Dual, triple, quad, penta camera smartphones: the runni story

Why You Can Trust Pocket-lint

(Pocket-lint) - With more and more

smartphones

launching with a multi-lens camera system, we take a look at where it all came from and walk through the history of dual, triple and (gasp) quad-lens smartphone cameras.

Dual lenses on smartphones aren't new, with a number of models offering a range of unique features using this camera setup as early as 2011 in formats you'll recognize - not to mention the Samsung B710 offering dual lenses in 2007. ! (

Thanks for the advice Leo.

)

Get a phone with a

single objective

maybe now a rarity, but follow us as we take you through the key moments of multi-lens smartphone camera systems from the past and into the present...

Pocket-lint

LG Optimus 3D and HTC Evo 3D: another dimension

In 2011, 3D was a thing. TV makers around the world were lining up

3D televisions

, 3D movies were being produced and we were being told that 3D was the next big thing (again).

For smartphones, it was an opportunity to innovate. the

LG Optimus 3D

was announced in February 2011 and the

HTC Evo 3D

launched on Sprint in March 2011.< /p>

Both of these smartphones (and there were others) used two lenses to allow them to take 3D videos and 3D photos. They use the same technique used by regular 3D cameras, using these dual lenses to create a sense of depth in the images. This was enhanced by a 3D display to see these images, without the glasses.

But 3D was only a passing phase, and while we could capture 3D, ultimately it was only the beginning of the story for modern multi-lens smartphones.

Pocket-lint

HTC One M8: logic

It was the

HTC One M8

which really introduced dual-lens cameras to the world and saw HTC trying to do something different. The HTC One M8 was launched in April 2014 and used two sensors similar to modern smartphone cameras.

With a primary 4-megapixel UltraPixel image sensor and a secondary 2-megapixel sensor capturing additional data, the dual-lens camera was used, like 3D, to create a

sense of depth in photos

. The idea was that the second lens could create a depth map and integrate it into the final image.

This meant you could create background blur/bokeh effects, you could refocus the image with a touch, and you could easily manipulate photos, keep the subject in focus, and change backgrounds, even after shooting. the picture.

The One M8 was smart, but the camera wasn't that impressive. The effects were pretty fancy and the benefits of having a dual camera didn't really have an impact - although the all-metal body did.

There are still many cameras with a second lens for "depth". " and nothing else - but it's often seen as a method of getting background blur on portraits.

HTC may have started it all

second objective

, but it was about 2 years ahead of the rest of the pack - and it was in 2016 that the industry really changed.

Pocket-lint

LG G5: Go further< /p>

Step forward a few years and LG has announced the

LG G5 in February 2016

. There were two things that were interesting about it. First, it attempted to integrate modular accessories - which was a flop - and second, LG equipped it with dual cameras, one of the first phones to launch in 2016.

There was a 16-megapixel main sensor and a second 8-megapixel sensor. Rather than combining information to create effects, the second lens was ultra-wide-angle.

With a 135-degree lens on the back for that 8-megapixel camera, the LG G5 could take great wide-angle shots. effect. You can simply switch between cameras, perfect for tight spaces or landscapes - and the ability to create something you can't do with software.

LG has added wide angle to

V20 and later models

in the G and V series, but only with the

Huawei Mate 20 triple camera

that we saw great wide-angle moves from other manufacturers. Everything changed in 2019, when everyone realized that the wide angle was a creative proposition.

Pocket-lint

Huawei P9: Leica's monochrome brand

In April 2016, Huawei

launched the P9

in partnership with Leica, with two cameras on the back. Huawei's main selling point was not depth sensing or wide-angle, but monochrome and it was the start of influential work on Huawei's multi-camera systems.

Leveraging Leica's classic monochrome skills, the Huawei P9 featured

two rear cameras

, claiming that one lens captured RGB color and the second lens captured monochrome detail. It made for great black and white photos, but working together the P9 attempted to combine information from both sensors to improve all your photos - and generally speaking it all seemed to work well.

Huawei continued with this arrangement until 2018 in the

Huawei P20

, launched alongside another important device: the

Huawei P20 Pro

.

Huawei P20 Pro

.

Huawei P20 Pro

. p>

Honor

used the same system in a number of devices - without the Leica brand - adding a monochrome sensor on the

Honor 8

and subsequent devices, until we reach the

Honor View 20

. It wasn't just Huawei and Honor - Nokia adopted the same system on the Nokia 8

, but with Zeiss brand lenses.

Pocket-lint< /p>

Apple iPhone 7 Plus: a game to zoom

During 2016, one of the big launches was the Apple iPhone 7 Plus

with two cameras on the back, both 12 megapixels, but offering different focal lengths. The first camera was a 23mm zoom, while the second was 56mm and we've entered the realm of telephoto on phones.

The idea was to allow you to zoom in without losing as much quality, switching to the 56mm camera to get you closer, then any digital zoom you do then starts from a closer position, so that the loss of quality will be mitigated. Apple wanted to fix what it saw as a significant problem with smartphone photography and came up with a solution tailored to user behavior.

