For aspiring mobile photographers, it is exceedingly important to have a solid understanding of the different types of lenses that are used in today’s smartphones. As mobile camera technology advances by the minute, though, it can be hard to keep up with all of the things that the latest and greatest mobile phone makers are doing with their cameras, especially when it comes to the lens.
There are four different main types of lenses used in today’s mobile cameras: They are:
- Fisheye
- Wide-angle
- Telephoto
- Macro
Each of these different lenses is to be used in different scenarios, and are tailored specifically to different types of photography.
There are other types of lenses on some lesser-known, less ordinary phones, but in the mainstream market, the lenses mentioned here will be what most phones are likely equipped with. In the remainder of this article, we will go over each kind of lens in detail, including the photography functions they’re designed to serve.
What Types of Lenses Are Used in Mobile Cameras?
Naming the different types of lenses used in mobile cameras is one thing, but actually understanding their intricate differences is an entirely different and vastly more complicated process.
Mobile phone makers know how much people are into mobile photography, and they design and implement different types of lenses accordingly. The result of this is the standard implementation of four primary types of lenses. According to Photos With Phones, these are fisheye, wide-angle, telephoto, and macro lenses.
Fisheye Lens
Fisheye lenses rose to fame in the 1990s as they were popularized by way of their use in music videos. However, fisheye lenses nowadays are mostly used for more creative and artistic forms of photography, and are rarely, and should rarely be used, for point-and-shoot types of picture taking.
This is because fisheye lenses generate a very distorted image with a 180-degree field of view. The result is a photo with a very intense depth of field and a very wide angle. Because of this effect, fisheye lenses are often also referred to as super-wide lenses.
When it comes to fisheye lenses, there are two primary types, though one is much more commonly found in mobile cameras:
Circular Fisheye Lens
The first type of fisheye lens is the circular fisheye lens. This is the lesser common type of fisheye lens as a function of the less practical and less useable photograph that it will generate.
A photo shot with a circular fisheye lens will, as you may have expected, be circular. This means that when it is displayed in a square or rectangular space, like on Instagram, the photo will have black edges at each corner.
This can look rather unsightly, especially when we’re going for a professional-looking style, and therefore most mobile fisheye lenses are not circular.
Full-Frame Fisheye Lens
Instead, mobile cameras that use a fisheye lens tend to use a full-frame fisheye lens. This type of lens will have a slightly more acute angle than a circular fisheye (though still very wide), but the benefit is that the photos it takes will be rectangular. This means that when displayed in a rectangular setting, we will not get those black corners as we would with a circular fisheye lens.
Wide-Angle Lens
The fisheye lens that we just discussed is considered super wide, and the wide-angle lens is just a small step down from that as it drops the “super” and is just referred to as a wide-angle lens. Wide-angle lenses are similar in function to fisheye lenses, and in some instances, will create a similar effect on the photograph, but they will do so to a much lesser degree.
Whereas a fisheye lens will create a bulging subject and warped perspective, a wide-angle lens will have a much more normal looking view, and will not have a significant distorting effect on the subject of the photo.
For this reason, wide-angle lenses are suitable for point-and-shoot, but will also be suitable for taking more artistic and compositionally unique photos as well. Wide-angle lenses are very common, and most mobile cameras will be equipped with some variation of a wide-angle lens.
Telephoto Lens
The next common type of lens that is found on mobile cameras is known as the telephoto lens. Telephoto lenses have a much longer focal length than the types of lenses mentioned above, and the result is a complete move away from the circular, distorted effect of the wide-angle and fisheye lenses.
Instead of this warped and rounded looking photograph, a telephoto lens will create a picture that will capture very close to what the actual naked human eye sees.
In addition to capturing photos that closely mimic the perspective of a human eye, telephoto lenses also have a slight zoom effect, though they are not zoom lenses. When you are shooting with a telephoto lens, you will end up making the subject appear closer than they actually are.
This can be desirable when your subject is far away, but if you’re shooting a subject that is large and difficult to fit in the frame, or that is very close to you, you will probably want to avoid using a telephoto lens.
Macro Lens
This final common type of mobile camera lens is known as a macro lens. Like a fisheye lens, a macro lens is a very specialized type of lens, and will not work for point-and-shoot photographs. Instead, macro lenses are reserved exclusively for artistic and specialized kinds of photography.
Macro lenses can be thought of as the magnifying glass of camera lenses. They are used when the photographer wants to shoot a very small subject, or capture a shot that drastically magnifies the subject of the photograph.
The degree to which a macro lens can magnify a subject is a function of its magnification ratio, which expresses how many times the lens is able to magnify the subject. For example, a 2:1 macro lens will be able to produce an image that doubles the size of the subject, whereas a 5:1 ratio macro lens will be able to create an image that makes the subject five times larger.
Macro lenses are even further differentiated from more traditional styles of camera lenses as a result of the way that they are constructed. According to Adorama, most other types of camera lenses have glasswork on the outside of the lens that is concave, or curved inwards.
In a macro lens, however, the glasswork is convex, meaning that it is curved outwards, similar to a magnifying glass. The effect that this has is that the subject of the photo will be significantly magnified, creating the macro effect that users of this lens are often and should be going for. Additionally, this gives the macro lens a “flat field” design, allowing it to have more breadth in its ability to focus.
When to Use Each Different Type of Lens
Now that we’ve gone over the differences between each type of lens, the next important thing to know is exactly when, and in what situations, you should be using each different kind of lens.
