Mi Note 10, our night and day photos with the 108 megapixel smartphone

Of the cameras of the new Mi Note 10 we have already spoken yesterday: on paper we find ourselves in front of the most complete smartphone existing on the market today, both for the number of cameras and for the resolution of the main sensor. But how do you take photos of this Mi Note 10?

We spent a few hours in Madrid taking photographs in all conditions, trying to use all the lenses and therefore all the sensors. And we did a little bit of an idea of ​​what might be the strengths and what are the things to fix. Before passing on to the actual photographs some background information: the curved edges, perhaps beautiful if you look at the aesthetics, are a bit of a nuisance when photographing why the system that handles occasional touches is not very effective. When we hold the smartphone horizontally, some accidental touch of the edge brings out the options window or it inadvertently changes the photo shooting mode.

The photographic interface is rich, the smartphone has so many features, and there is a key that allows you to directly reach the 108 megapixel mode: comfortable, even when shooting with such a high resolution we must take into account the size of the files which can even reach 28 MB for each file, and we're talking about Jpegs. RAWs, at 108 megapixels, cannot be saved.

Another detail to consider is that related to the memories: the UFS 2.1 are fast but not so fast to quickly manage the data volume of the giant sensor. Saving a 108 megapixel photo requires a few seconds to wait, as they require some time for processing and saving operations such as the calculation of the depth on the portrait mode and the processing of the photos in Night mode. The latter is active only on the main chamber and on the 2x chamber, but the super wide shots, even without night mode, are not bad at all. Perhaps faster memories, and even a faster processor, didn't hurt.

Here are some photographs taken, with the shooting parameters and the possibility of having the file at full resolution.

This is a 108 megapixel photograph, a classic photography in tourism: the detail is remarkable, and if you want you can play with the shot to take advantage of only a portion of the original photo. Below the 100% crop: it's a jpeg, so compressed, and there's some aliasing filter, but we're talking about a tiny detail of the photo above. Really good.

Let's move on to three photographs taken with the 20 megapixel super wide. They are all very enjoyable, with a distortion, corrected by software, almost absent. The nocturnal one, even without the night mode, still defends itself well.

The sensor is large, wider than that usually used by other manufacturers. Only Huawei, on the Mate 30 Pro, used an even more generous sensor for the Super Wide, but maybe it didn't help. We would have appreciated an even more pushed opening, to enhance a goal that lends itself particularly to some "creative" situations.

Let's play now with the zoom: the starting point is a photo taken with the 108 megapixel, followed by a photograph taken with 50 mm and finally by a photo taken by the sensor with a "tele" lens at 5x, then 5 megapixel resolution the final. The result, with a similar image, is not bad at all.

Let's go back to the 108 megapixel shots: in this hotel you can appreciate the tightness of detail, even at the edges. Perhaps it will not be true 108 megapixels, something is lost by the definition of the lens and the crosstalk, but you can't really talk about marketing: the photo is actually huge and with so much light the sensor has no difficulty in solving small elements, such as the antenna or the railing on the right.

Here is the 100% magnification: a little mixed, a little soft, not the 100 megapixels of the Fujifilm GFX100 but the result is almost miraculous.

The two photos below look identical, but one is taken in classic photo mode and one instead in 108 megapixel mode.

The comparison between the two shows how effectively there is a considerable profit margin when using full resolution: sharpness and detail are doubled.

Below the portrait mode, proven thanks to a passing tourist: good the contour, even if it was not difficult at all, has straight hair. Xiaomi, like many other producers, continues to call it portrait mode, but in reality it applies blur to everything, as long as a subject is within 2 meters.

Below a photo where you can see all the limits of the 5x zoom: on moving subjects the noise is really excessive. Useful for social media, but impossible to think of making a crop, also because the starting resolution is already low, only 5 megapixels.

Let's now turn to night-time photos: in this case we have not even entered the Night mode, the sensor is large, handles 600 ISO without any problem and without excessive noise. We tried with a result that we thought was excellent.

Portrait mode also works well at night, and even the artificial blurring of light sources such as street lamps in the background is not bad at all. Here the example with a statue, the bokeh is there even if the person being photographed is not a person. As we wrote the "portrait" works on every subject, and must be used when you want to play with depth of field.

Even in this absolutely trivial photograph, one can still appreciate the high detail and the absolutely contained noise. The smartphone could eat the parts in the shade, instead it manages to maintain good dynamic control.

Another picture in portrait mode, subject well cropped up even in low light and pleasant blur in the background. Night photos tend to go a bit yellow, automatic white adjustment is not flawless.

Here instead we used the Night mode and the 2X objective: no burnt light, good recovery of the shadows. Absolutely a good result.

The same photograph that we took before with the super wide-angle lens we redid it freehand using the 108 megapixel sensor and 108 megapixels. This is how the "giant" sensor behaves when conditions are not optimal. It's not Night mode, it's a normal photo.

There is no astrophotography mode, but using the Night mode even in a place where light pollution is high, and it shows, you can photograph the stars. We could see them with the naked eye, even if with a little difficulty, the sensor has seen them. Two freehand shots.

Always night mode, always the main sensor: this time the subject is the train station, with a facade that is really difficult to manage due to the lights and the details. But the Mi Note 10 overcomes the test without problems.

Here a shot using 50 mm in full daylight: although it is not the sensor with the highest resolution, this 12 megapixel returns very clean and perfectly enjoyable photos.

Usually we say "dulcis in fundo", but we leave the macro with the 2 megapixel as the last photo. There is no resolution, but focusing so close in certain moments is useful. A doubt remains: using the 108 megapixel sensor and with a nice crop the same result was obtained. We remain convinced: the macro serves to make number.

This is what the Mi Note 10 can do today. The 108 megapixels are there, they won't all be 108 why something in terms of definition is lost due to the resolving power of the lens, but the starting material is really valid. Even the camera application seemed well made, however we would have slightly revised the setting: the zoom management, for example, is really cumbersome and the transition between one lens and another is not at all fluid.

Speed ​​must also be improved, but this is difficult: the processor is not the best on the market and there is not an additional processor for machine learning, therefore certain calculations that use computational photography algorithms, such as contouring and night shooting , they will always be slower, you have to wait 7 seconds before seeing the photo. The giant file sizes don't help: let's remember that the smartphone must handle 108 "raw" megapixels on each installation, to then process and compress them: it is not a trivial matter.

They are obviously first impressions, based also on what is an initial software version that will be optimized in the coming weeks. In some respects it has impressed us, especially for the resolution, but something needs to be fixed: the white balance during night shots is a little busted and the 5x zoom with moving subjects tends to knead too much the details.

The best cameraphone on the market? Hard to say, photography is not all resolution, there is also more. Some photos may appear a bit flat, others require some work. The photograph above, for example, was processed starting from the RAW, you can better manage the details, there is a bit more noise but the photo is more enjoyable.

Xiaomi has a great starting material to work with, and the result is already exceptional. The road is downhill, and now many will follow it. Last year we were incredulous in front of 40 megapixels, they seemed already exaggerated. Now they are 108, and more and more manufacturers will adopt this sensor: they are many, perhaps too many, but they are not completely useless. And this photo proves it.