After a wait that for many of us has been quite long after hundreds of rumours, Xiaomi presented a few days ago what will be its flagship phone during this year 2022. The Xiaomi 12S Ultra arrives to leave us speechless in terms of photography , both at the hardware and software level, and this is the first result of the collaboration between the Chinese company and the well-known German brand Leica.
In this post we are going to tell you what are the keys that this camera has to make it become one of this year’s benchmarks in terms of photographya job that is not only noticeable in the software work that both brands have done, but even hides sensors and lenses that we had not seen too often to date included in a smartphone.
The one-inch sensor signed by Sony is not the only culprit to obtain a better result
The first thing we want to detail before talking about the keys of these cameras is precisely to tell you what are the sensors and the configuration that Xiaomi has chosen for this equipmentwhich is made up of a total of four cameras on its back:
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50 MP Sony IMX969 main sensor with f/1.9 aperture
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48 MP ultra wide angle with f / 2.22 aperture
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48 MP telephoto with f / 4.1 aperture and 5x optical zoom
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3D ToF Sensor
As you can see, the most interesting thing about this configuration is that a Sony sensor has been chosen for the main sensor that has a size of 1 inch, a type of component that is much more common to see in cameras for semi-professional use such as the Sony ZV-1, and that makes the size that it occupies in the back of the team is absolutely crazy, but it helps to obtain an additional 72% of light with respect to what a Sony IMX707 can give us.
But not everything stays in this sensor, since Xiaomi has incorporated a processor expressly dedicated to processing the images that we take with it, a chip called Surge P1 which we have already been able to see previously in the Xiaomi 12 Pro but with another type of mission: avoid overheating of the phone once we use its fast charge of up to 120W.
In this Xiaomi 12S Ultra the role of this chip is very different as you can see and, as you can imagine, processing a photograph from a 1-inch sensor would put quite a bit of stress on the chip Qualcomm Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 that integrates this device, so it has been decided to dedicate a specific processor for this task and that everything runs normally and transparently for the user.
Another detail that has been taken care of to the millimeter is the composition of the lenses that are responsible for capturing the photograph together with the sensors, and this is where Leica has really had to put on the work overalls. In this case, the German company has decided to compose a system of eight aspherical lenses with the aim of achieving greater sharpness in the resultbut the most interesting thing is that we have a ultra low anti-optic coating responsible for avoiding flashes of light.
In fact, this is a fairly common problem when we use a compound lens system, and it is that in conditions of direct sunlight or even light from street lamps or other elements, the camera can represent them with some blurriness, and this is precisely what this coating manages to correct, supported of course by extra software work.
In addition to this, other elements have also been added to these lenses, such as a fairly common material used in this type of lens, such as cycloolefinwhich is a specially designed polymer for those applications requiring glass-like clarityso it is one more addition so that the sharpness of the photograph is greatly improved.
Finally, it should also be noted that another additional coating has been added, which is a infrared filter that improves color capture that the lens itself is capable of providing, something that is appreciated when it comes to avoiding certain chromatic aberration problems that are normally present at the edges of objects if the capture conditions are not ideal.
The software, that great forgotten that makes the difference
And to finish with this detailed explanation we have to do it by briefly talking about the software section since, as you all know, Leica and Xiaomi have co-developed a new specific application for Chinese brand devices with which we can raise our creativity and , by the way, achieve an image processing superior to what we had until now.
The first thing that we loved about this application is that Xiaomi has added different photography filters designed by Leica, known as Leica Vibrant and Leica Authenticboth with different shades and even with the possibility of using them in black and white, filters that will give our photographs a unique look and that we have historically seen in Leica cameras.
Another element that seems key to us is CyberFocus, a technology that we have already been able to test in other Xiaomi products and that makes all the difference when it comes to capturing moving photos with spectacular sharpness and focussomething that not only helps this task in photo captures, but also in video with a very fast focus.
Finally, we cannot forget the compatibility of this phone with the capture of photos in 10-bit RAW format, resulting in a DNG file calibrated by Adobe Labs and that we can edit without any problem from applications such as Adobe Lightroom or Photoshop, as you can see. , all very focused on the professional use of a camera that is worked down to the smallest detail.
In short, on paper it seems that the camera of this Xiaomi 12S Ultra will become one of the best we currently have in the entire mobile telephony landscape, and Perhaps this is the big step that phones needed to take the place of other cameras for semi-professional use when it comes to doing work. Only time will tell, but due to work and care on the part of the brand it will not be.