Telephoto is the only phone camera that really matters

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Samsung’s Galaxy S20 Ultra wasn’t the first phone to feature a close-up telephoto lens — both Huawei and Oppo have outdone the Korean company — but it was the first in the US to make such a big deal about it. Almost all of Samsung’s marketing for the S20 Ultra has been focused on the so-called Space Zoom, a folded 5x optical periscope lens, capable of even greater digital zoom. Samsung even wrote “Space Zoom 100x” on the back of the phone itself, just in case you forget.

This phone sparked strong reactions from some. Many have asked why you would need a camera that was zoomed in so you could look inside the upper windows of a skyscraper; Some have suggested that it would only be used by perverts and voyeurs; Others simply pointed out that almost every photo taken at 100x zoom was bad. Samsung and its competitors have learned from some of that criticism and have mostly stopped talking about 100x zoom, focusing on better-quality shots from shorter distances in future marketing materials.

What manufacturers haven’t stopped is competing for telephoto cameras in the first place. Apple introduced the first iPhone with a 3x telephoto camera, the 13 Pro, in 2021 (though it wouldn’t get a true periscope for another two years). That same year, Google added a 48-megapixel, 4x telephoto camera to the Pixel 6 Pro, while Samsung jumped to a 10x telephoto camera on its S21 Ultra, a feat Huawei had already achieved a year earlier. Along with longer zooms, companies have begun adding larger sensors, faster apertures, and more pixels in an attempt to win the arms race.

Cameras have long been a source of fierce competition among smartphone manufacturers, and for good reason: a 2023 YouGov survey found that more than half of US flagship phone buyers see image quality as an important factor when choosing a phone, with battery life being the only feature rated as significantly more important. They have become more important as other specifications have become more homogeneous. Almost every Android phone now offers a chipset from one manufacturer, similar RAM and storage specifications, and a 120Hz OLED display that’s between six and seven inches in size. Cameras offer room for variation, from exotic lens unit designs to high-resolution sensors, with great variation in image quality, color science, and exposure.

Telephoto cameras have become a special focus for the simple reason that most main cameras have become very good. This affordable Android device can now take excellent photos in almost any light – even low light, which was once the basis for fierce competition with OEMs, is now a problem that has been essentially solved. Selfie cameras and ultra-wide cameras have similar capabilities, while typically attracting much less attention to the finer details of their image quality. But people still associate close-ups with grainy images of distant buildings, leaving plenty of room for manufacturers to find improvements and leave their mark.

Phone manufacturers are now turning to more and more expensive hardware setups in order to gain an advantage.

Vivo went for higher resolution, introducing a 200-megapixel telephoto camera in its X100 Ultra, which has since been adopted by Honor, Xiaomi, and more. Samsung is one of many brands that includes two telephoto lenses in one phone, each offering a different zoom. Sony has tried to one-up the competition with continuous optical zoom on the Xperia 1 IV. Xiaomi has just revived this idea with its 17 Ultra, taking it a step further by introducing a rotatable zoom ring on the camera island. Last year’s Huawei Pura 80 Ultra placed two telephoto lenses on top of a single sensor, with a moving prism to direct light from the appropriate lens, making room for a larger sensor than other phones.

The recent wave of competition has overtaken the phone itself. Vivo was the first to introduce a telephoto extender for the Predictably, other companies have followed suit, with OPPO and Honor being among the companies offering near-identical extender lenses — though a few third-party manufacturers have offered similar add-on lenses for years.

Manufacturers have increasingly realized that longer is not always better. Recent Ultra flagships from Vivo, Oppo, and Xiaomi have dropped to shorter 3-4x optical zooms, distances that make them practical options for portraits and product shots. Larger sensors and faster apertures mean it captures more light than old-fashioned telephoto shots, works better at night, and produces natural bokeh without a dedicated portrait mode. When I use one of these phones, I now find myself shooting the vast majority of photos with the telephoto cameras, which tend to provide a more attractive and deeper frame for shots than the flat and wide main cameras. Not only are close-ups better than ever, they’re increasingly the best cameras on a phone.

For now, we expect the arms race to continue. We’ll likely see imitators of Xiaomi’s updated version of continuous zoom and replacement lenses from Huawei, while traditional telephotos continue to have larger sensors and wider apertures. There will be more add-on lenses, and they will likely get longer and larger, and perhaps have their own continuous zoom capabilities as well.

One clear growth area is scaling up artificial intelligence. Smartphones have used machine learning to improve digital zoom for years, but we’re now seeing AI applied to the same effect, most notably in the Pixel 10 series’ Pro Res Zoom. It raises the usual questions about what the photo actually is, with Google cleverly disabling the feature when faces are in the frame, resolving some issues when hovering. However, with RAM crunch costs rising across the board, we expect manufacturers to jump into new ways to enhance images using software, rather than ever more expensive hardware components.

Low-light photos are still one area where many close-ups can’t compete with flagship cameras. The sensors and apertures are smaller, and installation is more difficult for precise binocular settings, making it more difficult to get results when the light is low. Serious improvement has been made in the last year or two, and I expect it to continue.

After that, all bets are off. We’re approaching the point of diminishing returns on telephoto lenses, at least outside of the 100x zoom photos that few photographers actually take. Component costs mean that the telephoto cameras of premium phones still have a real advantage over those of regular flagships or budget phones, but the moment these phones change, manufacturers will have to find a new race to run.