But to go from 70mm to 105mm equivalent, two individual groups - relative to a third fixed group - are moved, and that is fairly unique.

Anything in between 70mm and 105mm equiv. It's not quite a zoom lens in that it offers only two optical focal lengths: 70 and 105mm equivalent. The biggest news is the folded optics that allow for a variable telephoto optic paired with a dual-PD sensor. It's unclear to us why Sony doesn't apply this multi-frame NR approach to bursts under all lighting conditions, though, as it would improve image quality across the board. If it could, Sony would be marketing the 80 fps shooting capabilities of this smartphone.

While technically the main sensor readout rate (<10ms) could allow for a 20 fps burst to be assembled from an 80 fps one, such that there are 4 frames available per 1 output frame, it's unlikely the processing capabilities can handle this sort of throughput. It is our understanding that for each frame in a low-light burst, the three previous frames are aligned and merged to the base frame to decrease noise. Granted, the smaller sensor camera in these smartphones benefit more from such stack-and-merge temporal noise reduction approaches than dedicated interchangeable lens cameras, but, nevertheless, to do so at 20 fps is quite an achievement.

In an exclusive interview with DPReview, engineers from Sony's Xperia team confirmed that, in low light conditions, up to 4 frames are aligned and averaged to decrease noise for each frame shot at 20 fps, something no camera to date we know of can do in high speed burst mode. Up to 4 frames are aligned and averaged to decrease noise for each frame shot at 20 fps, something no camera to date we know of can do in high speed burst mode Like the Xperia 1 Mark II and Xperia Pro, the Mark III smartphones can both shoot at 20 frames-per-second (fps), but the Xperia 1 Mark III takes things further: not only can it shoot at 20 fps with 60 fps AF/AE calculations per second with real-time (eye) AF tracking, but, in a first not just for smartphones but for all cameras, the Xperia 1 Mark III can shoot at 20 fps while performing temporal noise reduction on each one of those frames.

Sony xperia 1 iii