Xiaomi Mi 10 Ultra 48mp GCam samples

[melodika]

Here are some samples from Xiaomi Mi 10 Ultra wtih 48mp GCam module. I think that the ability to shoot multiframe GCam raws with this configuration (1/1.32" sensor) produces very nice results. The lens is also very sharp and gives detail similar to Ricoh GR III with 24mp APS-C sensor; I've made some comparisons that clearly reveal this. Ricoh still has an edge with finer microcontrast but it's sooo close that I don't really mind!

With this configuration I think I don't need Ricoh anymore – only keeping it because shooting with it is still faster which is sometimes desirable. Taking a 48mp Gcam photo takes many seconds to process, depending on how many HDR+Enhanced frames you set it to use. 48mp also provides possibilities for cropping.

Albeit this is great it's still not ideal to need a rooted phone with Magisk module to achieve this. For a while Mi 10 Ultra was the only phone that I know of with the ability to shoot 48mp RAW. Now there's a new beta version of Arnova GCam that enables 48mp for Oneplus 7 and 8, without root! I have seen some results and they look nice indeed, output is similar to Mi 10 Ultra. But I still think, based on what I've seen, that Mi still has an edge when you look closer (better detail retention).

DNG edit 48mp, no NR

DNG edit 48mp. no NR

DNG edit 48mp

DNG edit 48 mp, some noise reduction added

 

[fuego6]

I have a Mi10 Ultra and honestly - even the standard camera module is pretty darn amazing.. I don't feel the need to root, etc. Just unlock, install EU rom (a process that can take 2 weeks!) and enjoy!

 

[Truncia]

I think that you will still need the Ricoh GR III, since it does not make a rainbow out of the foliage of trees.

 

[melodika]

I think that you will still need the Ricoh GR III, since it does not make a rainbow out of the foliage of trees.

Yeah, I agree it's not perfect...

 

[Droo]

Care to upload some DNGs to Google Drive, Mediafire or Mega.nz? I would like to try developing them.

 

[melodika]

Care to upload some DNGs to Google Drive, Mediafire or Mega.nz? I would like to try developing them.

Sure. Here's a collection taken in different conditions (city, landscape, low light): https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1vZ82LM1G-a3byj5VDfT3uX4CO1NrZXJR?usp=sharing

 

[winkalman]

Thanks so much for the DNG samples. Those corners look real rough to me though.

 

[Droo]

Care to upload some DNGs to Google Drive, Mediafire or Mega.nz? I would like to try developing them.

Sure. Here's a collection taken in different conditions (city, landscape, low light): https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1vZ82LM1G-a3byj5VDfT3uX4CO1NrZXJR?usp=sharing

Thanks a lot. I'll see how much I can get out of them.

 

[melodika]

Thanks so much for the DNG samples. Those corners look real rough to me though.

I don't really agree with this. Sure, the left corner seems to be constantly a bit on the blurry side but still respectable performance. To make this comparison really tough I used F 5.6 for Ricoh. Take a look at this:

Extreme right corner, crop 1. Ricoh GR III (left) vs. Xiaomi Mi 10 Ultra (right). Ricoh F 5.6, Mi 10 Ultra F 1.85.

Extreme right corner, crop 2. Ricoh GR III (left) vs. Xiaomi Mi 10 Ultra (right). Ricoh F 5.6, Mi 10 Ultra 1.85.

Although this test was not entirely scientific, I tried to match framing as closely I could. I fail to see a bad corner here.

Originals (framing is not same on the left side due to focal length difference, but sure you can still compare...):

Ricoh GR III, F 5.6

Mi 10 Ultra (reized to match GR III, 24mp)

 

[winkalman]

It's certainly closer than I had imagined. The Ricoh still seems to have a solid lead in the far corners but the Xiaomi holds its own in the rest of the image.

 

[melodika]

Also here something I didn't notice before: Ricoh has exactly the same rainbow color artifacts as Mi

Ricoh left, Mi 10 Ultra right

And if you want to match Ricoh's 28mm field of view you just crop Mi photo and there you have better (but not perfect) corners.

I love both cameras so I'm not doing this to blame the performance of Ricoh – it's just very exciting to have similar IQ available in pocket anytime. Finally a worthy successor to Nokia 808 (I know, it's very limited but when conditions are ideal it shines). Xiaomi also has a great 5x camera with 1/2.0" sensor and 48mp. Sadly the 5x 48mp doesn't work correctly with the Magisk module, but I think there is a possiblity that in the future such a module could be available. Mi 10 Ultra also has a decent 12mp portrait lens (1/2.55" sensor) and pretty bad ultrawide camera (1/2.8" sensor). So I think it's the best cameraphone right now; Mi 11 Ultra will be better only if some talented GCam developers could unlock high resolution RAW streams for GCam.

 

[Droo]

Also here something I didn't notice before: Ricoh has exactly the same rainbow color artifacts as Mi

Ricoh left, Mi 10 Ultra right

And if you want to match Ricoh's 28mm field of view you just crop Mi photo and there you have better (but not perfect) corners.

I love both cameras so I'm not doing this to blame the performance of Ricoh – it's just very exciting to have similar IQ available in pocket anytime. Finally a worthy successor to Nokia 808 (I know, it's very limited but when conditions are ideal it shines). Xiaomi also has a great 5x camera with 1/2.0" sensor and 48mp. Sadly the 5x 48mp doesn't work correctly with the Magisk module, but I think there is a possiblity that in the future such a module could be available. Mi 10 Ultra also has a decent 12mp portrait lens (1/2.55" sensor) and pretty bad ultrawide camera (1/2.8" sensor). So I think it's the best cameraphone right now; Mi 11 Ultra will be better only if some talented GCam developers could unlock high resolution RAW streams for GCam.

