Xiaomi 13 Ultra Camera Samples and Precision Engineering
Xiaomi and Leica’s imaging partnership has brought about a new era of mobile imaging, with the Xiaomi 12S series winning wide acclaim from photographers and imaging enthusiasts. The company has continued to push the boundaries of mobile photography with their latest release, the Xiaomi 13 Ultra, which boasts a perfect Leica Summicron lens.
Light is the origin of all photos and the essence of imaging. The most faithful recording and restoration of light is the original point of all optical systems. Leica, with its hundreds of years of experience in designing and manufacturing lenses, has a reputation for producing high-quality lenses that are small in size yet deliver excellent image quality. This experience has been applied to the Xiaomi 13 Ultra, which was designed to be a “compact high-performance lens.”
The four lenses are designed using the aspherical lens structure to unleash the flexibility of the optical path design. During the design phase, the shape of each aspheric mirror is calculated using “ultra-high order even polynomials,” and the lenses are fitted to nanometer accuracy. This precision design poses a huge challenge for the manufacturing process, where the tooling has a horrific 20 nm accuracy, and every detail of the lens is meticulously crafted. The yield of the lens is even less than 10% to ensure strict control of production precision.
The new High Steady State Coating provides stable and excellent optical performance in extremely hot or cold environments. The coating is a result of Xiaomi’s commitment to solving optical problems with optical solutions, and not relying on excessive computational photography. This approach ensures that the original optical quality of the Xiaomi 13 Ultra is extremely good, allowing for excellent resolution across the entire field of view without relying on heavy sharpening algorithms.
Xiaomi and Leica believe that excessive use of computational photography due to insufficient optical quality can cause irreversible damage to the image and is tantamount to “drinking hemlock.” Instead, the focus should be on using optical solutions to deliver the best image quality possible. This philosophy will continue to drive the change of mobile imaging and realize the “mitzvah of mobile imaging.”
In conclusion, the Xiaomi 13 Ultra is a perfect example of how mobile photography is evolving with the advancement of technology. The combination of Xiaomi’s commitment to solving optical problems with optical solutions and Leica’s expertise in lens design and manufacturing has resulted in a high-quality lens that is small in size yet delivers excellent image quality. The future of mobile photography is looking bright, and with companies like Xiaomi and Leica leading the way, we can expect to see even more advancements in the coming years.
Xiaomi has also shared some of the camera samples taken with the Xiaomi 13 Ultra, showcasing the lens’ capabilities at different focal lengths.
