Multi-camera setups with a variation of focal lengths are pretty much the norm on high-end smartphones these days. However, thus far you've had to decide if you want a super-wide-angle module (like on most recent LG models) or a tele-camera (like on the iPhone X, Huawei P20 Pro or Galaxy Note 9) next to the camera's "standard" wide-angle lens.
Pretty soon you'll be able to have both. LG just "pre-announced" its new LG V40 ThinQ on its Korean website and confirmed the triple-camera setup that reportedly comes with a super-wide angle and tele next to the main camera. The latter will feature a very fast F1.5 aperture.
The official announcement of the device is scheduled for October 3rd, and unfortunately information on other specifications is rather sparse at this point. All we know is that the display will measure 6.4 inches and, looking at the teaser video, will feature some kind of soft-touch surface for increased grip.
We will let you know as soon as more information on the LG V40 ThinQ camera specs and features becomes available.
Has any anyone noticed that V40 comes with a rather conservative internal storage of 64gb. This is an incredibly small amount for a flagship smartphone in 2018
I really like the previews you get of the three cameras before you decide which one to shoot.
Also nice, that it can take all three shots if you choose to. Unfortunately one after another, not all at the same moment. Thus, technically three different captures, holding the camera still and button down until finished.
I don't use the phone camera much, but I like seeing the innovation.
Because why carry two devices if one (that can fit in your pocket) can do both. Compact cameras market is dying for a while now. The only game they have right now (against phones) is zoom and bigger sensors. Phones slowly catching up with slightly bigger sensors combined with computational photography algorithms which often yield better dynamic range than of the bigger sensor cameras (not in detail, yet). Zoom is still a developing stage IMO. The only compact cameras that still interest me right now are TZ100/TZ200/ RX100 M6 and maybe the TZ90.. Cameras that phones still can't replace (as of 2018).
I like this. Really love the optical 2x on my note8 (52mm equiv) and found it useful in so many occasions! But a 3x zoom would've been even better. It's a tiny phone sensor so cropping the main lens to 2x isn't that bad anyway.
Speaking of which, the main 26mm lens is great all rounder but I did find myself in tight locations where a wider lens would've been handy too. I thought having a 14mm equiv lens would've been killer!
It would be nice to have a 2x wide (14-13mm), normal 26-28mm lens and a 3x tele (75-76mm equiv)
A great setup, but as a G6 owner I can only hope that the beefed up their image processing A LOT. With the Google app, the images are ok, without it, the great super WA lens is unusable, in my opinion.
True, I had the G6. Although I loved the phone , the stock app uses way too much sharpening. Of course nobody use the stock app now.
The only thing I miss about the G6 (in with the V30 now) is the flat screen. I can't stand the stupid curved screens. I stopped using glass protectors because they all suck when the screen isn't flat. I wish this trend would stop already. The only acceptable curve IMO is a curved screen like on the LG G4. It even makes a bit of sense unlike the curved edges which are 100% cosmetic.
this is getting ridiculous, how about adding a single zoom lens with the elements going sideways through the phone and a mirror pointing outside (ie a reflex lens) ?
That does work, corephotonics already has a solution but for some reason there's no mass production model equipped with it. Maybe the sensor size ends up too small, and I know the zoom is slow.
Another issue for LG are the sensor pixel sizes of their cameras. LG used to use ones with smaller pixel size smaller than the main stream flag ship phones' 1.44µm. V40 is rumoured to have a one closer to this.
Used to be V10 and V20 user...and always amazed by their image quality until the world of telephoto/background blur introduced to phone photography, LG is simply taking a catch up game...and it looks it is almost too late for LG. Look around, apart from Samsung and iPhone, I found people around me are using Huawei, OnePlus and many others, none of them is LG.
I like the OnePlus/Oppo/Huawei/Xiaomi options. Unfortunately most Americans are too lazy to look outside Samsung and Apple. I have no hard numbers, but it wouldn't surprise me if Samsung and Apple own about 95% of the American smartphone market, and everybody else is fighting for the last 5%.
Nothing ground breaking, just another lens and slightly bigger sensor. I love it, but I doubt it will "bring them back". The LG marketing sucks and people still remember the bootloop issue from the G4\V10. The G6, V30 and the G7 are all solid phones and I hope LG continue to deliver quality phones like that.
Yeah I'm well aware.. I just don't see it as anything "ground breaking". Again, don't get me wrong, I had the G2, G3, G4, G5, G6, V20 and V30 (current) so I love LG and I think LG makes the most versatile camera phones out there.. but I just don't see an extra lens as ground breaking. It's a great feature and very useful one too. Yeah, the pixels are back to a normal size so that's great.
