There's only so much you can do with a single camera lens, particularly when it needs to be compact enough to fit comfortably into a smartphone. So how can manufacturers continue improving smartphone photography?
One answer is to use dual-lens cameras – and Sony reckons that's something we'll start seeing over the next year.
In a recent earnings call, as reported by Xperia Blog, Kenichiro Yoshida, CFO of Sony, claimed the company's dual-camera platform would be adopted by "major smartphone players" in 2016.
However, he went on to say that because the high-end smartphone market is thought to be slowing down "we believe the real start, the take-off of smartphone with dual lens camera will be in the year of 2017".
Apple and LG could be the first
So don't expect to see dual-lens cameras becoming a standard feature for at least a year yet. But it's already been rumoured that the iPhone 7 Plus and LG G5 could have one, so these may be among those major players Sony is talking about.
Adding a second lens to the mix could have a couple of significant benefits. For one thing it could improve low-light performance, as there would be two separate sensors to take in light – something we've already seen on the HTC One M8 and Honor 6 Plus.
A dual-lens camera would also likely improve zoom capability, as by having a different focal length on each lens you could switch to the one with a longer focal length when you want a zoom shot.
These are both major issues with smartphone photography, so overcoming them would be a big deal.
Hopefully Sony is right, and we'll see the beginnings of the dual-lens revolution this year – 2017 still feels an awfully long way away.
