A new lens from Samsung Electro-Mechanics, a 5x optical zoom lens to be exact, is now being mass produced and is ready to be placed inside of smartphones.
Currently on the market we have a variety of optical zoom lenses, like the 3x lens found in the OnePlus 7 Pro and the 2x zoom lens in the Galaxy S10. Of course, these phones are capable of a max zoom of 10x, though, your photo quality will be severely limited due to it being digital zoom and not optical. So, with 5x optical zoom lenses forthcoming, this is exciting for mobile photographers.
An interesting tidbit into the development of this lens, it was detailed that the thickness of the current 2x optical zoom lens is around 6mm thick. However, in changing the shape of the lens, these Samsung engineers were able to decrease thickness, with the 5x optical zoom lens measuring in at 5mm thick. So, performance increased while the thickness was reduced. This is great.
The question is, what phone will use this? The obvious assumption is the Galaxy Note 10. Really, besides the reports that it will come in two sizes and that it will offer 5G, there isn’t a lot known about Samsung’s next S-Pen wielding phone. As we creep closer to launch, that will surely change.