IIRC it's only slightly similar. There's an individual wide angle with a long FL zoom, and from the FL of the wide angle to the furthest of the zoom range is 5x, so only 1.1-1.9x is interpolated, and the optical zoom takes care of 2-5x (so technically 2.5x optical), while the P20P's only has a wide angle prime and a 3x prime so 1.1-2.9x and 3.1-5x are all interpolated.
I wonder whether a smartphone camera with a macro lens would be possible. Otherwise I would like to see more phones with a 80mm (or more) camera. I imagine that 50mm or 40mm might get replaced by a 48 megapixel 26mm camera in the future, though this could be worse for depth detection possibly. When it comes to ultra wide angle cameras, they shouldn't be too wide in my opinion. Ultra wide angle cameras often have much distortion, so I think they shouldn't be wider than maybe 18mm.
Although it sounds amazing, I thought I would share with you what Macro shots are possible with an LG G4. This is using a DIY lens and photo stacking but you will be amazed:
@Gal Root: Wow! Truly amazing! I have seen some decent macro photos with phone - but nothing even close to your photos in terms of magnification, detail and deep dof... I understand you are using focus stacking - but very curious to know how are you getting such magnification and clarity with a phone camera! Is it a secret?! :)
I am still using an LG G5 for its 135 degree wide angle. Couldn't care less about the lens distortion - it's a mobile phone, not an architectural tilt shift lens on a medium format! I am out of contract so could upgrade any time - I'm still sticking with my G5 despite the GPS being broken (common G5 fault) but there has been nothing since with that amount of wide angle. I just want as much as possible in shot, the compositional possibilities with the G5 are amazing. Come on LG - give us something dramatic!
Superwide lenses open the door to lots of great photographic opportunities. If you don't understand how to use one, then I guess you don't need to worry about buying a phone with with a superwide lens.
I just looked at a LG G7 jpg base iso comparison at anandtech.com and the water painting is extreme at base iso! I can't remember that I have seen phone jpgs with so much water painting. The LG G7 has a 30mm field of view, so actually the jpgs should have more details than other phones when you don't change the distance, but due to the water painting you get even noticeably less details than with a 26mm Samsung phone. This means that the to other smartphones equivalent resolution is less than 9 megapixels because a 30mm crop of a 26mm 12 megapixel phone gives you 9 megapixels.
We all use GCAM so no water painting. The only use for the stock camera is for manual mode, which doesn't have water painting as well of course as NR can be disabled and obviously RAW doesn't have it.
I'm using GCam on my Note8 now, better than stock but requires more patience to operate and in some conditions introduce strange ring shaped artifacts.
Ring shape artifacts? Never heard of it.. can you share an example?
But yeah, gcam is slower to operate and the processing time is longer. I barely touch the stock app because the IQ is more important to me than speed, but I do wish it was faster.
Here, this: http://wx3.sinaimg.cn/large/b130f81dly1fvucq94dnxj21kw23yb2f.jpg is clearly a failed HDR, the ring shaped artifact isn't optical because I immediately followed with an HDR DNG from LR which was perfectly normal, while pushing and pulling so aggressively (the curtains are 100% opaque to light and the floor tiles are a brown-tinted black with no interior lighting on and there's direct sunlight on the building out the window) resulted in unnatural contouring it's still a typical HDR artifact unlike this.
This one: http://wx3.sinaimg.cn/large/b130f81dly1fvucqfyqd3j21kw16ox6p.jpg doesn't even have HDR yet you can tell that the gray coat has a yellow-green tint(and strange blur which is not a DoF issue if you look closely) around the peripherals in a general ring shape. My hands were steady, not only is the center very sharp(it's very sharp for the crop and mediocre lighting) I tried 3 times with the exact same framing and got almost identical artifacts.
Oh, also the GCam give much noisier shadows than LR in daytime (like that typical example showed, only not so dramatic in everyday usage), in low light the tables turn. I know extreme HDR reliably brings out ring shaped artifacts but the coat case is one of the more random occurrences, once you come across one of these you need to change your framing pretty significantly or else it will always come up, though I haven't found a clear pattern for the LDR cases yet.
Like I said at the beginning, "I'm using GCam on my Note8 now" It's v3.2.7 HDR+ parameters: very high (20/24 burst) Config HDR+ Camera: Nexus 6 HDR+ Auto (default, the 2017 Pixel one seems wonky) HDR+ AE mode No-ZSL: slow shutter 8x The underexposure multiplier is on default as I have no idea what it does, the rest of the settings are also on default
Ive had lots of phones. Notes, HTC, many from LG, several iphones including the 8+. My new V30+ is the best so far. LG tend to drop price faster than the rest so this V40 should be a great deal next year.
