V40 ThinQ: Testing the 3 Stunning Features Enabled by Its Five Lenses

When rumors first floated that LG V40 ThinQ would feature five cameras people wondered whether that was overkill. But now that we’ve seen the cameras in action, that’s definitely not the case.

On October 3, the Korean tech company debuted its flagship handset that certainly seems specifically geared toward would-be travel bloggers and aspiring YouTubers. The V40 ThinQ puts the power of having a multi-lens camera in the palm of users’ hands with three wildly unique and powerful photography features.

The front of the phone houses an 8-megapixel standard lens and a 5MP wide-angle self-cam, but the real heavy hitters are on the back panel. The V40’s black strip contains a standard 12MP camera, 16MP wide-angle sensor, and a 12MP telephoto lens capable of 2x optical zoom all directly above the phone’s fingerprint scanner. This trifecta combines its various lens lengths with the V40 ThinQ’s artificial intelligence capabilities to snap professional-grade shots.

“To improve the range of apertures and exposures our phones are capable of we had to either increase the size of the lenses or add more cameras,” LG smartphone product manager Kyle Yoon told Inverse. “We went with the latter to keep the V40 ThinQ as slender as possible and provide an extensive photography toolkit.”

With a few simple taps and swipes you can complement your scenic photo with an A.I. recommended filter or create an artsy GIF for a new Facebook profile image.

V40 ThinQ: Triple Shot Mode

Even though the phone comes with a host of lens options, users don’t have to worry about getting bogged down by decisions. Triple Shot Mode snaps a shot with all three rear cameras so you can decide which one suits the image best. It’ll even make a GIF cycling through all of the images.

The only drawback with this feature is that you have to hold the camera still for a second or two as the phone shutters all three of the lenses, and if you move, you’ll ruin the shot and get a blurry image. But this is still the fastest way to take photos with all three of the rear-facing sensors.

All these extra photos raises storage concerns, which is why the V40 ThinQ’s 64-gigabyte memory capacity can be expanded using a microSD card. If you still don’t want to scroll through a list of images, you can hold down the three buttons to the right in the camera app to preview how the image would look taken on each lens. Then just tap one to move to that setting.

V40 ThinQ: Cine Shot Mod

Cinemagraphs are essentially trippy GIFs where a small segment of the image moves while everything else keeps still. The V40 ThinQ’s Cine Shot Mode lets users mess with their friends’ heads by seamlessly letting you create a cinemagraph without the need of a third-party app.

Tap the Mode button at the top of the camera and select Cine Shot. Now, instead of taking a picture the app will record a two-second video. You’ll need to hold the camera still, but don’t sweat it too much Cine Shot will stabilize the video afterwards.

Once you’re done capturing, paint over the area you want to move in the cinemagraph like you’re coloring something in on Snapchat. The area that you paint over will cycle through the whole video, while everything else is frozen in the first frame of the recording.

V40 ThinQ: A.I. Cam

If you’re still getting the hang of the finer arts of Insta-filters, then A.I. Cam is the feature for you. Instead of having to tap through every filter your favorite social media app has to offer, the V40 ThinQ’s built-in camera A.I. will recommend what filters are best depending on the photo you’re taking.

Tap the A.I. Cam Mode button right above the shutter button to make the camera begin recognizing what it’s looking at. You’ll notice a symbol toward the bottom of the screen that will change to “City”, “Person”, or “Sunset” depending on where you’re pointing the camera.

Tapping this icon will bring up four filters that the V40 ThinQ believes will make your photo pop. Once you’ve decided on one, click it and snap your photo. It’s like having an image editor right in your pocket.