone AI, a good photo was finally taken. On the other hand, computational photography can optimize the picture when zooming.

However, periscope telephoto was not used at the press conference of two flagship mobile phones, One Plus 9 Pro and OPPO Find X3 Pro. At the same time, Xiaomi 12Pro didn't use periscope telephoto. Every time it was said that iPhone would use periscope lens, and it was never used. This shows that in the future flagship mobile phones, the periscope telephoto may become optional rather than standard.

First of all, the biggest restriction of periscope telephoto is that the module is too large. The space of mobile phone is too small, and the space occupied by periscope telephoto is 2~3 times that of ordinary camera. In the 5G era, there are more and more internal components in mobile phones, and the periscope telephoto will become more and more uneconomical.

Secondly, the periscope telephoto lens has complex structure and high cost. Periscope telephoto lens not only reflects light into CMOS through prism, but also ensures optical image stabilization, which inevitably leads to complex internal structure. Moreover, the periscope telephoto promoted by OPPO realized 5X optical zoom, but it took more than two years to be commercialized, which shows the difficulty of periscope lens and the structural assistance thought it was too hot.

Finally, the function is single. The function of periscope telephoto is zoom, which can achieve optical zoom of 10 times, which is more advantageous than digital zoom. But the periscope lens has little effect on videos, portraits and so on except zoom, and who will take pictures with that 10 times lens? Stability is a problem, but computational photography can achieve this function.

In the 5G era, mobile phones pursue thinness. To be sure, periscope telephoto will not be widely promoted on mobile phones, but will only be used on mobile phones that emphasize photographing and zooming, such as Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra and vivo X80 Pro. , mainly taking pictures.

Do you think periscope has a large telephoto effect? Do you think it improves taking pictures? Please leave a message in the comments section.