"Samsung's Galaxy S20 Ultra wasn't the first phone to feature a periscopic telephoto lens - both Huawei and Oppo beat the Korean company to it - but it was the first in the US to make such a big deal about it. Almost all of Samsung's marketing for the S20 Ultra centered on its so-called Space Zoom, its 5x optical folded periscope lens, capable of digitally zooming much further."
"That phone sparked a strong reaction from some. Many questioned why you'd ever need a camera that zoomed so far you could look inside the top windows of a skyscraper; some suggested it would only ever be used by perverts and voyeurs; others simply pointed out that almost every photo taken at 100x zoom sucked. Samsung and its competitors learned from some of that criticism and mostly stopped talking about 100x zoom, focusing on better quality shots from shorter distances in future marketing material."
Phone manufacturers are prioritizing long-distance telephoto lenses as a way to stand out in a crowded smartphone market. Huawei and Oppo introduced periscopic telephoto lenses before Samsung, but Samsung's Galaxy S20 Ultra made extensive marketing of its 5x optical folded periscope and 100x digital 'Space Zoom' highly visible in the US. Consumers and commentators reacted strongly, questioning practical uses, privacy implications, and image quality at extreme zoom levels. Many of the highest-magnification shots produced poor results. Manufacturers have since softened marketing around raw zoom numbers and shifted emphasis toward improving image quality at more realistic focal lengths, yet competition on telephoto hardware persists.
Read at The Verge
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