One day more than a hundred years ago, after being fed up with the cumbersome and cumbersome operation of large-format cameras, German mechanical engineer Oskar Barnack successfully designed a 24×36 mm prototype Leica camera (Ur-Leica) using 35 mm film film. . This "light meter" uses a 42mm lens, a shutter speed of l/40 seconds, and can take 40 negatives, becoming the world's first 135mm camera. The compact, lightweight and pocket-friendly body design has changed the way photographers take pictures and opened up a new perspective for photographers. Many photographers use Leica cameras to record countless important moments and ordinary lives in human life. .
Times have changed, and smartphones have replaced card machines as the most common shooting tool in life. In the era of moving images, century-old and Leica provide new answers. The Xiaomi 12S Ultra in front of us now combines Leica's in-depth understanding of optics, tone and image quality with and Xiaomi 's rich experience in mobile computing photography. The output photos have colors that highly match the tone of Leica cameras. Injecting the purest German flavor into smartphones.
What is the "German taste" of Leica cameras?
"German taste" is a very broad concept. Generally speaking, it means that the red and blue of the image are rich, the color transition is natural, the oil is delicate and the temperature is moderate, and the inner focus is sharp and the outer focus is soft. In terms of imaging performance, it is sharp and takes into account dark details. Doesn’t it sound very “metaphysical”? If we break down the words in this passage and extract a few representative keywords, we may be able to understand what "virtue" is.
Keyword 1: The color is rich and oily, and the transition is natural.
Generally, we think that the color of the photo is thick but not heavy, and the saturation is high without overflowing. Performance. Generally speaking, lenses with better optical performance and better expressiveness are more likely to produce oily textures.
The frame and lens play a decisive factor in the image quality. In order to present the rich and oily texture on Xiaomi 12S Ultra like a Leica camera, Xiaomi 12S Ultra is equipped with the Leica Summicron imaging system jointly developed with Leica. The main camera is equipped with a complete one-inch sensor (IMX989) jointly developed with Sony . It integrates a new generation of CMOS advanced technology, uses Quad-Bayer pixel array, and has an unprecedented 3.2µm fusion pixel, and has excellent noise control capabilities, greater light input, and ultra-large single-frame dynamic range.
You must know that it is not easy to stuff a one-inch sensor into the compact body of a mobile phone. Not to mention adding another lens that can cover the entire CMOS. Moreover, the larger the frame size, the larger the lens is required to achieve the same FOV. In order to leave no regrets, Xiaomi and Leica relied on high-speed computer simulation to create an 8P aspherical lens that perfectly matches the characteristics of the one-inch sensor.
In an era of continuous technological advancement, aspheric lenses can not only reduce the size of the lens, but also make the design of the optical path extremely flexible, minimizing the edge aberration of the lens and providing good resolution at the center and edge. The addition of cyclic olefin material gives the lens the ability to absorb purple light . In scenes where purple edges are prone to appear, clearer and purer pictures can be obtained.
In addition to the main camera, Xiaomi Mi 12S Ultra is also equipped with a 128° FOV ultra-wide angle and a 120mm focal length periscope lens. Both use 1/2-inch sensors (IMX586), and the former has an F2.2 aperture. , the latter adopts a periscope structure and supports 5x optical zoom . Relying on Leica's world-class optical design capabilities, strict optical quality testing standards and Xiaomi's miniaturization design capabilities, the three lenses cover the 13-120mm focal length and all have high resolution, high light transmittance , and low dispersion capabilities.
Keyword 2: The picture is sharp and takes into account dark details
The addition of computational photography has greatly improved the imaging quality, effect and film yield of mobile phone imaging systems, but with the addition of various algorithms, it is inevitable that the image will appear in the picture It leaves traces and causes the image to have an overly digital feel. What is missing is tone.For photographic works, tone refers to the relationship between the light and dark levels of the picture, the contrast between the virtual and the real, and the hue and light of the color. In terms of tone, Dewei's pictures pursue the best balance between the two contradictions of sharpness and dark details. The picture is rich in layers, with bright parts being warmer and dark parts being colder, and there are details from bright parts to dark parts.
As a century-old imaging manufacturer, Leica has a deep understanding and accumulation of how to present true tones in photos. In the film era, Leica performed well in red and blue, forming a bluish, colder tone and a unique dark tone. In the digital age, Leica has transformed this understanding and accumulation into a set of photoelectric transfer functions with strict scientific basis, which can accurately capture and restore light, shadow, and color while retaining enough information for post-processing. Finally, Xiaomi Mi 12S Ultra brings two color tones: "Leica Classic" and "Leica Vivid".
Leica Classic
Leica Vivid
Among them, Leica Classic highly fits the Leica Look of Leica cameras, retaining the true light and dark contrast in the picture, and avoiding the algorithm's large distortion of light, shadow and color. Leica Vivid adjusts the brightness and saturation of the picture while maintaining accuracy and restraint. Through a set of simple comparisons, it is not difficult to see that Leica classic colors are thicker and closer to the colors actually observed by the human eye. Leica Vivid has a brighter picture and higher saturation based on restrained colors.
