The telephoto lens actually DOES work

[flyingkytez]

To those that tried covering your finger on the telephoto lens and saw nothing, you have to have bright conditions in order for the telephoto lens to work, otherwise it will switch to the regular lens and use digital zoom. The reason is because of lowlight.. the main camera is better for lowlight so that's why it switches to the regular if there isn't enough light.. the telephoto lens cannot do lowlight so it needs to be bright enough to trigger. If you're indoors, most likely the telephoto lens won't work so it'll switch to digital zoom. It's best if used outdoors. Try testing it yourself..

 

[Greymire]

Here is a low light shot from last night.

 

[Fred98TJ]

That’s how all (that I’m aware of) cell phones with so called “tele” lenses work, both Android and iPhones. The longer lens is always slower and (almost always) sporting a smaller sensor and smaller photosites (pixels).
Wonder over to any of the other forums (even iPhone forums) and you’ll see the same.
Some 3rd party camera apps allow the manual selection of the lens.

 

[Greymire]

I actually think I was seeing this effect at the show last night. Every once in awhile when lighting was just right it would pop in an Really zoom in.

 

[flyingkytez]

I actually think I was seeing this effect at the show last night. Every once in awhile when lighting was just right it would pop in an Really zoom in.

Yeah if it detects enough light, it'll switch to the actual telephoto lens.

 

[moliva1568]

Is that when it seems to jump and the object you're trying to focus on no longer is centered? Trying to figure out if i got a lemon. Have only tried to take a few pictures so far and sometimes the camera seems to jump and i have to center it up again.

 

[Mike Dee]

To those that tried covering your finger on the telephoto lens and saw nothing, you have to have bright conditions in order for the telephoto lens to work, otherwise it will switch to the regular lens and use digital zoom. The reason is because of lowlight.. the main camera is better for lowlight so that's why it switches to the regular if there isn't enough light.. the telephoto lens cannot do lowlight so it needs to be bright enough to trigger. If you're indoors, most likely the telephoto lens won't work so it'll switch to digital zoom. It's best if used outdoors. Try testing it yourself..

I'm really surprised there isn't a manual override for that for those borderline shots where you think it might be worthwhile to use the real telephoto

 

[Fred98TJ]

I'm really surprised there isn't a manual override for that for those borderline shots where you think it might be worthwhile to use the real telephoto

Some of the 3rd party camera apps let you choose which lens to use. Might take a little while for them to update for the V40. Try “Manual Camera” maybe and see if it works for the V40.
At any rate I’m sure most will work soon.

 

[flyingkytez]

Is that when it seems to jump and the object you're trying to focus on no longer is centered? Trying to figure out if i got a lemon. Have only tried to take a few pictures so far and sometimes the camera seems to jump and i have to center it up again.

Depends on lighting.. it needs bright light conditions and indoors is tricky because it's not bright enough.

 

[flyingkytez]

I'm really surprised there isn't a manual override for that for those borderline shots where you think it might be worthwhile to use the real telephoto

Yeah that'd be better but I guess LG didn't want to complicate things and "reviewers" will grill LG for "bad lowlight" on the telephoto if they didn't make it switch automatically.

 

[Fred98TJ]

Just use a 3rd party app. Simple as. Boom, “problem” solved.

 

[flyingkytez]

Just use a 3rd party app. Simple as. Boom, “problem” solved.

You can't because a developer has to create an app specifically for the V40 and right now there's none. Those apps you see in the app store just uses digital zoom with some enhancements. The average person won't notice digital vs telephoto... they also don't understand that telephoto needs good lighting to work properly.

 

[Fred98TJ]

Have you tried all the 3rd party apps ? The ones that allow you to manually select which camera to use would not allow a switch to the longer lens then simply digitally crop with the shorter lens. If they can’t select the longer lens yet then the option would not appear.
Example is the case of the Huawei Mate 9. With a 3rd party app you can’t select the mono cam, but the option doesn’t even show.
As far as people not understanding the digital crop in less than good light, yeah, a lot of people don’t have a clue and that’s simply because they don’t take a few mins to understand.
One thing that irks me, and all the phone marketing idiots do it, is the “zoom”. THERE IS NO OPTICAL ZOOM ON ANY CELL PHONE CAMERA (at least not on any major makes). It’s simply digital crop until the longer lenses cam is selected.

 

[middbrew]

Yeah that'd be better but I guess LG didn't want to complicate things and "reviewers" will grill LG for "bad lowlight" on the telephoto if they didn't make it switch automatically.

I don't think LG develops their apps with what reviewers are going to think and say. I think they didn't add the option to use low light when using the telephoto because they didn't think it would produce a suitable picture.

 

[Grabber5.0]

I would rather have control over which lense is used, rather than letting LG make that decision for me. It's annoying.