Remember when phones had a single camera on them? Normally on the device’s rear? Now, concentrate, and try to conjure a mental picture of them… … THEN THROW THAT IMAGE IN THE TRASH, WE’RE IN MULTI-CAMERA WORLD NOW, BUSTER. Yes, we now live on a planet where your everyday mobile phone probably has a variety of lenses on the back — and we’re here to help you understand what they all do. We’ve already looked at a time-of-flight (ToF) camera and the functions of a telephoto lens, but today we have something different. So, one-and-all, let’s find out what the hell your phone’s wide-angle lens does.
Pray tell, what does the wide-angle lens on my phone do?
We’ve mentioned before that modern phones use their array of lenses to take a range of shots. The device and its software then combines these images into the single super picture you see on your screen. The part a wide-angle plays in this is, unsurprisingly, width. In other words, a wide-angle lens gets as much as possible in a shot. It means that if you’re taking a photo of a big row of people, you won’t have to step back very far to fit them all in. Some phones these days are going beyond simple wide-angle lenses, and feature ultra wide-angle cameras, with the Huawei P30 Pro and the Samsung Galaxy S10 foremost in this field. Although there’s a technical differentiation between ultra wide- and wide-angle lenses (it’s to do with the focal length width), for the regular consumer, it’s pretty simple: ultra wide-angle lenses can fit more stuff in the shot. So, there you have it. Next time you’re snapping something quickly with your camera phone, remember it’s the wide-angle lens on the device that’s helping fit everything in without you having to walk backwards. Stay tuned for more explainers about how photography on your phone works.
