Why Your Pixel’s 4x Zoom Doesn’t Work When Shooting Video (and How to Fix It)
The Pixel 6 Pro has a lot to offer, but like previous Pixel phones, it’s the cameras that stand out the most. The device’s three cameras take great photos and videos right out of the box, with one important caveat: you can’t use the impressive 4x telephoto camera when recording video. Thankfully, this camera isn’t actually banned from video, but you’ll need to know a workaround to zoom in.
Let’s start with what happens when you use your Pixel 6 Pro the way Google designed it: you turn on the camera, switch to video mode, then select the 4x zoom option. Instead of switching to a telephoto lens that will zoom in on your image optically, the 6 Pro sticks with the main camera and just digitally crops the image to get a “4x zoom”. What’s going on here?
Optical and digital zoom
We covered the difference between optical and digital zoom earlier when we discussed the iPhone’s weird relationship with zoom, but here’s the bottom line: This 4x telephoto lens doesn’t really “get” the subject as there are no moving parts in the camera. . Instead, all three cameras have a fixed focal length . The ultra-wide camera has a focal length of 16mm (0.7x zoom), the main camera has a focal length of 24mm (1x zoom) and the telephoto lens has a focal length of 102.6mm (4x zoom).
Usually, when you switch from the main camera to a telephoto lens, you switch to a camera that can capture a subject from 4 times the distance that the main camera provides. However, when you shoot between those focal lengths or go beyond 4x zoom, digital zoom takes over. Digital zoom essentially crops the image to artificially bring it closer to the subject. A 3.5x zoom, for example, crops the image of the main camera, since, remember, there are no moving parts.
Google’s software does some work to make the digital zoom look better than if you cropped the image yourself, but it’s still not as good as using a camera designed to take a larger picture. You have more detail to work with when using a true telephoto lens, so it should be available for use when you want to.
And yet it is not so! At least not out of the video recording box. As a Pixel 4 person, I wasn’t aware of this issue until I read about it on Reddit , but it’s real: Google is bypassing the telephoto lens for 4x zoom when shooting video at 1080p, the Pixel 6 Pro’s default video resolution. . However, if you switch to 4K 30fps, the telephoto lens works as expected. The iPhone does something similar too: when shooting at most settings, the telephoto lens only fires when iOS thinks there’s enough light for it. However, if you’re shooting in 4K 60fps, you’ll always be using the telephoto lens when you switch to it.
It’s unclear why both companies do this, but it’s frustrating. You spend $900 or $1,000 on smartphones with telephoto lenses but aren’t trusted to be able to use them whenever you want. Google doesn’t warn you or anything, so it’s one of those things that users have to figure out on their own. Luckily, if you just switch to that higher resolution to shoot (which you should probably do anyway if you’re low on storage), you’re good to go.
If you need to shoot in 1080p but still need access to a telephoto lens, you’ll need to look into a third-party app to do so. FiLMiC Pro is a great, albeit pricey, option that gives you a lot of control over your shooting. You can choose the camera you want to shoot with at any resolution, as well as control ISO, shutter speed, focus, and more. It might cost you up front, but at least you can use your Pixel’s camera exactly the way you want.