The camera system on the Pixel 7 Pro is without a doubt the phone’s biggest selling point. Like in years past, Google is showing the world again the magic it can do with computational photography, calling this new camera the “best photo and video experience we’ve ever had on a Pixel phone.” We’ll certainly be testing that, but before we can share our thoughts, Google provided all sorts of samples of the phone’s zoom, night, and macro potential.
Through three separate Google Photos galleries, Google showed off the 30x upscaled zoom powered by the Tensor G2 in the phone, which is the furthest zoom yet on a Pixel device. They also provided a gallery of shots taken with the new Macro Focus mode, which uses the upgraded ultra-wide lens to get as close as 3cm to an object. And finally, “sharper than ever” Night Sight examples give us yet more proof that Google changed the game for night photography on a smartphone.
All of the examples are quite good, which makes sense since Google is using these to promote capabilities, but some of the zoom shots are remarkable. In the example below, you can see where the start of a series of shots of the One World Observatory building begins and then ends. You almost can’t see the building in the background before it reaches ridiculous close-up detail.
The rest of the Pixel 7 Pro zoom shots can be seen here.
For Macro Focus shots, all of them are fun to look at, but the ones involving an eyeball are always special. Close-ups of flowers never get old either. What’s cool about Macro Focus, is that the camera system recognizes when you are super close to an object and automatically flips into Macro Focus mode to get you ready without extra work.
You can view the rest of the Macro Focus shots here.
And if you need more, here are your Night Sight shots. Again, Google claims these should be sharper than ever, with reduced noise and less motion blur thanks to exposures that take half as long as they used to. The example below shows the same shot with and without Night Sight and the differences, as you can imagine if you’ve ever used Night Sight, are pretty extreme.
The rest of the Night Sight shots can be found here.
The camera experience on the Pixel 6 Pro from last year was the first upgrade in some time to the Pixel line and it delivered. Something seems different this year, though, with Google making huge promises and talking up the photo experience in ways I can’t remember since the Pixel 4 launch.