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Comment by olah_1 | Hacker News Reader

You basically have to zoom in on the camera app to get a 50mm equivalent photo. This isn't as bad as it seems though. The 2x quality is quite good on the baseline photos these days.

However, on the "pro" iphone models, they do have a "telephoto" lense that is indeed a 50mm equivalent that will get you the perspective that you're used to.

Here is the one on the iPhone 14 Pro -> 12MP 2x Telephoto (enabled by quad-pixel sensor): 48 mm

Personally, I use an iPhone 8 plus and pretty much always take images on 2x zoom. Because yeah everyone looks better on a longer lense.

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Zooming doesn’t correct the perspective though.

I didn’t know they blended lenses to create a 50mm, there must be some post processing tricks to have it look right - are there examples side by side with a true 50mm?

Perspective is determined entirely by the position of the photographer relative to the subject. There will be no difference in perspective if you zoom in with the phone to get the same angle of view you get with a 50mm lens on a full frame camera.

Here is one of many explanations of this you can find online: https://www.photoreview.com.au/tips/shooting/perspective-and....

From the article:

> Changing the lens focal length without changing the camera position has no impact upon the perspective in the scene, even though it radically alters the size of objects within the scene

Radically altering the size of objects within the scene is what most average people mean by perspective. It’s exactly the effect the author of the article is claiming doesn’t happen yet he proved it does immediately.

Is that technically the correct usage of the term perspective? Yes! It’s just not the specific technical usage definition common in optics. But it is correct, as it’s referencing the relative size & position of objects.

The point is that it doesn't do anything that you couldn't achieve by cropping a photo taken with a wider lens from the same position. The relative size and position of the objects doesn't change.

I think there's a lot of misunderstanding here and a lot of optically correct comments are being down voted.

50mm is a focal length. If what you like about 50mm is indeed the perspective (as opposed to other subtle things that may creep like aperture/bokeh or aberration or vignetting of the specific lens) then zooming something to 50mm effective field of view is exactly what will accomplish the goal.

It does. Focal length is just an alternate notation for FOV. 2x crop on a “28mm” photo should geometrically match that of any 1,2/55, except bluriness(bokeh) effect and image quality.

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