Today, the iPhone has three cameras, but it
started with just one. And you may’ve expected it to continue using
a single lens kind’ve like digital cameras, but this hasn’t been the case. So why exactly does the iPhone need three
cameras? Well, that’s what I’ll explain right now. So let’s consider two types of traditional
cameras. First, an expensive DSLR, and second, a low-cost
digital camera. Both products have a single lens, but there’s
more than meets the eye. The DSLR lens can be swapped out. There’s actually a whole market for lenses
with a wide range of views, angles, and magnifications. Allowing customers to choose the best one
for their needs. The low-cost digital camera features an optical
zoom lens that telescopes out to take higher quality photos of something further away. Both of these cameras feature lenses that
are changeable to some degree. But consider the iPhone. Its lens has always been fixed inside the
enclosure. And while companies like Samsung have integrated
a zoom lens into a smartphone before, it didn’t appear to be a high demand feature among customers.
Since the large camera system made the overall
phone thicker and heavier. And when it comes to swapping out lenses on
the iPhone, customers can buy lens kits like this one. Which would provide a variety of angles and
magnifications. But this is also an approach that never became
popular among iPhone users. Probably because most people don’t want
to carry around a bunch of lenses and switch them out every time they take a photo. So now we know the traditional DSLR and digital
camera approach to lenses doesn’t work very well with the iPhone. And that meant Apple was sort’ve backed
into a corner. A single stationary camera lens can only do
so much. Providing users with one standard wide-angle
view, no optical zoom, and no depth of field options.
Apple did their best with software to utilize
the iPhone’s camera lens as much as possible. Like adding macro capabilities with the 3GS,
but eventually a hardware limitation was reached. Apple wanted to add features like optical
zoom and even portrait mode, which gave users a shallow depth of field effect for the first
time. But the only way to accomplish that, was to
add second camera lens which is exactly what they did with the iPhone 7 Plus. This new camera system combined the standard
wide-angle lens with a magnified telephotos lens. Delivering 2x optical zoom on the iPhone for
the first time, in addition to Portrait Mode.
But what about the third camera that was added
with the iPhone 11 Pro? Well, that was necessary since Apple wanted
to offer users a new camera angle. With one lens, the iPhone took standard wide-angle
photos. With a second telephoto lens, the iPhone took
a magnified photo with no loss of clarity. And with the third ultra-wide angle lens,
the iPhone took photos with a wide 120 degree field of view. Allowing more of the user’s surroundings
to be included in the shot. None of these features would’ve been possible
with a single camera lens. And by building three lenses into a one camera
system, it allowed them to work together and provide users with even more capabilities. Like capturing outside the frame, which allows
users to take a standard wide-angle photo and then transform it into an ultra-wide angle
shot later on.
This is made possible by the ultra wide and
wide angle lenses capturing a photo simultaneously while stitching the edges together for one
seamless shot. Having three lenses also allows for multi-camera
recording, which uses all the lenses to record video at the same time. Giving creators footage with different angles
and magnification without any extra effort. So while an iPhone with three cameras may
look a bit odd, I think all the extra functionality they provide is well worth it. This is Greg from Apple Explained, thanks
for watching till the end, and I’ll see you in the next video..
