Zoom Heresy(!) - Why phone cameras don't actually need high zoom factors
This is going to sound strange to those reading my camera phone test articles over the last 15 years on various sites, but I contend that phone cameras don't actually need to be capable of more than about 3x zoom. There I said it. Controversial, moi?
True, from 2005 through to the present day, even I tested shots at 5x and even 10x zoom sometimes (though I always stayed away from 'silly' zoom factors like 15x and 30x, unlike some YouTubers), where warranted, but only occasionally and with the majority of test subjects at 1x, 2x, and 3x. And with good reason.
Here's why. I've been doing some 'rainy day' sorting through my digital photo library, trying to prune out duplicates, test shots, and anything not needed. And in the process, have got a good idea of the gamut of shots that are actually worth keeping - of interest to myself long term or to family in the future. From people to food to pets to nature to landscapes to transport, and I'll bet that 99% of your photos fall into one of those six categories too.
But wait. People shots (partner, kids, friends, relatives) are usually at 1x, perhaps 2x, rarely 3x, and often with a Portrait mode active. Food is always at 1x unless it's really close up, in which case the ultra-wide camera is needed. Pets are, again, anything from 1x through to 3x, but I'll bet that for most people's garden (and pet) sizes, that 3x zoom is perfectly fine to frame your four legged friends.
You'll be spotting a theme here. If you, in fact, try to zoom in further, to 4x, 5x, and beyond, for people or pets, for example, it's simply too much and your subject won't fit the frame.
Nature? A broad category, to be sure, but for me it's flowers, trees, gardens, fields, horses, and so on, which I'll then roll into landscapes, so sunrises and sunsets. And in most cases here, you want to photograph what your eyes see, so 1x or 2x will be more than enough.
Transport is a category I threw in, as most of us love snapping our cars, bikes, or perhaps trains! And again, looking at my own photo archive there's not a single one zoomed by more than 2x.
So... Why are more phone flagships coming with 5x and 10x periscope cameras, and advertising crazy '30x' and '100x' zoom functions (physically impossible, but usually with a healthy degree of AI and image processing)? What do the manufacturers envisage people using these functions for?
Of course, there are the usual bragging rights. We have more megapixels than other brands, we have higher zoom factors, and so on. Examples given during keynotes then show 10x detail of a castle in the distance, or perhaps the detailed disc of the moon, or a dog far away, that sort of thing. And it's perfectly true that achieving 10x (say) in a phone camera system is a real technical achievement, whether with optics or clever multi-frame interpolation and combination.
But - again - and I realise it's tech heresy to admit this... No one really needs more than 3x zoom IN REAL LIFE. Looking through the 20,000 photos in my archives, the only 5x-10x zoomed photos were test shots to show what the tech could do. Not once have I needed this sort of zoom as part of regular family and work life. Not once.
The argument I've quoted a few times has been 'Well, what about snapping that squirrel at the end of the garden?'. And true, high zoom would come in very handy for nature watchers, twitchers (no, not the streamers!), and so on. But surely if you were even a casual bird or animal watcher then wouldn't you have a proper DSLR and zoom lens, probably a tripod, etc?
So, people who follow me on social media, what about my fledgling attempts to photograph aircraft flying up to a mile above me? I do love snapping the odd A380 as it comes into land, but surely, surely, every single genuine plane spotter has a 'proper' camera and a 'proper' zoom lens, so let's discount this too.
(A380, about 5000ft up, shot at 7x or so on the Pixel 7 Pro - but although an impressive tech achievement, if I was serious about snapping planes, I'd have proper gear and camped out near an actual airport, surely?!)
Edit: I've had a few comments about using high zoom (e.g. 10x) for your children's sports activities. And I'll admit that this would have been handy 20 years ago when my own child was that age (and when Nokia's fledgling nSeries phones were just starting out). So I'm giving this use case a pass on the whole. Fair enough. Especially as said sports will be, by definition, outdoors and in good light, something high zoom needs.
But I'll repeat myself. In those 20,000 photos, taken between 1995 and 2023, take away the camera phone article test shots, and I'm left with 17,000 or so actual photos from real life. Not one, not ONE of which was shot at more than 3x zoom. Or even needed to be.
Happily, actual image quality has improved across the board at 1x, 2x, and 3x zoom in phone cameras, in all light conditions, for all subjects, thanks to OIS, pixel-binning, and AI. So we're all in better shape all round in the phone camera world. For snapping the aforementioned people, food, pets, nature, landscapes, and transport.
So the next time you see the launch of a phone with a high zoom factor camera, just bear in mind that it's kind of tech for tech's sake. You'll almost certainly never need it in real life - so why pay more to get it?
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PPS. There’s now a short video version of this at https://youtube.com/shorts/A0DEouxNMAM
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