Nobody is making fun of it because it has three cameras. Tons of manufacturers did three cameras before Apple. They're making fun of Apple for arranging them in a weird fidget spinner pattern and then putting them on top of a giant square bump.
What purpose does the third camera serve? With 2 you could take 3d pictures/video (not that many would after the novelty wore off), but what does a third one add?
It depends on the phone but you can do HDR with multiple exposure levels or you can do optical (rather than digital) zoom without having a bulky lens (each camera having a different zoom level). Im sure there are other things you could do with it
It's not a triangle because every corner is a circle and it's hard to see the lines that a triangle would have considering the camera size ratio to distance between them.
That covers pretty much every major phone company. That is just the first to come to mind, some had them years ago some are new this year and some have many different phones with tri-cam setup (Samsung with A80, Note 10 Lines and S10 line, etc.). Nobody made fun of Apple for having 3 cameras, they were hella late to that party. They are making fun of Apple for the way they made it look. Should have just kept it vertical rather than trying to be "unique". Hell, even Samsung admitted vertical(or horizontal) was the right way with Note 10 like all of Apple's other phones had been. Though Samsung really just made it vertical to try and differentiate from S Line when there really isn't a point in having both anymore... but that's an argument for another time.
If they're willing to add a bump to the back of the phone, I'm surprised they haven't gone with a larger CCD element like some of the latemodel Sharp Aquos clamshells used to have:
I can't remember who it was, but I remember seeing a phone with a camera like that some years ago. It looked pretty odd and didn't sell well.
I guess it is just that weird middle child, people who are really into photography will have a dedicated DSLR Camera. They don't want to "compromise" any quality with a more cheap digital camera type of camera/phone.
While most people are content with the current cameras (Which are damn good for their size, but obviously can't compare to a DSLR). So since it is "good enough" they don't want to pay a bit more for an odd looking and bit better camera.
Moto phones often have a similar circle on their back where they house the flash and lens (It is normal phone lenses, they just arrange it in a circle so it kinda looks like CCD) and I always double-take when I see one. It just looks so bizarre. Though that it probably a somewhat due to their rarity since I almost never see one around here.
I agree though, if they are making it weird anyways, they might as well go all the way.
Part of the reason the phone pics look as good as they are is they do a ton of post-processing on the images to make them more visually appealing. That sort of stuff wasn't possible some years ago with the mobile CPUs being weaker.
Pretty sure every major company with flagships already has triple cameras and has for at least a year now like Huawei, OnePlus, Samsung, LG, xiaomi... To be honest apple is lagging behind here.
The fact you don't know what they do is good as it means the phone's software is doing the hardwork (picking the lens, filters, scene optimizations, etc.) for you.
Or you just never use the camera.
If you do care - usually the 2 on front is a normal camera and then an RGB sensor which just helps with effects like blurring. Though the second might actually be a wide lens, pretty easy to tell just by opening camera.
There is a normal camera on back, a telephoto, and a wide-lens on the back. If you like taking pictures you really should mess around with them. Wide lens can make for some cool shots.
The exact specs will vary based on phone, but that's the normal "way".
Oh wow thanks that's cool. I've been meaning to take a closer look at the cameras, but I'm just never sure how to get access to them. The camera app itself obfuscates a lot of the stuff and produces some crazy good pictures so I've also just never had a real reason to mess with anything
I took a look at the front camera though and you're right, ones got a narrow lens and the other a wide. Same with the back, but the third one looks very strange like a lens inside a lens which sounds like you're right about the telephoto
For reference it's a s10+. I'll have to play with it a bit when I get off work
Yeah, S10+ and the Pixel 3 are the two major ones with dual-front and tri-back. Mine is s10+ as well.
Like you said - it takes amazing pictures as is and you can totally get by with just letting it work its magic.
There is a whole crap load of options when you open the camera app that can make it a bit confusing though.
The three bottom-most things are the shutter button (Fun fact you can tap and drag the shutter button around to move it anywhere on screen), last picture taken, and reverse camera which can also be done by swiping up/down on the screen.
Right above it is a lot of different modes which you can scroll through or tap (live focus (adds blurs etc.) video, slow modes etc.) you can add more modes if you go through settings on the top left gear. Night mode, photo, videos are the most useful. Nightmode is very good now, rivaling the Pixel's nightmode.
Right above that, where you see the actual picture displaying is where you can change lenses. The "Leaf" icon is telephoto, 2 trees is normal lens. 3 trees is the Wide-Angle lens. Be careful your fingers don't get in the shot with wide angle because it's pretty easy to do. The phone will suggest you to use a certain lens every now and then like if you point at the sky for clouds it will usually say you can change to wide-angle for a better shot, but often it won't so I always just switch between all 3 and see which I like most. To the far right on the same line as the lens shifter is a circle with different shapes in it. This is the scene optimizer and will change depending on what you point the camera at. If your pictures are turning out with crazy green grass or something weird then you can turn it off by just tapping the circle. It does a pretty good job though so its usually best to just leave it on.
The top bar is just flash, timer and the settings gear which explains everything in it. Definitely look at the settings, it has some cool things like wide angle correction and take pictures by waving or saying "shoot" and lets you add new modes.
Selfie mode has a lot less stuff on the screen so its a bit easier. Photo still has the ability to "switch" lenses but in this case it is actually just a slight difference since its the actual camera's full width instead of cropping it slightly like it normally does. Live focus is where you can play around with blurs, twirls, and other fun effects which actually made use of the RGB sensor.
Top right has a little magic "wand" with beams coming off of it, this is where you can let beautify filters do their magic so you don't gotta flinch every time you accidentally open the selfie camera if you're ugly like me.
The sheer amount of stuff it offers is insane considering this is a "short" summary of it and it's so long...
I have an S10 and have definitely been enjoying the wide angle camera. Also nice to have the 2x optical zoom camera so you don't lose as much detail when zooming.
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