When the presentation for Europe of the Xiaomi 13 Pro is recent, with a camera in which Leica collaborates with a huge image sensor, it has already been leaked that the Xiaomi 13 Ultra will further improve its camera technology. It is not the only phone from a Chinese company that is turning photography upside down.
Xiaomi itself has already launched the Xiaomi 12S Ultra with a one-inch image sensor, the standard for the most advanced compact cameras from manufacturers such as Sony or Panasonic. Vivo, a company that is increasingly present in Spain, has also launched a phone with an image sensor of these characteristics. The Oppo Find X6 Pro also has an image sensor of that size. In fact, this model is at number one in the well-known and controversial ranking of DxO MarK.
Although the name “one-inch sensor” is used somewhat misleadingly, it is actually becoming something of a standard in higher-end Chinese phones. And surely it will not be strange to see it in a not too long time on mid-range phones. And who knows if also in basic range phones.
Other Chinese companies such as Honor have introduced phones with cameras that, although they do not use a one-inch sensor, are very close to this standard. Only the iPhone 14 Pro, the Google Pixel 7 Pro, and the Galaxy 23 Ultra stand up to this wave of Chinese photographic technology with image sensors close to one inch in size. Although in reality in the bowels of phones with one-inch cameras made in China there is Japanese technology.
The Sony IMX989 sensor is the one that most Chinese manufacturers are using. It is not for nothing that Sony is the largest manufacturer of image sensors for mobile phones. Despite the rise of computational photography, the Chinese companies that equip this technology seem to be clear that the purely photographic components are still the most important part of the camera.
The key to achieving better photos and videos is the size of each of the sensor's photodiodes, the so-called pixel size. The larger these photodiodes are, the more accurately they capture light. But the depth of field that a larger sensor can achieve is also important. This is important to distinguish between the figure and the ground.
The brightness and quality of the objective are also aspects to take into account. And finally that the phone has an optical or mechanical stabilization system (the latter is only available on some iPhones). This will allow you to shoot with slower shutter speeds for sharp images and lower the ISO sensitivity value. Which translates into images with less noise.
Let's see a practical case. The Samsung Galaxy 23 Ultra has a 200-megapixel main camera sensor with a size of 1/1.3 inches. A surface somewhat less than that of one-inch sensors.
But the fact that its optical stabilization system is more effective and allows you to take photos with slower speeds than other phones without losing sharpness, makes its quality equal to that of phones with one-inch image sensors. Especially in low light conditions.
To achieve this, Samsung makes extensive use of pixel binning technology, which creates virtual pixels that are larger and more sensitive to light. Although for this you have to reduce those 200 megapixels of resolution to only 12 megapixels in the photos.
In any case, the one-inch sensors of the phones still cannot have an optical zoom with a quality similar to that obtained with the main camera. That remains the main limitation of phone cameras. At least in order to compete with cameras with one-inch sensors and lenses with different focal lengths.
Although mobile phone camera manufacturers are making progress in this arena. Basically by equipping short-range telephoto lenses on their cameras and using computational photography to extend the reach of these lenses. In this sense, the optical zoom of the Xiaomi 13 Pro is remarkable. It is a very bright Leica Noctilux-M lens, f/2, and which also incorporates an optical stabilizer. Here Xiaomi distances itself from its competitors.
This type of lens provides a short-range zoom that in good light conditions can be expanded by algorithms to about five times magnification. The loss of quality is not excessive thanks to computational photography.
It is something similar to what Honor has implemented in its Magic 4 Pro. Although its telephoto lens is less luminous and with a zoom that is only slightly higher than that of the Xiaomi phone. But also computational photography algorithms are quite effective on this model, which appeared in 2022.
In fact, it seems designed to achieve a high quality zoom. Even framing distant objects. The Honor Magic 5 Pro, which is due to go on sale soon, seems to even improve this aspect.
Something similar to what Samsung is trying with its Galaxy 23 Ultra. Although Samsung has opted for a more risky solution: incorporate two cameras with zoom in this phone. One is 10 megapixels, has a brightness of f/2.4, and has a 3x zoom. The other equips a 10x zoom with lower brightness, f/4.9. Both cameras feature optical stabilization.
All this means that if we are looking for a long-range zoom, the two cameras with telephoto lenses of the Galaxy 23 Ultra allow us to obtain images of a certain quality. Although they are not alone in this task. They make a tandem with the 200 megapixel main camera and image processing algorithms.
Despite all that, zoom-equipped cameras on mobile phones lag far behind what cameras like the Sony RX100 VI achieve. A professional compact camera from Sony with a one-inch image sensor and a ZEISS Vario-Sonnar T 24-200mm f/2.8-4.5 10x lens.
The images that this Sony camera is capable of achieving are still very far, both in photography and in video, from what the telephoto cameras that equip any current phone are capable of achieving.
Although we must bear in mind that the Sony RX100 VI costs about 1,000 euros. Also, the differences in image quality between a camera like that and a phone with a one-inch sensor are barely noticeable if you just shoot with the wide-angle lens, without using the zoom.
What seems clear is that today to talk about photography it is necessary to continue talking about Canon, Sony, Nikon, Leica or Panasonic, but also about Apple, Xiaomi, Google, Samsung, Oppo, Vivo or Honor.