Apple has also played HTC's game by offering bokeh effects thanks to a depth map drawn from the two lenses. .

Since the launch of the iPhone 7 Plus, Apple has continued to offer zoom on its phones and many others have also adopted a zoom lens - in 2017 OnePlus added it to the

and Samsung launched its first dual-camera phone,

the Note 8

, a system he has continued with ever since.

Pocket-plush

Huawei P20 and Mate 20 Pro: Three is the magic number

When the

Huawei P20 Pro

triple camera system

. This added a zoom lens to the existing system of RGB and monochrome sensors, but there was a whole lot more going on with AI - and the birth of an impressive night mode.

The Huawei P20 Pro was a great success, a camera that justifies its excesses with results and proves critics wrong. He seemed to do it all.

What was a bit suspicious, however, was the evolution of the

Huawei Mate 20

later in 2018. Again using a triple camera system, Huawei changed it, ditched the monochrome sensor swapping a wide-angle lens instead, effectively turning the back

over the previous 2 years of marketing. The results, however, gave very little cause for complaint, adding that desirable wide-angle with seemingly no quality drawbacks for the loss of this monochrome lens - did it ever do anything?

Motorola's new Moto G9 Plus is an amazing phone - find out why right here

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Samsung also offered a three-lens camera in the

Samsung Galaxy A7

in 2018, but opted for a regular, wide-angle, questionable third-party camera for "depth information" and nothing else. Oppo

has endowed the R17 Pro

of three cameras, but perhaps more confusingly, offered a main camera, a depth camera and a final

time of flight camera

- one of the first phones to use time-of-flight as another sensor to power AR, depth and other applications.

Subsequently, three cameras became standard. L'

iPhone 12 Pro 2020

offers three lenses, the Samsung Galaxy S21 2021 has three cameras, and many more affordable devices also have three cameras. There's a big difference in performance, with many cheaper phones using macro cameras to dial in the numbers.

Pocket-lint

Galaxy A9: Samsung shoots four stars

Samsung Galaxy A9

came out with four cameras on the back in 2018. Samsung continued to offer four cameras on select phones: the 2019 S10 5G repeated the A9's offering in terms of main, zoom, ultra-wide and depth, while integrating two cameras in the front. p>

Quads have been everywhere since the start of the decade: at the top end you have the duplication of zooms to give you better performance, like in the Xiaomi Mi 10 Pro, while OnePlus still offers macro and monochrome lenses

on the 8T

to make up the numbers, and at the more affordable end you have phones like

the Moto G 5G Plus

, hooked up to a depth sensor and my cro cameras, just to get "quad camera" on the spec sheet.

But into the multi-lens camera mix came another big development in 2019.

Huawei P30 Pro: Periscope hits the mainstream

In 2019 Huawei released probably the most remarkable phone it has ever made. Although

Oppo presented

a periscope lens before, and that

Asus Zenfone Zoom

used it in 2015, it was Huawei who hit the big time, offering a zoom on the hitherto undisputed Huawei P30 Pro. Offering better long-range capture, it was certainly a breakthrough, while pushing night shooting skills to rival those featured by Google's Night Sight at the end of 2018.

The P30 Pro seemed to do it all and laid the foundation for the phones that now follow. The periscope zoom graced the

Oppo Find X2 Pro

in 2020, the Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra and the

Realme X3 SuperZoom

. This continues to be a much-desired feature, with Samsung revamping the cameras of the 2021 S21 Ultra to have two zooms, a periscope and a regular, in a bid to improve zoom quality.

The Huawei P30 Pro can take credit for that, but the P30 Pro was also one of the

latest Huawei phones to work with Google Mobile Services

. Although newer Huawei phones offer incredible camera capabilities, they have proven to be less popular than the P30 Pro.

Nokia 9 PureView has five

Nokia took a different direction in 2019, launching the

Nokia 9 Pure View

with five lenses on the back. Unlike other systems, these weren't lenses designed with different functions - there's no zoom, no wide-angle. Instead, lentils

use Light's system

pursuing quality above all else. The idea was to capture a lot more data to combine into images.

It's a great theory, but Nokia was trying to do a job with a lot of data that competitors - like Google - were doing with AI. Ultimately, AI and the growth of computational photography won this race. Google has been able to apply AI and machine learning in photography not only to new images, but also to old images, including applying these skills to older, less powerful phones.

The Nokia 9 PureView launched on outdated hardware - with Nokia saying at the time that it was tuned for the camera system and they didn't want to change that. Customers didn't want to buy it either. It didn't get a good review - after the first reviews appeared, Nokia stopped releasing the phone, so we never got to test it in the flesh. It was ambitious, but ultimately the market took a different direction - and we're still waiting to see if Nokia will launch another premium flagship to replace the 9.

Written by Chris Hall. Originally published on

September 5, 2016

.