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iPhone 11 Does The iPhone 11 Only Have Digital Zoom?
- Thread starter ghsDUDE
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On the iPhone 11 for "zoom in" it only mentions digital zoom. The other two Pro models mention 2x optical zoom in...but not the 11.
It will be a bummer if the iPhone X/Xs/Xs Max have better zoom in capabilities than this years iPhone 11.
How exactly? The 11 is just an updated version of the Xr, which didn't have optical telephoto zoom lens in the first place. If you need that, you can buy an external lens or go with the Pro models.
Considering it now has 0.5x lens, it's 2x optical zoom to 1x (from ultra wide to wide), but anything more is digital zoom. It is confusing I'd agree.
I've been wondering about this too. Apple's web page (and the picture above) says 2x optical zoom out, so would that be from 1.0x to 0.5x? Must be, since there is no telephoto camera.
The term "optical zoom" is a big strange - I think "wide" is a better term and less confusing, but they used wide to describe the standard 1.0x zoom.
Too bad. I was thinking an iPhone 11 would be a good fit for me, but I want that optical zoom...
The term "optical zoom" is a big strange - I think "wide" is a better term and less confusing, but they used wide to describe the standard 1.0x zoom.
Too bad. I was thinking an iPhone 11 would be a good fit for me, but I want that optical zoom...
They've dumbed these terms down a bit too much. Probably for non-camera people. It's like this... the 11 has 2 lenses. One of them is the normal lens you're used to (26 mm equivalent). The other is super wide, which you're likely not used to (13 mm equivalent). There is no longer (what Apple calls telephoto) lens.
You switch between these two lenses for maximum quality. If you use the zoom slider, it will crop the wide lens until the field of view matches the normal lens, at which point it will switch to that lens. Using the 11 at anything other than 0.5x or 1x will give you compromised quality.
Similarly if you pinch and zoom the screen (not sure how much it will let you do this), it will just crop the 1x lens, otherwise called digital zoom. Since you're just cropping the image away and blowing up what remains, this compromises quality.
While having a real telephoto (2x) lens is good for when you want a more zoomed-in image, that lens really sucks when the light drops (smaller sensor, smaller aperture, and with longer lenses the ISO goes up to avoid blur). So the X, XS, XS Max switch to just cropping the 1x lens instead of using the 2x lens in darker situations (indoors at night for example), which means you are not getting to use that 2x lens a lot of the time.
You switch between these two lenses for maximum quality. If you use the zoom slider, it will crop the wide lens until the field of view matches the normal lens, at which point it will switch to that lens. Using the 11 at anything other than 0.5x or 1x will give you compromised quality.
Similarly if you pinch and zoom the screen (not sure how much it will let you do this), it will just crop the 1x lens, otherwise called digital zoom. Since you're just cropping the image away and blowing up what remains, this compromises quality.
While having a real telephoto (2x) lens is good for when you want a more zoomed-in image, that lens really sucks when the light drops (smaller sensor, smaller aperture, and with longer lenses the ISO goes up to avoid blur). So the X, XS, XS Max switch to just cropping the 1x lens instead of using the 2x lens in darker situations (indoors at night for example), which means you are not getting to use that 2x lens a lot of the time.