Keyword 3: Vignette
Due to defects in early camera mechanisms and lenses, the surrounding vignetting effect has become an important feature of film flavor. Xiaomi Mi 12S Ultra has darker tones in Leica standard mode, giving people a feeling of film thickness.
At the same time, Xiaomi Mi 12S Ultra adds four filters from Leica cameras: Leica Natural, Leica Vivid, Leica Monochrome and Leica Monochrome HC. Among them, Leica Vivid has high saturation, contrast and vignetting; Leica Monochrome has high contrast and vignetting; Leica Monochrome HC adds granularity to the monochrome, making the picture more narrative.
Leica monochrome
Leica monochrome HC
Xiaomi 12S Ultra also innovatively adds three of Leica’s most classic legendary lenses. Among them, the 5mm classic black and white lens simulates the classic 35mm F/1.4 lens, with unique black and white texture and humanity. sense; the 50mm classic rotating focus lens simulates the 50 F/0.95 "Night God" lens known as the optical miracle of mankind, with amazing shallow depth of field and rotating light spot. The 90mm classic soft focus lens simulates the 90mm F/2.2 lens and has a strong soft focus effect.
In order to achieve fast and accurate focusing speed, Xiaomi Mi 12S Ultra is equipped with a multi-coil motor with twice the AF driving force. Together with Octa-PD and 8x8 laser focusing system, it can accurately identify subjects and objects based on AI computer vision . Segmenting the tracked object, through human body/object feature self-learning technology, human body ReID technology, locking focus tracking automatic determination technology and high-precision low-power human body/pet detection model and other technologies from the CyberDog quadruped free robot vision system, can Lock the person's face and eyes in real time to achieve precise facial focus.
Keyword 4: No underexposure in dark areas in low light environments, and underexposure in bright areas
Due to the excellent optical lens and body design, Leica cameras can take photos with strong contrast between light and dark and light and shadow in low light environments without the use of flash. . Dark colors are not underexposed, bright colors are not underexposed, and there are rich details. The one-inch outsole equipped with Xiaomi 12S Ultra has the ability to reduce dimensionality among many smartphone products. With its excellent photosensitivity, it does not need to rely on multi-frame HDR synthesis when shooting at night. It can be achieved with just a single frame photo. Capture sufficient dynamic range. Therefore, Xiaomi 12S Ultra’s night scene photos this time have a more realistic texture like a SLR camera.
As shown in the same picture, in the photo taken by Xiaomi Mi 12S Ultra, the colors in the light are thick and oily, and the sky is black and clean and pure. The texture is real, transparent, natural and rich.
Faced with the annoying ghost glare problem when shooting night scenes, Xiaomi Mi 12S Ultra uses an infrared filter spin-coating process to treat the CMOS surface, and performs special anti-reflective treatment on the cover glass on the surface of the lens module. The edge non-imaging area of each lens is coated with ink, and each lens is treated with double-sided multi-layer ultra-low anti-reflection coating, which effectively improves the occurrence of petal glare, ghosting, stray light in the lens barrel, and halo glare.
In addition to the traditional model watermark, Xiaomi has customized the Leica Master watermark specifically for the camera. There is a large area of blank space under each picture, which contains the device model, time, location, focal length, aperture, shutter speed, ISO and other information. Of course The most important thing is that it is also blessed with Leica's Coca-Cola logo, and every photo is certified by Leica.
Xiaomi 12S Ultra is more than just Leica
Many rich and interesting functions of Xiaomi 12S Ultra are retained, such as long exposure and movie lenses. Many creative templates are preset. With these functions, you can achieve things such as Hitchcock zoom and Focus shooting screen. Functions such as AI intelligent person removal, picture and text extraction, and AI ID photos can also be implemented locally. With the support of the algorithm, in complex scenes such as zebra crossings, the keying is still clean and natural.
It is also the first Android device to support Dolby Vision HDR recording and playback, supporting up to 4K 60-frame Dolby Vision recording, using 10bit color depth, Rec.2020 color space and HLG electro-optical transfer function to achieve high range and maximum compatibility. Videos recorded with Xiaomi Mi 12S Ultra have the Dolby logo in the album. You can directly upload them to websites such as bilibili to directly enjoy the charm of Dolby Vision.
At the same time, with the powerful ISP performance of the first-generation Snapdragon 8+ flagship processor, the three rear lenses of Xiaomi 12S Ultra all support native 8K video shooting, and provide LOG curve, manual control focus, A series of professional video shooting functions such as peak focus and histogram assist shooting. To be honest, none of my cameras support 8K shooting yet. I first realized the freedom of 8K video shooting on Xiaomi Mi 12S Ultra.
debuts the first generation Snapdragon 8+ flagship processor, Genshin Impact 60 frames are stable this time!
