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Sony’s Xperia 1 III and 5 III smartphones sport a 70-105mm equivalent periscope zoom lens

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Sony has announced its two newest smartphones, the Xperia 1 III and the Xperia 5 III, both of which contain a triple-rear camera setup with a hybrid zoom lens offering the equivalent field of view to that of a 70-105mm focal length range on a full-frame body at its extremes. It also contains the usual standard 24mm and ultra-wide 16mm equivalent field of view cameras.

The variable focal length of the “hybrid” zoom system is thanks to a periscope system built into the camera module which physically moves the elements closer to or further away from the sensor. It seems to offer minimum and maximum focal lengths on the zoom, but nothing in between – for which it reverts to digital processes.

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Mobile Photography Awards 2020 winners prove that phone camera is enough for a great photo

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Mobile Photography Awards is one of those contests which prove that you can take a stunning photo even with just your smartphone. The winners of the 2020 contest have been announced, showing some of the best, most intriguing, and most interesting shots people took with their phone cameras.

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Are Moment lenses still worth it over today’s built-in stock smartphone lenses?

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There was a time when third-party smartphone lenses were the go-to for smartphone filmmakers who wanted to take their footage to the next level. And when it comes to third-party smartphone lenses, the biggest name amongst them is undoubtedly Moment, which offers a range of lenses to use with smartphones offering more capabilities than your standard built-in camera modules. Or do they?

That’s the question Brandon Lee attempts to answer in this video from Linus Tech Tips and the short answer is… “It’s complicated”. For the longer answer, you’ll have to watch the video, but it seems they aren’t always as beneficial as they once were – unless, perhaps, you’re shooting video.

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Sony dominated the smartphone sensor market in 2020 but their market share is shrinking

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It’s probably not that much of a surprise, but Sony absolutely destroyed pretty much all their competition in 2020 when it came to the smartphone camera sensor market in 2020, with a 46% market revenue share, according to a report by Strategy Analytics. They say the global smartphone image sensor market recorded over $15 billion in revenue in 2020, up 13% year-on-year.

What’s perhaps equally as surprising as Sony’s huge 46% share is that 85% of the market was taken up by just three companies; Sony, Samsung at 29% and OmniVision at 10%. That remaining 15% is the entire rest of smartphone image sensor manufacturers worldwide. But according to the report, Sony’s share appears to be shrinking.

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Xiaomi teases new Mi MIX – the world’s first smartphone with a liquid lens

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Xiaomi has teased their upcoming Mi MIX smartphone with a camera that contains a world’s first. It’s going to have a liquid lens that adjusts its focal length and focus distance through the use of an electrical charge. This isn’t the first liquid lens to exist, and they’re common for some industrial uses, but it’s the first time one will be getting put into a production smartphone.

Other than the lens, there aren’t really many details about the new device yet or even just its camera – although no paternership deals with Zeiss, Leica or Hasselblad have been announced. Oh wait, they did get into bed with Light a couple of years ago. And Xiaomi did put out a survey last year to see if they should team up with a big name camera manufacturer (and which one). So… maybe?

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VIVO launches its X60 smartphone series internationally with Zeiss cameras

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Well, it looks like it’s Leica vs Hasselblad vs Zeiss now in the smartphone camera market. VIVO has just unleashed their new X60 series smartphones on the world, including the X60, X60 Pro and X60 Pro+. The X60 and X60Pro launched in China in December of last year, but now they’re going global. The X60 Pro+ is only launching in India and China (at least for now), so we’re not going to talk about that one here (although it has an extra camera).

While there are some differences between the X60 and X60 Pro, both contain the same set of cameras. But the big difference is that the main camera on the X60 Pro is gimbal stabilised, as it was in last year’s VIVO X50 Pro/X51 5G. And both come in at a significantly lower price than the recently announced OnePlus 9 and OnePlus 9 Pro.

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OnePlus 9 Pro officially announced with Hasselblad camera capable of 8K video and 4K 120fps

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OnePlus has now officially announced their new OnePlus 9 and OnePlus 9 Pro smartphones containing cameras co-engineered with Hasselblad. OnePlus says that the new OnePlus 9 series represents a “major leap forward” in their ability to deliver premium flagship cameras in smartphones.

They say that they’ve been working with Hasselblad through a close R&D collaboration to deliver “vastly improved camera systems” on the OnePlus 9 series and future OnePlus smartphones.

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OPPO’s new Find X3 Pro has TWO 10-Bit 50MP Sony cameras that see a billion colours

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OPPO has announced its new Find X3 Pro smartphone, and it comes with a pair of primary cameras with each featuring 50-megapixel Sony IMX 766 sensors covering both the wide and ultra-wide fields of view for “billion colour photos and videos”. The camera module also features a 60x microlens that lets you capture super close up detail.

Weighing in at 193g, the new flagship phone is IP68 rated, too, meaning it can withstand dist, dirt and stand and submersion in water up to depths of up to 1.5 metres for up to 30 minutes. Great for shooting in the rain or even in the pool! It also has a 120Hz QHD+ HDR10+ screen capable of displaying all those colours the cameras see, too.

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Can the 108mp Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra stand up against a $6,000 pro DSLR?

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I said I wasn’t going to post any more of these. The “winner” in pretty much all cases is obvious. Or is it? There is no doubt that a $6,000 flagship DSLR (even if it is a generation old) is going to hammer a smartphone (of any resolution) when it comes to absolute image quality, dynamic range and all the other reasons we buy flagship bodies. But does it always really matter?

This video from photographer Kevin Raposo puts the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra’s 108-megapixel sensor up against the 21.5-megapixel Canon 1DX Mark II in this rather interesting (and quite thoughtful) comparison and, well, when you look at the images scaled for a video side-by-side they’re actually pretty close.

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Amber X is a privacy-focused in-home cloud storage for your photos you can access anywhere

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With all the goings-on at Google and people looking for alternate cloud storage options, sometimes it’s easier to just be your own cloud. I use Resilio Sync for this, but that does usually mean building up a dedicated PC. The Amber X wants to simplify that process with an inexpensive cloud-storage-in-a-box solution that lets you store your data and retrieve it anywhere.

Amber X is currently running on Indiegogo, where it’s long since passed its goal. It has a couple of days left to go, with pledges starting at $129. But we’ve got you a special link that’ll let you get your hands on one for just $119 – about the same cost you’d pay for a year of Google Photos or iCloud for the same storage, except there’s no subscription with this!

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