You can suppress those artifacts when you develop in RAW. RawTherapee does it quite well:

 

[melodika]

Also here something I didn't notice before: Ricoh has exactly the same rainbow color artifacts as Mi

Ricoh left, Mi 10 Ultra right

And if you want to match Ricoh's 28mm field of view you just crop Mi photo and there you have better (but not perfect) corners.

I love both cameras so I'm not doing this to blame the performance of Ricoh – it's just very exciting to have similar IQ available in pocket anytime. Finally a worthy successor to Nokia 808 (I know, it's very limited but when conditions are ideal it shines). Xiaomi also has a great 5x camera with 1/2.0" sensor and 48mp. Sadly the 5x 48mp doesn't work correctly with the Magisk module, but I think there is a possiblity that in the future such a module could be available. Mi 10 Ultra also has a decent 12mp portrait lens (1/2.55" sensor) and pretty bad ultrawide camera (1/2.8" sensor). So I think it's the best cameraphone right now; Mi 11 Ultra will be better only if some talented GCam developers could unlock high resolution RAW streams for GCam.

You can suppress those artifacts when you develop in RAW. RawTherapee does it quite well:

Nice! Thanks for the tip I didn't find similar tool from Adobe Camera Raw.

 

[Droo]

It would be defringing, but at least in LR, defringe can only process some hues, rather than any. RawTherapee lets you set which hues should get processed for defringing.

 

[Droo]

Here are my attempts at developing my two favorites:

Things I have noticed:

• There is no noise.
• Dynamic range is very good compared to P40 Pro DNGs.
• No weird quad Bayer artifacts, but a general weird slight blurriness. I suspect that the multi frame stacking resolves the quad Bayer issues, but introduces a little blurriness. Much better to work with than the P40 Pro.
• Due to this of blurriness, developing to about half the MP does not really throw away any detail.
• Corner sharpness is not very good, but can be alleviated with RawTherapee.
• The small colorful fringing artifacts seem even worse than on the P40 Pro, but generally RawTherapee takes care of that.
• The vignette introduces a color shift that I would need the phone or a specific sample to get rid of.

I don't think my next phone will be Huawei, unless they add HDR to their DNGs.

 

[melodika]

Here are my attempts at developing my two favorites:

Things I have noticed:

• There is no noise.
• Dynamic range is very good compared to P40 Pro DNGs.
• No weird quad Bayer artifacts, but a general weird slight blurriness. I suspect that the multi frame stacking resolves the quad Bayer issues, but introduces a little blurriness. Much better to work with than the P40 Pro.
• Due to this of blurriness, developing to about half the MP does not really throw away any detail.
• Corner sharpness is not very good, but can be alleviated with RawTherapee.
• The small colorful fringing artifacts seem even worse than on the P40 Pro, but generally RawTherapee takes care of that.
• The vignette introduces a color shift that I would need the phone or a specific sample to get rid of.

I don't think my next phone will be Huawei, unless they add HDR to their DNGs.

Thanks! Very nice development, especially the first one looks wonderful! I agree that the resolution is not close to "proper" 48mp cameras but it holds its own quite well compared to 24mp APS-C Ricoh GR III. And for static objects there's actually more detail:

Mi left, Ricoh right

(I have to do more than one test photo to confirm this is not a focus issue – it shouldn't be)

But overally this quality is enough for me to replace Ricoh. The overall IQ at 100% magnification level is similar – but for sure you can spot the slight blurriness of the left corner.

And I agree that multiframing probably also causes some blurriness issues, those samples you developed I think I must have used 15 frames. Perhaps with less frames = less blurriness but slightly more noise. I have to test to figure that out. There's so many parameters in GCam to tune so it might be possible to achieve better overall balance. But sure it takes time and patience to test...

Perhaps creating a proper profile with Cornerfix could remedy the vignette issue.

 

[fuego6]

For the price I paid - this phone/camera is amazing... well done Xiaomi!

 

[_vlad]

It would be defringing, but at least in LR, defringe can only process some hues, rather than any. RawTherapee lets you set which hues should get processed for defringing.

Fringing is visible mostly seen either as magenta or blue edges. Still you can pick you own HUE to de-fringe with picker. Then you have sliders ranging from red to blue and from red to yellow. Thus covering all hues in RGB combo. Range of hues and intensity has to be done manually.

All of it is in LR6 and IMHO as for me I hardly ever see anything else necessary. In some occasions edge (or wider area) masking might help - but as I said very rarely.

 

[Droo]

Ah yes, the problem that I have with LR in this case is that the hue range selection is just not very good. In RT you get an equalizer to select the problematic hues specifically, with an issue like the green, yellow, cyan, red, magenta, blue artifacts, you have to process all hues equally in LR.

 

[_vlad]

Ah yes, the problem that I have with LR in this case is that the hue range selection is just not very good. In RT you get an equalizer to select the problematic hues specifically, with an issue like the green, yellow, cyan, red, magenta, blue artifacts, you have to process all hues equally in LR.

Can´t comment - not seeing the particular pic. However fringing is typically (almost all the time) in purple/blue or blue/green range. These two are separated so can be tweaked indpendently. If you step to level of separately changing saturation or hue of more colors then I found more usefull + safer + quicker to use Radial filter and brush over the parts you do not like (desarurate or change color ... not only those). Infinite brush strokes - infinite hues to affect. It seems not very effective - however in fact it is not. This way only parts you brush over are affected, nothing else. The danger of desaturating certain hue when if it sits in different parts of pic, trying to manage it centrally from one LR/RT window is real, and one must carefully inspect if areas with same hue but in different areas of scene were not affected as well. And this is sometimes boring and takes time.

RT is excellent tool, no doubt - I used it in the past and still occasionally do. It just overflows with options and for me it is not practical.

YMMV though