This Xiaomi Smartphone Features a Full-sized Leica Lens

Whereas smartphone lens attachments definitely do exist available on the market, few individuals have in all probability thought {that a} telephone maker would ramp this compatibility as much as embody full-sized skilled lenses.

Xiaomi nevertheless has accomplished simply that. The corporate has been engaged on a brand new telephone that’s particularly designed to be suitable with severe, skilled M-mount lenses from none aside from Leica.

The Chinese language telephone maker initially shared the idea for this new telephone on its Weibo web page (a form of Chinese language social media platform) and has since unfold the information of its existence to Twitter and elsewhere.

Basically, Xiaomi introduced that its just lately unveiled 12S Extremely telephone, which isn’t obtainable in the US however which comprises an extremely massive and highly effective telephone digital camera/lens combo, was initially speculated to be rather more bold.

This much more excessive challenge was a “12S Extremely Idea Telephone” variant that accepts Leica M mount lenses by letting them be mounted to an enlarged Kind 1 50.3-megapixel sensor with an adapter for these particular lens varieties.

Once more, we’re speaking right here a few full-sized digital camera sensor on a smartphone that accepts a full-sized digital camera lens for actually crisp pictures. These photographs supposedly transcend the standard pixel-binned “massive decision” images of most trendy smartphones.

Mainly, the sensor and lens combo would have the ability to produce images that’s a lot nearer to what a real mirrorless digital camera can do.

Picture credit: Xiaomi

Nonetheless, as Engadget reported, solely 10 models of this Leica-compatible telephone have been produced and every one in all them got here at an absurd price of $41,210 {dollars}, or roughly 300,000 Chinese language Yuan.

Even for those who take the included Leica lens into consideration, this worth appears greater than a bit steep, but it surely didn’t cease Xiaomi from lending a couple of pattern fashions of the telephone out to pick out social media influencers for hands-on use.

Xiaomi hasn’t acknowledged whether or not it deliberate on critically mass producing this digital camera/telephone but it surely not less than did create it to reveal useful proof-of-concept for the gadget.

It’s price noting that the gadget actually does work too. Although the massive lens appears weird poking out lopsidedly from one aspect of the elegantly flat telephone itself, the combo can take nice pictures, because the examples that Xiaomi confirmed off present beneath.

To date, regardless of plenty of media hype over telephone digital camera sensor specs and lenses, smartphones typically can’t recreate the form of high quality that full cameras with ostensibly decrease resolutions are able to.

The explanations for this partly must do with the dimensions of particular person pixels and the way they take up gentle, and we cowl the matter extra on this submit on one other latest telephone with an enormous digital camera sensor.

Xiaomi’s 12S Extremely comes near leaping over these limitations, and the idea 12S Extremely with Leica lens would have presumably accomplished so to an excellent larger diploma.

It might be cool too as a result of the concept of a smartphone having the ability to ship pro-photographic decision and lens performance is certainly attractive. It might not less than be implausible for skilled ultra-compact images.

Different corporations have even toyed with the identical notion: Again in 2014, Sony created two smartphone attachment units known as the QX1 and QX30, which had been designed to work with Sony’s personal E-mount lenses.

Nonetheless, these lenses didn’t really mount to a telephone. As a substitute, they took the pictures by these units after which despatched them wirelessly to a close-by telephone.

The actually great place in all of this may be a telephone or phone-sized gadget with the identical thinness of a telephone, however with the flexibility to create pictures in addition to a full digital camera may even on the fine-grained degree. This stays tough.