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Xiaomi’s brings interchangeable lenses to phones with its new 12S Ultra Concept smartphone

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The idea of using a lens from a “real camera” on a smartphone is not new. There have been a number of adapters announced over the years with some as far back as 2014 and older. Most of them haven’t really had an amazing reception, which is why they’re not really all that mainstream today. But mobile photography has come a long way since those early devices. Now, there are a number of 3D printable adapters and other options out there to do this.

Xiaomi, though, is doing away with adapters completely and building an interchangeable lens mount right into the phone itself. Their newest 12S Ultra concept phone sports a Leica M mount with a 1-inch 50.3-megapixel sensor.

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Xiaomi’s 12S Ultra packs a huge 1-Inch camera sensor with Leica optics

Xiaomi has now officially announced its new Xiaomi 12S Ultra smartphone, bringing with it a pair of half-inch sensors for ultrawide and periscope zoom cameras parked next to a huge 1-inch sensor main camera. It’s Sony’s flagship 1-Inch IMX989 sensor, with 50.3-megapixels of resolution and a 23mm equivalent focal length wide-angle lens. This is the largest sensor of any smartphone on the market.

In its quad pixel 4-in-1 binned mode it also features the largest individual pixels at 3.2µm which should help with low light and low noise images. Leica’s contribution, according to GSM Arena, is its 8P element lens as well as the software. The phone itself is powered by Qualcomm’s latest SM8450 Snapdragon S8+ Gen 1 processor.

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Xiaomi pilfers Leica away from Huawei for new 12 Ultra phone

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Phone company Xiaomi has recently revealed that it will be partnering with camera brand Leica for its next flagship phone, the Xiaomi 12 Ultra.

Previously, Leica was working with rival mobile phone company Huawei. That partnership has apparently now ended with the announcement of the new deal with Xiaomi.

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Qualcomm shows off world’s first 8K HDR footage from a smartphone but it looks kinda terrible

Qualcomm has posted a video showing what they say is “Professional-quality” 8K HDR footage from the Xiaomi 12 smartphone. It’s the world’s first phone that offers 8K HDR video capture and features the new flagship Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 processor. It all sounds very impressive until you actually look at the footage to see that, honestly, it kinda just looks like somebody took 1080p footage and scaled it up.

In fairness, all tech has to start somewhere and this is the first smartphone to incorporate 10-bit 8K HDR using Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 processor – although it’s not the only device out there using this chip – so it’s going to take a little work. But right now, it kinda looks like somebody just took 1080p footage and scaled it up.

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Xiaomi teases new Mi MIX – the world’s first smartphone with a liquid lens

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Xiaomi has teased their upcoming Mi MIX smartphone with a camera that contains a world’s first. It’s going to have a liquid lens that adjusts its focal length and focus distance through the use of an electrical charge. This isn’t the first liquid lens to exist, and they’re common for some industrial uses, but it’s the first time one will be getting put into a production smartphone.

Other than the lens, there aren’t really many details about the new device yet or even just its camera – although no paternership deals with Zeiss, Leica or Hasselblad have been announced. Oh wait, they did get into bed with Light a couple of years ago. And Xiaomi did put out a survey last year to see if they should team up with a big name camera manufacturer (and which one). So… maybe?

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Xiaomi shows off retractable smartphone lens with IS, increased sensitivity and sharpness

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It’s been a long time coming, and they’ve been common in compact cameras since the days of 35mm film, but it looks like retractable lenses might finally start popping up in our smartphones. During yesterday’s Xiaomi Developer Conference in Beijing, they showed off a new lens tech that could potentially help smartphone photography take a giant leap. And soon, too!

GSMArena reports that Xiaomi has said the tech is ready to go, right now for implementation in real products. They say that it can collect 300% more light than traditional lenses – which means we might finally start to see phone images higher than ISO50 with drastically reduced levels of noise.

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Light bows out of the smartphone camera industry

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It’s been an interesting journey for Light, the company that brought us that crazy 16-lens camera five years ago. It garnered a lot of hype when it was first announced, and once word got out that the company had secured $30mil in funding and the Light L16 camera was going to see a big storage increase, a lot of people got excited. It wasn’t until 2017 that they actually started shipping, but the reception was somewhat cold.

In 2018, it seemed Light was teaming up with a company (which turned out to be Nokia) to make smartphones, and in 2019 they announced partnerships with both Xiaomi and Sony. Now, Light has announced they are “no longer operating in the smartphone industry”. Exactly what this means for Light’s future is unclear.

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Xiaomi to partner with Nikon, Canon or even Hasselblad for their next camera array, report suggests

The competition is fierce among smartphone brands. The camera and camera features are now a critical aspect in phone marketing. More megapixels, more cameras, and better software are key features when it comes to market strategies.

R&D is expensive so establishing partnerships with other manufacturers makes sense twice: Firstly, it saves on development resources.  Secondly, it validates the brand and puts a prestigious halo around it. Just look at the last crop of partnerships: Huawei & Leica, Motorola & Hasselblad and Nokia & Zeiss. (I could possibly say Sony & Sony, but that would just be funny). Now Xiaomi wants in on the camera “old money” and seeking out a partnership.

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Xiaomi launches the CC9 Pro, their first 108-megapixel camera smartphone

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Xiaomi recently teased a new smartphone containing Samsung’s new 108-megapixel sensor, the Xiomi Mi Mix Alpha, although this phone won’t be going into mass production, and it’s not quite ready for release yet anyway. But now they’ve gone and announced the CC9 Pro, which also features the 108-megapixel sensor and is now already for sale in China.

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