It's just a matter of time until one of these phones comes out with two or more wide angle cameras that can capture a full 360 degree view at once, combining the images in software so you end up with your own personal "Google Street View."
This is some great news. Having multiple sensor modules, spanning from UWA to short tele while maintaining large apertures is a huge advancement in the cameraphone development. If only LG could manage to get their battery life on par with the competition.... LG flagships have notoriously been trailing behind with respect to battery life, so I hope they get it sorted out finally.
Agreed. They keep insisting on using their heavy skin on top of Android that drains battery power and waters down Android. Their hardware is great and this phone looks promising.
Are you kidding ? The LG V30 has incredible battery life ! It won almost in every test. I've been using it for around 1 year and the battery life is still exceptional.
I own a Samsung s8 and I like that phone. What I really don't like about Samsung is their appaling update service. Usually it takes 4-5 months before they update their Android version.
I was thinking that, if they made the lenses for LG that'd be another big brand tie up. Huawei/Leica, Nokia/Zeiss, LG/Pentax, Apple can have Canon, Google can have Nikon, Motorola/Olympus... And Panasonic's already got smartphones... ;)
I'm not a fan of such endorsements... they are almost always meaningless. Except for rare cases in the past... like Nokia's N95 and somesuch.
The lens was _good_, even by today's standards... I posted some snapshots on a photography forum in a "guess the camera" thread, and it took everyone by surprise.
I know what you mean, I don't personally see much in the Huawei/Leica one to convince, and I doubt the 'new' Nokia (HMD)/Zeiss ones are much better, if at all, was just indulging a flight of fancy...
I still look back at my Nokia N8 photos and wish I'd never sold it... Should get an 808 and an N8 for the toy box (or camera bag side pockets...). They took amazing pictures.
Why would anyone needs an ultra-wide when most flagship have flawless panorama mode? You'd have much higher resolution and less noise from the wide angle lens than the tiny sensor behind the UW.
Anyone whose used the LG wide angle lens on their phone will tell you it's hard to use another camera phone. I prefer my slightly sub par LG V30 camera to my wife's Galaxy S8 any day purely for the wide angle camera option.
LG is killing it, great stuff! Not that it's anything new, I've seen the leaks for a while but still amazing! Combine this with Gcam and it's probably the most versatile camera phone out there.
What the developer does is surely illegal. I am sure Google doesn't allow developers to steal/modify proprietary code and release it as an app. That's why you will never find a camera app with Google's HDR+ in the Play Store.
They also (generally) specified the G5 as having 135 degrees, while the G6 only got 125 degrees in that context. G7 even just 105 degrees....about 17mm equivalent. (28mm = 74 degrees 24=84 20=94 17=104 14=114)
Neither does any of this allow any certainty about the exact angle when shooting video, vs stills. (nor does any test/review mentions this)
My V20 is 135 degrees, my partner's V30 is 120 degrees. I like them both. I wish they hadn't introduced the glass back with the V30 (like every other phone...)
Well, the glass back comes with IP68 rating which is phenomenal. I would replace removable battery with IP68 any day. Also, I can finish 2 batteries on my wife's V20 and my V30 would still be around 40% battery. It has MUCH MUCH better battery life than the V20.
Presumably the tele lens has a very small sensor so they can physically fix the lens in - if you can fit a 4mm lens in the case and want 80mm then that's a 20x crop factor (vs 6-7 typically).
Really? So tame. Have you used a mobile with a real wide, like the G5 with a 9mm? (is that right? I'm quoting someone above re focal length - it's 135 degrees) It changes how you think... once you try a G5/135 degrees you can't go back!
Third parties have ported the Pixel 2XL camera app over to several phones including the V30. I use this on my V30 and I've been very happy with the results I get.
Gcam is illegal as HDR+ isn't open source. Furthermore downloading apks is a security risk and it might void the warranty. LG's camera has HDR processing, but it doesn't have Google's proprietary HDR+ processing.
I have my A7R3 and some primes for my work, but a phone is always with me and its fantastic for small prints into family albums.
The jpeg quality from current compact cameras is just bad (most of them need to be processed in LR to preserve contrast, colors, highlights, shadows...). I think its just the same like my 10 years old camera without any image quality change, just with much more blured pixels. RAWs from better compacts like Canon G7xII, RX100III or Ricoh GR are nice, but i want it compact as possible and without need of RAW processing.
