“Apple’s iPhone camera is a massive advantage,” Gordon Kelly writes for Forbes. “Yes rivals can match its quality, but not with as much consistency or with such small file sizes – a key aspect in today’s photo sharing obsessed world. And now it looks set to get significantly better.”
“A report picked up by the ever vigilant AppleInsider says Apple will upgrade its next generation iPhone, expected to be called the ‘iPhone 6s / iPhone 6s Plus’, to a dual-lens array,” Kelly writes. “So what is the key benefit of a dual-lens camera? A smartphone holy grail: optical zoom. Furthermore this isn’t science fiction. Israeli camera specialist Corephotonics announced a dual lens smartphone camera module early in 2014 which enables 3x optical zoom in photos and 5x optical zoom in 1080p video.”
“Perhaps the biggest benefit optical zoom would make in an iPhone 6s / iPhone 6s Plus would be the elimination of digital zoom, a horribly outdated technology which merely zooms into the screen. Photo tip: you will get better results cropping a full size image after taking it than using digital zoom,” Kelly writes. “All this raises the question of whether Apple will use a Corephotonics module (presumably upgraded one over the 4 megapixel unit in the One M8) or if its long term optics supplier Sony has made the breakthrough itself.”
Read more in the full article here.
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Apple’s iPhone camera goes from 0 to good picture faster than anything else – January 13, 2015
These supposed leaks are just attempts to freeze current iPhone sales as much as possible, by those with ulterior motives.
If so they’re doing a terrible job, I haven’t seen anything that would make me want to wait nine months when I could have iPhone 6 right now. In fact these details only bolster my belief that iPhone 6 will be the first phone that I’ll hold onto for two years.
I agree. Let them try. I have the 6 Plus and the camera is so good that after 10 years of carrying a point and shoot camera on my belt to supplement my iPhone photos, I have finally abandoned carrying the point and shoot camera.
I sooo hope this is true. Apple has done an amazing job with the iPhone camera but I would love to see better low light performance and optical zoom. I salute them for not falling for the “more pixels = better” BS. I love photography and NEVER believed I would leave my DSLR behind and be OK with just taking my phone out with me but WOW its my Nikon is gathering a LOT of dust these days. More battery life and better camera – YES PLEASE!
Totally agree.
Low-light performance is apparently already pretty good in the 6 (impossible to test in brightly-lit Apple store though) but hope they do even better since I prefer flash-less photos when possible.
Optical zoom, even just 2x, is a win. It *must* be paired with improved optical image stabilization though, and that means bringing OIS to the smaller iPhone 6 (next), and making OIS work for video too.
(Speaking of video: increase the damn field of view! I can’t believe video mode still loses 25% of the FOV compared to photo mode… hopefully that’s just because they’re still using software stabilization instead of OIS for video and it’ll be fixed for this year’s iPhone)
This guy is misguided in few things about home some other phones are ahead of iPhone 6/Plus in such things as speed.
Besides, he says that Sony is optics provider. While it is true in general, it is not true in case of iPhones. Sony provides optical sensors, not optics.
Overall, I find this whole double camera thing doubtful — at least for now.
The article says with two cameras you can either allow optical zoom or allow the picture to be refocused after having been taken… So could three cameras allow you to BOTH optical zoom and refocus the pics later?
I’m getting one. I’m terrible at taking pictures. 4 out of 5 shots is always blurry. Yes I suck! lol So if any improvements for clueless dolts like me from Apple, I’ll embrace wholeheartedly. 😊
I always imagined such a camera with a 45° mirror so some of the internal workings can be horizontal in the phone. Much more room to work a zoom that way without having to make the body thicker.