Xiaomi’s launch of and Qualcomm’s flagship SoC has been mentioned too many times. The specific performance depends on Xiaomi’s adjustment. The first-generation Snapdragon 8+ flagship processor finally uses the long-awaited TSMC 4nm process, which precisely integrates tens of billions of crystals into an area of 98mm2. Among them, the peak frequency of the Cortex-X2 ultra-large core Reaching 3.2GHz, compared with the Snapdragon 8 ultra-large core, the performance is improved by 4.6%, and the peak power consumption is reduced by 22%. The A710 large core and A510 energy efficiency core remain at 2.75GHz and 2.0GHz respectively, but the peak power consumption is reduced by 42% and 33% respectively. Compared with Snapdragon 8, the GPU performance is improved by 11% and the power consumption is reduced by 30%.
In terms of running scores, in AnTuTu V9.4,1 version, Xiaomi Mi 12S Ultra scored a total of 1,098,448 points at room temperature, of which the CPU score was 254,970 points and the CPU score was 482,466 points. In DMark, the overall score of Wild Life Extreme is 2769 points, and the total score of Sling Shot Extreme-OpenGL ES 3.1 reaches the extreme value. Judging from the scores, the performance is good.
In terms of specific game performance, in the 120 frame mode of " King of Glory ", the average frame rate for 60 minutes is 119.72 frames, and the average power consumption is 3.37W. Judging from the frame rate graph, it has been running at full frame for 60 minutes.
Xiaomi 12S Ultra in the "Genshin Impact" ultra high quality + 60 frame mode, the average frame rate after 30 minutes of full scene running is 60.38 frames, and the average power consumption is 4.99W. As can be seen from the frame rate chart, it is basically maintained in a straight line, indicating that Xiaomi 12S Ultra has strong performance release. At the same time, thanks to the vein cold pump cooling system adopted by Xiaomi Mi 12S Ultra, after being subjected to intense "torture" by "Genshin Impact", the front temperature of the fuselage is 44.3 degrees, and the back temperature is 42.3 degrees, which is relatively cool.
Xiaomi Mi 12S Ultra is equipped with dual chips Xiaomi Pascal G1 battery management chip + Xiaomi Pascal P1 fast charging chip. The two self-developed chips form Xiaomi Pascal battery management system, which extends battery life and greatly improves charging efficiency. It is equipped with a second-generation silicon-oxygen negative electrode battery with a capacity of up to 4860mAh. With 67W Xiaomi Pengpai second charge, it can be charged to 50% in 15 minutes.
Xiaomi 12S Ultra has a century-old resonance with Leica.
Leica cameras have the characteristics of sturdiness, durability and good performance. During World War II , Leica was an important tool for military reporters at that time. Journalists traveled to battlefields with harsh environments around the world. A lightweight, sturdy Leica 135 camera became their favorite. The Leica Summicron imaging system of Xiaomi Mi 12S Ultra is composed of hundreds of parts and can only tolerate micron-level tolerances during assembly. The three rear lens modules are fixed by a one-piece aluminum alloy frame to ensure the consistency of the optical axis. The outermost alloy shield completely covers the internal camera module, providing dustproof, waterproof and buffering protection. The outermost ring of the lens module is decorated with 23K gold. The same golden decoration reminds me of Xiaomi MIX.
The Xiaomi Mi 12S Ultra in my hand is in classic black, and the back is wrapped with environmentally friendly silicone composite material, with the pebbled texture of the bull’s head leather texture. It feels like genuine leather when held in the hand. Xiaomi also equipped it with a protective case of the same color, which also uses the pebbled bull leather texture. The lens is designed similar to the threads on the camera lens . When worn, it looks more like a camera. The only flaw is that the protective case is not equipped with a lanyard hole. With the lanyard hole, I think it will look much more beautiful whether it is for daily photography or carrying accessories.
The front of Xiaomi 12S Ultra is equipped with a 6.73-inch E5 luminous material AMOLED primary color display with a resolution of 3200 x 1440, a global brightness of 1000nit, and a peak brightness of 1500nit. It supports mainstream HDR formats such as Dolby Vision, HDR10, HDR10+ and HLG. Each screen has been professionally color calibrated before leaving the factory, with △E=0.32 and JNCD=0.33. It supports 1-120Hz intelligent refresh rate, which is comparable to professional monitors, making the photos you take more dazzling on the screen.
Conclusion:
In recent years, domestic mobile phone manufacturers have been deploying in the high-end market, but Xiaomi's high-end road is obviously not smooth sailing. I also admire Xiaomi's courage, persistence and innovation. The strong alliance between Xiaomi and Leica is a reflection of Leica’s appreciation of Xiaomi’s continued R&D investment and team’s unremitting efforts. Xiaomi Mi 12S Ultra makes taking pictures with mobile phones more than just digital. I see their focus on the humanistic spirit, their understanding of sensibility, and their more artistic thinking. They finally achieve a balance between sensibility and rationality, allowing technology to play a greater role. Closer to user needs. When traditional imaging and mobile photography collide again and again, Xiaomi Mi 12S Ultra shines with the hottest light.
