The rise of the dual-camera smartphone

Quite a number of smartphone brands have gone dual-cam since a year ago with each one offering a different take on how the second camera should work to offer better image quality and user experience. There are roughly four types of dual-camera setups as we’ve seen in the market today.

Secondary Camera For Better Depth Of Field

HTC was among the very first ones to use a secondary rear camera with the HTC One (M8) back in 2014. Prior to that, the dual-camera setup used to focus on 3D but that idea got ditched quite hurriedly.

With the HTC One M8, the purpose of the secondary lower-resolution camera was to provide secondary information such as the position of the subject in the scene. This gives a better “depth of field” into the subject. Other brands followed this same approach like the Huawei Honor 6 Plus, which allows the user to adjust the aperture even after the photo has been taken; Xiaomi Redmi Pro, Huawei GR5 (2017), and the Honor 8. Huawei seems to be the dominant player in this category with a consistent release of new handsets sporting this type of dual-camera setup.

Secondary Telescopic Camera

Apple first introduced a secondary rear camera on the iPhone 7 Plus. It’s the first time they did a dual-camera setup and they chose to pack it with a zoom (telephoto) lens to allow the user to zoom in on the subject at 2x optical zoom. It also allowed the camera to take that very heavy bokeh effect in post. Likewise, Asus introduced their own Zenfone 3 Zoom with a dual 12-megapixel sensor that can do up to 2.3x zoom. Oppo also recently announced a dual camera technology with capability of doing up to 5x zoom. There’s no Oppo phone yet to speak of but we’ll soon see one on March 23.

Dual Camera With Monochrome + Rgb Sensor

This approach was initiated by Huawei when they introduced the Huawei P9 and the P9 Plus. The approach involves a primary monochrome sensor to get all the details and a secondary RGB sensor to get the color details and then combine the image. It’s the most unique combination we’ve seen so far in dual-camera setups. Huawei is pushing through with this as it’s been incorporated in the Mate 9 and the recently announced P10 and P10 Plus. Huawei is not the only smartphone vendor that’s doing this but they’re certainly the one innovating in this front. Last year, Xiaomi actually copied this setup with the Xiaomi Mi 5s Plus.

Secondary Wide Angle Camera

LG’s approach for a dual-camera setup is to offer a secondary camera with a very wide field of view, originally introduced in the LG G5. The wide angle camera offers the user a completely different field of view that no other smartphone camera is capable of. It’s like completely replacing it with a wide-angle lens that you’d only be able do in DSLRs. This setup was continued in the LG V20 and the newly announced LG G6. Just like the telephoto camera approach, the wide angle camera gives the user a creatively different view of the surroundings that it captures thru the lens of the camera.

Each of the these dual-camera setups has its own advantages over the other. While image quality will still be the primary objective when developing a better camera setup, there are also other ways to better appreciate a beautiful photo.