This is especially important today, as many mobile cameras are coming equipped with many kinds of lenses, which can leave the user confused regarding which lens they should be using in different situations. The type of lens that you should use is a crucial thing to consider, and picking the right one can make the difference between a mediocre shot and a fantastic one.
When to Use a Fisheye Lens
When it comes to fisheye lenses, there are generally two different reasons to use one. The first reason to use a fisheye lens is for practical purposes: when you have a genuinely massive landscape that wouldn’t fit well into any other type of lens.
If you’re familiar with the iPhone’s panorama feature, you can think of a fisheye lens as a way of replacing the need to take panoramic photos. This is because instead of scanning across the landscape with a panorama and creating an image that you have to scroll through, a fisheye lens can capture everything in a much smaller frame. This landscape will be distorted (many times in a cool way), but everything will be in frame with the fisheye lens.
The other common reason that a fisheye lens is used is for creative purposes. As we mentioned before, a fisheye lens will quite substantially distort the subject of the photo, and if you’re just trying to grab a picture of something quickly, this is not what you want.
However, this distortion is often put to use in a creative way, according to Skylum. The distortion created by a fisheye lens can create several different interesting effects that other lenses cannot. There are thousands of ways that this can be applied in a creative sense, but the most common ones are below:
Earth Curvature Effect
If you’re taking a photo of an incredibly vast landscape that is mostly flat and empty, a fisheye lens can do some very cool things with it. Namely, the fisheye lens will distort the scene and give it a curvature that emulates the curve of the earth. This can make the landscape look much larger than it is and creates a very interesting effect.
The effect is even cooler if you position a subject in the middle of the frame, which can give scale to the photo, making the result even more illusionary.
Radial Blur
Another neat effect that can be done with a fisheye lens is a radial blur effect. A radial blur is when the blur in a photo curves around the center of the picture in a circular motion, so the things in the center of the photo are in focus, but the things outside the center are enveloped in a motion blur effect.
This can be a fun effect to play with to give some action to your shots, and it’s really only doable with a fisheye lens.
Interesting Points of View
Another unique and interesting way to use a fisheye lens is to create a distorted point of view. Shots like this are taken from the photographer’s point of view, creating a picture that shows the viewer exactly what the photographer sees with their eyes. This is best done when there is a point of reference, like the photographer’s hands or legs in the picture, showing that it is a POV shot.
With a fisheye lens, these POV shots can be breathtaking in their ability to place the photographer atop a landscape that wouldn’t be all visible with a naked eye, or without a fisheye lens.
When to Use a Wide-Angle Lens
Wide-angle lenses, as we discussed earlier, are one step away from fisheye lenses in the field of view vastness that they can capture. With a wide-angle lens, you can achieve a similarly wide field of view without the distortion of a fisheye lens.
So, according to Expert Photography, a wide-angle lens should be used when you want to capture as much of a space as possible without heavily distorting the image as you would if you were to take the same shot with a fisheye lens.
There are many different situations that photographers may find themselves in, where the use of a wide-angle lens will not only be helpful but will add a creative flair that only a wide-angle lens could.
One of the most common uses of a wide-angle lens is in landscape photography. This is when a photographer is taking a photograph of a vast geographical landscape, like a mountain range or a field. A wide-angle lens would be great for these types of shots, as they will capture the entire view without adding a significant amount of distortion.
Wide-angle shots are also great for shooting interiors of large buildings. For example, if you’re trying to capture the inside of a stadium, large train station, or massive concert hall, you’ll probably want to be using a wide-angle lens. There are many other situations wherein a wide-angle lens could be used, but these are some of the more common.
When to Use a Telephoto Lens
Telephoto lenses are the least niche and most versatile of the lenses that we’re discussing here. For this reason, telephoto lenses will be the mobile lens that you’ll be choosing to use most often, but that’s not to say that there are no specific instances wherein a telephoto lens can yield a creative flair like the other types of lenses that we’re discussing.
For instance, telephoto lenses are often the lens of choice for photographers that are taking portrait shots. In shots like these, the subject will typically be a person who will be posing for the photographer about 10 feet away. The photographer will then take a professional-looking headshot, and the background will often be blurred to give the shot a more dramatic feel.
However, telephoto lenses are also great to use, and perhaps the only type of mobile lens that can be used, when the subject is far away from the photographer. Telephoto lenses are not to be confused with zoom lenses, but they are the best built-in option on mobile cameras for taking shots of a subject that is farther away. This is because telephoto lenses make the subject appear closer than it actually is, making these types of lenses ideal for shooting far away subjects.
Other than these instances, though, telephoto lenses are also great to just point and shoot if you stumble upon something photo-worthy. They do not distort the things that they capture as fisheye lenses do, and for this reason, they are great for snapping quick pictures.
When to Use a Macro Lens
Macro lenses are one of the more specialized lens types that we’ll be discussing here, and the situations wherein they should be used are relatively simple and straightforward. Macro lenses should be used to shoot very small subjects or any subjects that need to be heavily magnified to see their detail.
For example, macro lenses should be used when shooting things like flowers, insects, or someone’s eye, as these subjects are very small, and only a macro lens will be able to show off the amount of detail in these subjects properly.
Macro lenses can be and often are used for other things, but their specialty is magnification. For this reason, it is always best to use a macro lens to bring out the most detail in small subjects.
Final Thoughts
The different types of lenses that are used in mobile cameras are getting more and more advanced by the day as the world’s smartphone leaders continuously improve their device’s cameras. However, the lens types mentioned above cover the most popular options that are available right now.
In tandem with our rundown on when to use each type of lens, the information herein should have you aptly prepared to step up your game when it comes to mobile photography.