this post was submitted on 04 Dec 2025
1397 points (99.4% liked)
Science Memes
17750 readers
1973 users here now
Welcome to c/science_memes @ Mander.xyz!
A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.
Rules
- Don't throw mud. Behave like an intellectual and remember the human.
- Keep it rooted (on topic).
- No spam.
- Infographics welcome, get schooled.
This is a science community. We use the Dawkins definition of meme.
Research Committee
Other Mander Communities
Science and Research
Biology and Life Sciences
- !abiogenesis@mander.xyz
- !animal-behavior@mander.xyz
- !anthropology@mander.xyz
- !arachnology@mander.xyz
- !balconygardening@slrpnk.net
- !biodiversity@mander.xyz
- !biology@mander.xyz
- !biophysics@mander.xyz
- !botany@mander.xyz
- !ecology@mander.xyz
- !entomology@mander.xyz
- !fermentation@mander.xyz
- !herpetology@mander.xyz
- !houseplants@mander.xyz
- !medicine@mander.xyz
- !microscopy@mander.xyz
- !mycology@mander.xyz
- !nudibranchs@mander.xyz
- !nutrition@mander.xyz
- !palaeoecology@mander.xyz
- !palaeontology@mander.xyz
- !photosynthesis@mander.xyz
- !plantid@mander.xyz
- !plants@mander.xyz
- !reptiles and amphibians@mander.xyz
Physical Sciences
- !astronomy@mander.xyz
- !chemistry@mander.xyz
- !earthscience@mander.xyz
- !geography@mander.xyz
- !geospatial@mander.xyz
- !nuclear@mander.xyz
- !physics@mander.xyz
- !quantum-computing@mander.xyz
- !spectroscopy@mander.xyz
Humanities and Social Sciences
Practical and Applied Sciences
- !exercise-and sports-science@mander.xyz
- !gardening@mander.xyz
- !self sufficiency@mander.xyz
- !soilscience@slrpnk.net
- !terrariums@mander.xyz
- !timelapse@mander.xyz
Memes
Miscellaneous
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Shit. My ADHD brain doesn't need another expensive hobby to hyperfixate on.
Dont spend money on fancy new cameras, chances are the camera in your phone is already better than 90% of all cameras in history. Don't drop a dime on equipment until you've hit the limits of the hardware you already have.
The picture above isn't a picture of what an expensive camera can do - it's a picture of what a good photographer can do, enhanced by specialty equipment. In the hands of a novice the equipment cannot produce pictures like this.
I did the math for another post and if I remember right the best telephoto lens built into a very recent phone camera has equivalency to around 120mm (anything else is just digital zoom and sometimes AI enhance).
It's a relatively new gimmick, and it can do wildlife photography from afar (I got some good full body shots of deer recently), but it's not quite as good as 600mm or the 1000mm from the other post.
how is it physically possible to fit a 120mm lens into a phone?
Like a periscope. It's actually pretty cool.
Source
The primary factor is that 120mm is not the actual focal length of the lens in the phone, that will be a considerably smaller focal length that happens to give the same field of view as a 120mm lens on a full frame camera (i.e. the same sensor size as a 35mm film frame). The phone uses a much smaller sensor than this hence the smaller focal length for the same FoV.
Another thing that helps is using a telephoto lens design - including this lets you create a lens noticeably shorter than its focal length.
When the lens would still make an overly wide phone despite all this that's where the periscope lens design as others have already mentioned comes in.
I said equivalency, so I don't think that's quite literal. That said, it does stick out a bit and is sunken into the phone itself by about a cm.
I'm not really sure how they get the rest of the way.