Not so long ago, when a mobile phone was released, manufacturers paid great attention to megapixels. The more the merrier, the more cameras… the better. It was our duty in the analysis to clarify that more megapixels is not always better, and in fact this ridiculous race has calmed down a bit in recent generations.

But Samsung continues to invest in sensors with many megapixels, although this makes a lot of sense for certain actions such as lossless imaging or gorgeous RAW, as we saw in the case of the Galaxy S23 Ultra. I want it now Brings 200 megapixel technology to telephoto lens To achieve something similar to what we saw on the iPhone 15 Pro: expand the range of simulated lenses without having to add a camera to the back.

The longer the lens the better for some photos

When we have to talk about mobile phones with big cameras, flagship Samsung always tops the list. The South Korean company not only pays special attention to this section (it has been producing hybrids between camera and phone and even cameras for many years), but also produces its own sensors.

The company wanted to talk about cameras in a new post on its blog and focused its message on the use of cameras. The best sensors for telephoto cameras. Before we get into the topic of megapixels, we reminded you that a portrait is not the same whether it is taken with the main camera or the telephoto lens.

Generally, we use the main camera making portraits because these are portraits where producers put all the meat on the grill. larger and brighter sensors (It usually has a size between 1/1.4 inch and 1 inch, like on the Xiaomi 13 Pro or Sony Xperia Pro).

But they have a problem: Their focal length is about 24 millimeters. This means that they are still wide-angle and thus deformations occur on the depicted face. For example, they make faces longer.

The difference in the deformation of the face. Portrait with 1x on the left. On the right, with the telephoto.

When we take portraits with a telephoto lens (whether 2x or longer), the faces have a more natural proportion, but quality often drops a lot not because of the megapixel count of the telephoto sensor, but because its size is much smaller. Typically these are 1/3 inch, 1/2.7 inch and in rare cases half inch sensors.

The smaller the sensor, the less light gets through. and if they provide it with a lot of megapixels there will be ‘clustering’ which implies that those megapixels will be too small and therefore they capture less light, less information and the quality of the photo is worse.

Samsung’s goal is to minimize the difference between main camera and telephoto usage In terms of final image quality. For this, it will strengthen 200 megapixel sensors with different magnification options. lossless.

Samsung and its 200-megapixel telephoto lenses to create virtual cameras

The betting is so aggressive that in the article, Samsung wants us to call this telephoto “second main camera”. To do this, imagine a scenario where we have a telephoto sensor with a 200 megapixel sensor with the same proportions as the main camera sensor.

1x, 2x and 4x range of motion with 200 megapixel main sensor.

Same size for both sensor and pixels, and therefore the same HDR and light gathering capabilities. Samsung is talking about a 3x telephoto lens with a 200 megapixel sensor, for example. However, photos could be taken at a native 3x distance, but also at 6x and 12x digital without loss of quality and with a final result of 12.5 megapixels.

The reason for this is This is not a digital zoom or a crop applied after the fact., cutting off the sensor after the photo is taken, but instead before the photo itself is taken. This is something we saw on the iPhone 14 Pro and will also see on the iPhone 15 Pro Max with its greater digital focus range.

iPhone does: There is 1x optical and 3x optical, but in between we see 2x digital. This isn’t a digital zoom like on many other phones, but rather a cutout of the main sensor. If a 1x photo covers 100% of the sensor, a 2x photo will cover the middle 50%. Not only is it the best part of the sensor, it also takes advantage of the sharpest part of the lens and produces lossless digital zoom or lossless.

This is what Samsung is offering with a 3x telephoto lens with a 200-megapixel sensor. To get those 6x and 12x you use smaller parts of the 200 megapixel sensor, resulting in 12.5 Mpx photos without loss of detail. Going back to portrait, since the main sensor and the telephoto would be the same (or very similar), there was no difference in image quality and we could use whichever we wanted.

4x with the 11-megapixel sensor achieved with sensor cropping, 3x optical and 1.3 digital. So, the photo on the right was obtained by digital zooming on an 11 megapixel sensor with a very small size and 3x focal length compared to the 200 Mpx sensor.

When focal points are added losslessyou gain versatility and therefore Apple can mention that the iPhone 15 Pro Max practically has seven cameras, while physically it only has three cameras. Because ultra wide angle is used as macro, wide angle is used as 1x, 1.2x (digital), 1.5x (digital) and 2x (digital) and then we have a 5x telephoto lens.

It’s easy to imagine a scenario where we see a Galaxy Ultra with lots of practical cameras, but fewer physical cameras thanks to the use of these very high-resolution sensors. For now, the South Koreans have not announced that they are working on these telephoto lensesThey’re just telling us the theory, but it wouldn’t be unreasonable to think we could see it on the Galaxy S24 Ultra (we already have plenty of leaks) or the Galaxy S25 Ultra.

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