Check out these images: new phone camera takes shockingly good DSLR-like photos impossible to capture on iPhone or Galaxy S23 Ultra


We have all been waiting for that one phone to bring the next generational leap in phone camera quality and show us meaningful innovation over the Galaxy S23 Ultra, iPhone 14 Pro Max and the Google Pixel 7 Pro, and now it's here.

But maybe not in the form that we expected. The just-released Xiaomi 13 Pro makes no secret of its huge camera aspirations, but most of the talk has actually been about its main camera sensor that is much larger than the competition.
Xiaomi is one of the first companies to bring a 1-inch type sensor to its main camera, a bigger and more powerful size than what we have on the iPhone, Galaxy and Pixel.

But surprisingly, a few days after the release of the phone, Xiaomi 13 Pro owners are actually sharing less photos from that 1-inch dream camera sensor and more pictures from... o fitother camera
Xiaomi is one of the first companies to bring a 1-inch type sensor to its main camera, a bigger and more powerful size than what we have on the iPhone, Galaxy and Pixel.

But surprisingly, a few days after the release of the phone, Xiaomi 13 Pro owners are actually sharing less photos from that 1-inch dream camera sensor and more pictures from... one of its other cameras!

A SURPRISING NEW TELEPHOTO CAMERA WITH CLOSE-UP FOCUS STEALS THE SHOW


The Xiaomi 13 Pro has a triple camera system with a main, ultra-wide and telephoto shooters, and it is this innovative new telephoto camera that has surprisingly turned out to be the star of the show.

Instead of using a long-range periscope zoom camera like you have on say the Galaxy S22 Ultra, the Xiaomi 13 Pro uses a traditional zoom camera with a 3.2X zoom range, or around 75mm.

And if this was the whole story, it would be... well, quite unremarkable! But this new camera actually comes with one superpower that we have never before seen on a zoom shooter: it is able to focus at extremely close distances!

Xiaomi 13 Pro Close-up Zoom Photos

Users on Chinese microblog Weibo (via Notebookcheck) have been jubilant about this new camera, and the images they have captured are truly a testament to the incredible look that you can get out of this shooter. It really looks nothing like a smartphone picture, this has dreamy bokeh that you typically expect out of a professional camera coupled with an expensive macro lens!

Being able to get so close with the zoom camera, opens a whole world of possibilities. Close-up shots of pets, beautiful pictures of bees and other insects, all of that just lends itself perfectly to this new camera.

The innovation behind this ability to focus close with a telephoto camera is a floating element inside the lens that moves as you shift the focus. Traditional cameras use a stationary lens and they cannot achieve such close-up focus.