iPhone 15 Pro Max 5X 120mm Zoom

The phone does not have a continuous zoom lens, like a DSLR or MILC. It has prime lenses that it switches between. So there are a few optical stops, but everything in-between involves digital zoom.

It’s same for pretty much every smartphone (iPhone or not) that allows you to zoom.

As already said in this thread, iPhone cameras don’t have telescope-style lenses that can actually zoom in and out. They have multiple separate cameras with a different optical lenses that act as a telescopic zoom, like you were zooming in by switching between the different cameras. The x3 is another optical zoom. The digital you're referring to is over 5x for the iphone 15 pro max, over x3 for the iphone 15 pro. There isn't such a thing as crop di per se. Of course a DSLR nikon might offer more lenses but many photographers seem to enjoy a poket device that in most cases take photos that you can't tell from a DSLR camera. The rocket to the moon doesn't go with coal but it's taking you to the moon

Let's step away from the analog world and think about new chips that can deliver what you choose without having an analog tool to deliver it. There are 3 sensors on the camera that are giving you through multiple images taken and elaborated by a complex processor called Deep Fusion and through the neural network of the processor, so the image resulting is not a simplistic cropped image but it's an image which is what you have chosen as focal lens like if you had mounted a lens on your camera, but the lens simply doesn't exist...

Because you can actually zoom in from +1 to +5, long press on any lens and you will get a dial cursor to zoom in and out, for the iPhone 15 pro max till +5 (120mm) is an optical zoom over it it's digital

It's a phone, or better it's an iPhone or better a very impressive piece of technology. The results are quite impressive compared to DSLR cameras when you print the photos. At least the maximum size I've printed is an A4, which is giving me hard times to tell it from a DSLR photo. The 120mm zoom anyway works a bit differently they call it 5x periscope telephoto zoom it should work as they say as an optical 120mm zoom

https://www.macrumors.com/guide/periscope-lens/

He appears to be trying to claim that you should favor the results of computational photography (assuming the iPhone even uses it in the context of zooming) over having a continuous optical zoom lens.

RE: “Let's step away from the analog world…”

Which analog world would that be? The “analog world” of digital SLRs and digital mirrorless interchangeable lens cameras? Or, perhaps, the analog world of light?

yes analog, the digital cameras have a lens with a mirror inside like the manual SLR and they became DSLR because they didn't use a film but save in a format on a memory, plus being automatic so they take a picture for you ;), the mirrorless camera revolution is like what we were saying here ...it's not optical ..yes it's optical

100clicks wrote:

yes analog, the digital cameras have a lens with a mirror inside like the manual SLR

Lenses with mirrors inside? You seem to be confusing the mirror in the body of a 35mm SLR or digital SLR with some supposed mirror in the lens. The mirror in a 35mm SLR or a digital SLR is there to send light to an optical viewfinder before the picture is taken.

There are special mirror lenses that use mirrors to achieve a telephoto effect, but these do not account for the bulk of the lenses for film SLRs, digital SLRs, or digital mirrorless interchangeable lens cameras.

The mirror of the camera not in the lens!!! Behind the lens! And anyway they are digital only because they are not using a film, the body of a DSLR and the lenses are like the manual SLR, it’s just the image that’s getting captured as a digital format and processed (hardly optical)

In photographic circles, the term "analog" commonly refers to the use of photosensitive particles coating a flexible Substrate, aka: "film" for capturing images. The images become visible after the film is "developed" using special chemicals. Digital photography employs an electronic photosensitive component made with special coating(s) on a hard silicone substrate which electronically capture images that can be directly viewed on a display screen, or saved on internal or removable memory. Hope that helps.

from 0 to 120mm or if you want from 0 to +5 in the iPhone 15 pro max it's an optical zoom