Xiaomi is spearheading the smartphone camera department now, and we Malaysians are enjoying it just 1 month after the global launch. This is a continuation of their commitment to bringing the latest devices to Malaysia as soon as possible. That means we Malaysians are one of the earliest countries to enjoy the latest Xiaomi Mi Note 10 and its 108MP glory.
This smartphone is certainly something unique. It’s targeted towards smartphone photographers as it has a total of 5 cameras – one for each situation:
- 5x optical zoom telephoto: 5MP (upscaled to 8MP) f/2.0; PDAF, Laser AF, OIS, 5x optical zoom
- 2x optical zoom telephoto: 12MP f/2.0; Dual Pixel PDAF, Laser AF, 2x optical zoom
- Main: 108MP f/1.7 with 7P lens; PDAF, Laser AF, OIS
- Ultrawide angle: 20MP f/2.2; Laser AF
- Macro: 2MP f/2.4
Through Xiaomi’s partnership with Samsung, it enabled the Mi Note 10 to become the world’s first smartphone to have a 108MP camera. It is also the world’s first smartphone to have 5 usable cameras at the rear. And obviously, we took it out for a photo shoot – and we’ll be focusing on that 108MP camera.
There are a few notable scenarios on why we should use the 108MP camera – here are a few of them. All shots shown here are downsized to 1920×1440 pixels. to view the pictures in its full resolution, click here to visit our Shutterfly album.
Taking 108MP and downsizing it
Starting with the most common usage, downsizing. It is done to improve on the sharpness of the images, hence having better clarity on intricate details. This is not to be confused with pixel binning, which is the act of combining 4 pixels into one large pixel for better low-light shots.
As seen here, the tree leaves and grasses are clearly defined, and the brick tiled floor is great. We can still see the lines around the converging point of the brick tiled floor – which is a testament to this camera’s clarity.
Cropping leeway
For me personally, I enable grids on every single phone that I use because I want to get a better composition for each shot that I take. But sometimes, I have a change of mind after looking at the picture again – and I have to crop and rotate the picture a little.
That’s where having a high megapixel count really helps. I took these pictures in 108MP and realized that the image needs a little bit of cropping and rotation to straighten it. After editing, the image still retains a high level of clarity and detail.
A tip from us – don’t shift crop to a corner too much or the parallax will be unnatural. Crop around the center to prevent this.
Pixel-peeping details
Sometimes, when we took a picture and see it back a few hours later, we realized there’s something odd. It could be a blotch of color or perhaps someone’s shirt was inverted. Maybe you realized some random dude was posing in the background.
By taking 108MP pictures with the Xiaomi Mi Note 10, we’re able to peek at specific areas of the pictures to see what’s going on. For us, there’s a signboard behind which we had no idea it was there in the first place.
And what about this keyboard’s keycap? We know the legends are pad-printed, but what we didn’t know is how imperfect the printing was. I mean, it’s clearly not flat.
Mapping textures
To draw inspiration and ideas on how to create something life-like, textures are needed. It gives context to what would otherwise be a splat of ink – and textures tend to be really small and has lots of variation. Coconut isn’t entirely of the same color as some parts may have brown patches, as shown here.
We can also crop in and see that these coconuts have some sort of line that runs longitudinally along the coconut.
Another example is this flower. It looks like a blotch of pink color. When we zoomed in, we can see that it’s having some hair-like structure. We can see how light bounced off each individual hair and the petal curves. Even my eyes can’t see the individual strands of hair.
But there’s more
The 108MP camera is only one out of the total 5 rear-facing cameras on the Xiaomi Mi Note 10. We still have the ultrawide angle camera, two telephoto cameras with different zooming distances – and that’s excluding the 50x digital zoom capability. Let’s not forget that it also has another dedicated macro camera.
The Mi Note 10 has a camera for all of the situations that we can think of. It can even capture images in RAW format, so you can further tune the levels to create beautiful pictures. As it stands now, the Mi Note 10 and its software by default is already better than many smartphones in the market.
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