Phones are faster in most conditions and miles away with processing (image stacking, HDR, stabilising, slow motion...). Yes, its not the "pixel-peeping quality", but its OK for personal use - just take a picture and print it if you need :)
EDIT: i want a combo with wide angle (10-16mm - mostly used ony my LG G5), normal wide (28mm) and something longer (50mm or more). Only Nikon DL was something like this, but....
I use my cellphones only for snapshots to send to others. I carry my 5 year old 12mpx Canon 500 HS with 24-100mm lens when I travel. It is one of the early compacts with touch screen. When it was tested, it's jpegs held up well in prints up to 12x18(not museum quality of course). I have sold 12x18 jpeg prints made with my old Canon G9. Some people on this forum said it had bad IQ. I have Canon APS-C gear for better quality. I agree with your comments about cellphone camera.
No , it won't , Apple is a very smart company , I am sure they new this phone was coming out . The iPhone X will still selling well , very well . It takes more then a phone with 3 lenses to change that
The Sigma 17-70 is APS-C, people seem to be citing full frame values. The LG V30's wide angle lens is around 21mm in full frame terms IIRC. 17mm APS-C is around 27mm in FF terms which is not all that wide. On a side note, I do love my Sigma 17-50 F/2.8. I've never tried the 17-70 but I hear that it's a very good lens as well.
Lotari, Canasonic noted. Lets say then that equivalents of 27, 50 and 100 will be good values for a range of focal lengths on a mobile phone to mirror my experience with the Sigma.
Well, the V30 has a 120 degree fov wide angle lens, so that's approx 10-11mm FF equvalent. The V20 has a slightly wider lens. So I doubt the wide anglecamera on the V40 will be 14mm.
I like the "almost" fisheye wide angle lens in the V20. It allows me to take nice people snapshots indoors where there's not much space to back up.
This might be my next phone...if I ever get tired of my V20. But it's kind of hard to let go of a great phone that has an easily replaceable battery, SD card storage, headphone jack, IR transmitter, etc.
I will be upgrading from my Nexus 6P in October, and this is a serious contender because it has a 3.5mm headphone jack, and hopefully a decent camera (it was going to be OnePlus 6T, but they dropped the headphone jack)
Still using my V20 with dual cams, a headphone jack, and removable battery/micro sd card. Not to mention the sweet DAC and IR blaster. I think LG really hit the mark with this phone so I am keen to see what the V40 offers for me to upgrade.
The only reason that I'll upgrade is for up to date security updates for Android.
It looks like once the Oreo (first released in Sept 2017) updates rolls out for all the V20's (still waiting for it on my factory unlocked US version) it will no longer get any major updates.
It makes me sad they don't make phones like that anymore. The excuse for not offering removable batteries is that the phone is thicker and it's more difficult to make waterproof, but I don't need my phone to be any thinner or to be waterproof. I find much more value in swapable batteries and expandable storage.
Not me. I'm glad they don't make phones like that anymore.
Snapdragon 820, quad core, 4GB ram, 64GB storage, LCD... would suck if phones remained slow and dated when so much faster tech is out there. The Snapdragon 845, Octa-core, 6GB ram, 256GB storage of the V40 with better quad DAC (which is most important to me), and of course OLED, is so much more interesting. Expandable memory is the same 512GB.
Would be very nice if batteries were still replaceable, I agree. But that's a feature I gave up 4 yrs ago. Unfortunately this is only going to be the same 3,300 mAh as the V30, though. Barely bigger than the V20.
Disappointing, but I will be preordering on Oct 3rd.
New phones are much more power efficient and last much much longer on a single charge so I don't need to carry extra batteries with me anymore. V30 lasts like it has 3 V20 batteries inside. I do carry a QC3 power back just in case.
Jonsi, nice job of completely missing the point. The things I like about the V20 could still be carried over to a newer model with better screen, processor etc.
But that being said, I have no problems with my screen or the phone speed. It looks and runs great, so I plan to keep it for a long time.
@Gal Yea, the V30 is fine, but not 3 times better. The V20 had 3,200 mAh batteries while the V30 has 3,300. Not much difference in battery. If the V20 uses more battery by default, then sure, I can understand your point but I think "3x" is still a bit overkill. Regardless, the new OLED screen, hardly any bezel, better processor, more ram, better DAC, and speed in general are all upgrades.
I've heard that Oreo has cut down on background processes. Now that the V20 is starting to get Oreo, I wonder if that will have a positive effect on battery life...
Jonsi. I travel often with both V20 and V30. It is ridiculous how much more efficient the V30 is. When you actually use the phone ( camera, GPS, maps etc..) , the V30 lasts and 3 times longer.
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