Motorola Edge 30 Ultra’s Incredible 200MP Photos | Video

There is no doubt that Motorola Edge 30 Ultra is a valid smartphone, just look at the data sheet to understand that the winged house has gone beyond its standards, towards the high-end and towards a completeness and quality that has not been seen for some years now.

Of all the hardware the thing that strikes you immediately is the 200MP main camera, two hundred! Enclosed in a 1 / 1.22 “sensor, big for the smartphone world but certainly tiny compared to cameras. How is it possible? How will the photos look like? Few times in this 2022 have I been so curious to find out.

Is called Samsung HP1 and was presented at the end of 2021. We said that the dimensions are 1 / 1.22 “, for a density of 200 MP and consequently each pixel with a dimension of 0.64 μm. You will see that the photos at 200 MP are really remarkable and just as heavy (about 50-70 MB), but clearly the main purpose for which to create such a defined sensor goes a little beyond the mere numerical data.

The answer lies in the technology that Samsung calls ChameleonCellthat is a pixel binning to 16 pixels (4×4), which form a ‘12.5MP single image with 2.56μm super pixel.

With pixel binning the goal is to be able to get better photos in low light or in intermediate conditions, more precisely it is not a question of improving the amount of detail but cleaning, chromatic fidelity, disturbing noise.

This sensor brings other interesting technologies: HRD staggered, ie a type of simultaneous image acquisition at 3 different exposures, not 3 different photos are taken but at the same instant the sensor segments the pixels for different shutter speeds. This allows for faster and more precise HDR even with moving subjects.

Smart-ISO Pro instead it allows you to take 12-bit photos created by the union of two simultaneous frames acquired at different ISOs, all thanks to the reading speed, obviously supported by the triple ISP Spectra of Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1.

Finally, the Double Super PDAFthat is an autofocus with twice the pixels dedicated to phase detection, supported by micro lenses to improve reading.

Here are some shots taken at 200 MP, we recommend you download the original version from HERE, they are heavy images but it is worth getting a realistic idea of ​​the quality, you can imagine that in order to upload them to the gallery we had to compress them quite a lot. Each image has one effective size of 16384 x 12288 pixels.

Here is instead a range of comparison images with the crop at 200 MP and the crop on the same scene taken at 12.5 MP, clearly therefore the same shooting conditions.

We add here a second gallery with the same images taken at 12.5 MP, you can see an excellent general quality and a more invasive intervention of the software in enhancing sharpness and contrast, compared to what happens in the images at 200 MP.

GALLERY 12.5 MP

ADVANTAGES AND LIMITS OF 200 MP

The advantages are more than evident from the photos, aren’t they? The definition is very high and consequently the level of detail achieved by the Motorola Edge 30 Ultra simply is unmatched by any other smartphone currently on the market. Attention, I’m not talking about the overall quality of the photo, in some cases even better for 12MP images, but about the definition, an objective fact.

The consideration that we can draw from it is first and foremost that of a good job from MotorolaWhy it is not at all obvious to come up with balanced, clean and well-processed images with this amount of data. It is not for nothing that an update has arrived in the last few days that has given a very important change to the photographic output, just improving data processing to 200 MP.

The other consideration, which has a pretty simple physical explanation, is that the quality of the photos at maximum resolution is directly proportional to the amount of light available, much more than usual. A lot of tiny pixels need a lot of light to receive clean data and allow the processor to process correct information. You can see in some of the images the presence of noise in the dark areas, it is completely normal and means that we are at the upper limit to be able to shoot at full resolution.

In reality, this “limit” is more of a normal compromise that is part of the engineering of the sensor, designed to switch to 12.5 MP shots as soon as the availability of light drops. And in these situations the pixel binning comes into play which, thanks to the 4×4 conformation, guarantees great flexibility.

We were talking about the 4×4 pixel binning process that allows you to get great results. Shooting at 12 MP can also take advantage of the advanced HDR and ISO management capabilities, as well as a dual dual pixel autofocus. Here are some pictures in difficult conditions.

Deliberately put in difficulty in the photos at night, Motorola Edge 30 Ultra has always responded well, in particular this picture emerges in the photos at the park, with foliage and other fine elements of green color (already complex in itself in the rendering in the dark). In the last photo, that of the cat, you notice the perfect focus on the subject despite the movement.

SELFIE GALLERY, MACRO, PORTRAIT, ULTRAWIDE

In the gallery above a couple of macros, a portrait photo taken with the 2X, a couple of ultrawides and a selfie. Motorola Edge 30 Ultra, in addition to the main 200 MP, has other interesting cameras:

• main wide rear: 200 MP with 1 / 1.22-inch sensor, f / 1.9 aperture, 0.64 μm pixel (2.56 μm with pixel binning), optical image stabilization (OIS)
• ultra wide rear + macro: 50 MP, 114 ° FoV, f / 2.2, 0.64 μm pixel (1.28 μm with pixel binning)
• rear tele: 12 MP, 2x optical zoom, 16x hybrid, f / 1.6, 1.22 μm pixel
• front: 60 MP, f / 2.2, 0.61 μm pixels (1.22 μm with pixel binning), 4K video at 30 fps

As you can see, the smartphone does not fare badly even in these shooting situations, in particular the macros are remarkable, but the portrait in which all the bokeh is optical without software intervention is also convincing.

Finally, thanks to a sensor with so many pixels, it was possible to get a video in 8K (7680×4320 pixels) at 30 fps. To be able to really appreciate it, you would need to have an 8k TV, despite the compression of YouTube, however, even with a 4K monitor or smartphone screen, an exaggerated level of detail emerges.

Motorola Edge 30 Ultra in this test proved to be a very solid smartphone on the photographic front and this highly defined sensor has exceeded expectations. It was not easy data in hand, indeed, logically we expected some more difficulties with little light and less incisive full resolution results, the recent history of photography, in fact, is dotted with clumsy attempts to run up to the greater number of mega pixels.

Evidently though the time has come for an accurate management of this amount of datawithout any doubt thanks to the new image processors, the pixel binning algorithms that manage to bring out the best from forcibly tiny sensors and, from today, surprisingly pixelated.