Hacker News Reader

Comment by bigdubs | Hacker News Reader

One thing I'm not understanding here; don't most lenses (and by extension cameras) have adjustable apertures? What is so special about having a F1.4 vs. F2.4 apertures available to the camera? Is it because they can both fire at the same time and compose the two exposures?

View on HN

Most camera lenses do, and generally give a wide range of stops, often down to f22. Phones have, until now, fixed aperture, fixed lenses.

Given how tiny phone camera lenses are I'm surprised to see variable, given how little range you get from two fixed stops. Course it may be the first move towards having a proper range of f stops, which can only be a good thing.

At the expense of a moving part, having the option to close down the aperture will probably improve image quality in daylight. With a fixed aperture, increased low light sensitivity usually brings lower resolution (so called "fast" lenses generally have improved optical characteristics with their aperture stopped down).

That is unless these dinky sensors are diffraction limited at f/1.5, which I doubt.

Most if not all smartphones have a fixed aperture. A lower F-stop allows more light to enter through the lens. This is advantageous in low light but during the day it may cause pictures to wash out. Because ISO can only go so high before minor hand movement seriously blurs a photo, it is better to have a larger aperture, again for low-light conditions. So a single adjustable lens over a single sensor can allow for a variety of ideal combinations depending on the conditions.

MKBHD has a good explanation (starts at 2:43): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J83sZrz9XTc

Basically this is the first(?) camera phone with adjustable aperture, albeit it only has 2 presets.

PS: Might be useful(?) https://photographylife.com/what-is-aperture-in-photography

I didn't realize small camera's didn't have an adjustable aperture typically, that makes more sense now.

Not the first: https://www.engadget.com/2017/12/01/samsung-w2018-flip-phone...

Buuuut probably the first flagshippy camera with a variable aperture.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com