The Xiaomi 12T Pro is without doubt one of the first smartphones with a 200-megapixel digicam. Unless you’re making wall-sized gallery prints, that’s about 150 megapixels too many. I took the 12T Pro to Seattle’s spacious Central Library to place each a kind of pixels to work. Many gigabytes later, I’m right here to let you know that you simply’re not lacking a lot together with your 12 or 50-megapixel smartphone digicam.

Why would anybody need a 200-megapixel digicam within the first place? There are two issues you are able to do with a really high-resolution picture. First, you may make a high-quality 40 x 60-inch print. I extremely doubt any of you’re doing that, so the second choice is extra related: crop. 

With 200 million pixels at your disposal, you may make some very aggressive crops and nonetheless preserve loads of decision. This is the function that Xiaomi is leaning into with a instrument known as ProMinimize, which analyzes your 200-megapixel pictures and suggests alternate crops within the cellphone’s picture gallery app. 

Here’s the issue, although: that is nonetheless a comparatively small sensor with a small lens, and whenever you view a 200-megapixel picture at full dimension, the shortcomings are apparent. Sure, you may see stuff that’s barely seen whenever you’re becoming the picture to no matter dimension display you’re utilizing. But particulars appear to be smeary watercolors, and even a 12-megapixel crop considered at a small display dimension doesn’t look fairly proper: an excessive amount of noise and noise discount smoothing, which is an unpleasant combo.

And because you’re utilizing each out there pixel, you additionally gained’t get the advantage of pixel-binning. In the usual 12-megapixel mode, the digicam teams knowledge from a number of pixels to enhance low-light picture high quality. You can’t try this whenever you’re utilizing each single pixel individually. Not surprisingly, dynamic vary in high-res mode can be restricted for the reason that digicam doesn’t seem to make use of HDR the identical approach because it does in common taking pictures. You find yourself with areas of very darkish shadow element. I’m not a fan of going wild with HDR, however sparsely, it’s a helpful factor. The 12T Pro’s normal taking pictures mode does a superb job of making use of HDR with a light-weight hand, and it takes good images general: colours are vivid with out wanting cartoonish, albeit with a slight tendency to overexpose. 

Xiaomi’s concept with the 200MP mode appears to be that you could shoot now and crop nonetheless you need later. It doesn’t at all times work out. If you go in for actually aggressive crops, you’re coping with a whole lot of noise and smeary particulars. On the opposite hand, in case you’re simply cropping to a special facet ratio — like turning a panorama picture into portrait — 200 megapixels is overkill to start out with, and the ensuing picture file remains to be large. I took certainly one of Xiaomi’s crop solutions, which turned a 200-megapixel panorama picture of my cat right into a… 100-megapixel portrait picture of my cat. I don’t want that sort of factor chewing up my cellphone’s space for storing.

In any case, the “shoot now, compose later” ethos feels counterintuitive to how I take photos on a cellphone. I’d reasonably see the picture on the display the way in which I need it. Being there, within the second, within the area I’m photographing is an enormous a part of the enjoyment I take from pictures. I wish to select what’s or isn’t in my shot and whether or not it’s a panorama or portrait-oriented picture, and outsourcing that stuff to AI feels like no enjoyable.

Xiaomi additionally promotes ProCut as a good tool for photographing people, however don’t count on to get superb portraits out of its 200-megapixel pictures. Because the lens and sensor are so small, you’re going to get a whole lot of your background in focus reasonably than blurred away like an enormous, devoted portrait lens would. You can’t use the digicam’s portrait mode impact after the actual fact with ProMinimize, both. One of the the explanation why Apple and Google’s 2x crop modes are so efficient is that you need to use them in portrait mode as you’re taking the picture. Plucking topics out of a wide-angle shot and turning them into particular person portraits simply isn’t going to look the identical.

The extra I pore over my 200-megapixel pictures, the extra satisfied I’m that fifty megapixels is the candy spot for high-resolution pictures, no less than with the expertise we have now proper now. Xiaomi may really agree. 50-megapixel mode is the default setting within the Ultra HD part of the digicam app, the place the high-res modes dwell. It bins 4 pixels collectively and gives beneficiant leeway for drastic cropping, however with higher noise management and sharper particulars than the 200-megapixel mode. It’s the mode I’d maintain utilizing if I used to be going to proceed taking pictures with the 12T Pro. For now, 200 megapixels is just some greater than I would like.

Photography by Allison Johnson / The Verge