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.