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Do you know why is there a double camera on the mobile? If not, we'll tell you now.

Recently, dual-camera mobiles have grown very much, so much so that we can find them in the lower-end phones as well. The question is, what's the point?

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Let's start by working with a camera. We have a lens, we see it on the phone, and behind it, we have a sensor. The objective light enters the sensor, which consists of a certain number of sensors. The number of these sensors is given in megapixels for the camera. A pixel is a sensor point. The pixels sense the intensity of the light that is falling on them and convert this into an electrical signal to tell the image processor whether there was light at that point and if so how strong. This is how it works for black and white and color cameras, with the difference that color solutions put a color filter in front of the sensor's pixels, splitting the incident image into three basic colors.

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It's a sensor

So we have a lot of data, the amount of which depends on how many megapixels our sensor has. However, it is only quantity and not quality! Many of you may have noticed that a relatively small megapixel camera can produce better quality images than a larger megapixel phone. This is due to the physical size of the image sensor and the size of the optics in front of it. The smaller the sensor, the smaller the optics, and the smaller the optics, the less light is delivered to the sensor. And less light equals a lower quality image.

Why not put a bigger sensor and bigger lens on the phones? I think this is a superfluous question, you know the answer too, it can't fit bigger.

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And this is an exploded lens (or two)

Now, you may think, with some reason, that we've solved the mystery, so there's a double camera on the phone! More cameras, more light, better quality pictures! True, one of the roles of multi-camera solutions is this, the dual sensor gets twice as much light, resulting in more contrast, vivid, saturated and higher dynamic range images. However, there are a few more twists in the story, as you may have noticed that in many cases the two integrated cameras are not the same. What is the point of this?

Let's start with the simple case of two completely identical cameras side by side. The two cameras get more light, so far this is a stim. But what else? Doubles the resolution? Not quite, because even though the amount of pixels is double, the two cameras are offset from each other, so they do not see the same image. the two different images have to be processed by software, and some "waste" is created due to the different viewpoints.

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Two cameras with optical zoom on the Xiaomi Mi 5X

So, on the one hand, there is more light, and although it does not double, it also has a higher image resolution. Do you have other benefits? Of course there is! For example, because the two cameras are offset from each other, like our eyes, they can see things in space. Of course, this requires a good software behind the camera, and we have it working inside our heads. If the phone is able to see in space, it will also “see” what is closer to the space and farther away, for example, it will be able to blur beautifully the objects in the background to improve the spatiality of our photo.

Okay, but now I think you want to know why some phones have two different cameras.

Well, if both cameras are colored, there may be a difference in the optics in front of the sensors. For example, you can have one camera have a larger viewing angle and another have a smaller angle, so that when you take a photo, you can “choose” what we feel as if we were zooming.

We also find a phone that has two color cameras with different resolutions. In this case, essentially what has already been described above will remain, so the dynamic range will be increased, the images will be sharper, more contoured and richer, and the glossy areas will be less prone to burnout.

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This camera solution is found on the OnePlus 5 phone

However, there are phones where one camera is colored and the other is black and white, or rather monochrome. The goal of these solutions is clearly to improve quality, not the other hocus-pocus. It is important to know that monochrome cameras have more light on the sensors than color. This is because the color filter mentioned at the beginning of the article divides the image into three basic colors. what does that mean? Getting a green, a red, and a blue tint will all miss the other two primary colors. it also means that what is missing has not reached the sensor, meaning that the color per pixel in a color-separated image is one-third.

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A pair of a color and a monochrome camera on the Xiaomi Mi5S Plus

The black-and-white solution has no loss of filter, so these cameras are exposed to much less light and, under worse conditions, produce better quality images than their color counterparts, Just black and white. On the other hand, adding the color information of a color image and the dynamics and richness of detail of a black and white image software gives a much better result than an image captured in color only.

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Leagoo M8 Pro - with two cameras for $ 82. This is the entry level.

Finally, I answer a question I haven't seen on the net so long ago. It was written by a real-life troll, but let's face it, because if we remove the stylistic flaws, then the question is right!

So the question was, "Fuck the crap to put two cameras on one phone, and that still makes the picture crap." Sorry for the vocabulary, it's not me.

So the thing is, if two low quality cameras with a lens come into the phone, it will probably be a lot less expensive than a high quality camera. In fact, two cameras can take nearly as good a picture as a good one. So let's just say, even though the two cameras are weak, the two weak cameras are still much better than a weak camera, and if you fit in the frame, make sure you build more cameras in every phone!

Here you will find all kinds and types of dual camera phones: Lots of dual camera phones

 

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About the Author

s3nki

Owner of the HOC.hu website. He is the author of hundreds of articles and thousands of news. In addition to various online interfaces, he has written for Chip Magazine and also for the PC Guru. For a time, he ran his own PC shop, working for years as a store manager, service manager, system administrator in addition to journalism.