You know how Xiaomi has always been talking about how great their cameras are? Well, I decided to take this camera’s photo-taking capabilities in depth to see if this is really a smartphone with the best cameras, especially with this price range.
Specs
First, let’s get into detail on what exact camera lenses that this phone has to elevate your photography experience on the Xiaomi 14. So, it uses a Leica Summilux Next Generation Leica Optics triple 50-megapixel camera setup:
- the Main lens is a 23mm f/1.6 aperture lens,Â
- the Telephoto lens is a 75mm f/2.0 aperture lens,Â
- and the Ultrawide lens has a 14mm focal length with an f/2.2 aperture lens.
For those of you who are not familiar, a Leica Summilux lens is known to have very high-quality optics, and of course, aperture value refers to the opening of the lens, with a lower number of the aperture indicating that there is more light going into the lens. So, in case you did not know, now you know, my friends.
High-Megapixel Mode (Day)
Now, let’s start with the High-megapixel mode. Since all of the lenses have 50MP, hence you can take high-resolution photos for all of the focal lengths, which gives ultimate versatility in post based on the exact focal length that you choose. And of course, since the megapixels are really high, you can always reframe the shot right after you’ve taken the photo.Â
And just so you know, we’re looking at an average file size between 15MB to 20MB, which I have to say has a perfect balance of the size of the image and also the overall image quality.
Ultrawide Lens (Day)
As for the ultrawide lenses, I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again that the ultrawide lenses on the Xiaomi flagship have always been some of my personal favorites, and these 14mm shots have a perfect focal length to give you a nice ultrawide perspective without any barrel distortion.Â
And what’s extra sweet is that it is sharp from edge to edge, where some smartphones tend to lose the details towards the edges.
Main Lens (Day)
Then, as for the main lenses, these photos were taken without any effort to get the best image possible. I just took out the phone, took a picture, and that’s it. No adjustments needed or I don’t need to tap the screen.Â
And there’s also a significant upgrade to the camera shutter button too, compared to the previous Xiaomi 13. And here’s where Xiaomi has cleverly provided the best focal length of 23mm, so the pictures are not too zoomed in and have the right amount of wideness to the photos.Â
And even at aperture f/1.6, the photos were sharp thanks to the high 50MP count and the amount of detail captured from the dynamic range point of view was also really great as well – from differentiating the shadows of the trees to the extremely exposed skies, the photo had all of the details with the right amount of saturation.
Speaking of saturation, as mentioned in my first impression video, the Leica Authentic and the Leica Vibrant are also present in this Xiaomi 14, and all the pictures taken in this review will be based on Leica Vibrant, since I do prefer this particular option.
Telephoto Lens (Day)
Switching over to the telephoto lenses. Now, one of the main things that I’ve noticed compared to other smartphones is that I always hated the inconsistency of colors between every single lens, and it’s lovely to know that this Xiaomi 14, going from 23mm to 46mm to even 75mm, was super seamless.Â
And while you can zoom up to 60x digital zoom, but my sweet spot would be up to 30x zoom, but of course, keep in mind that you’ll need a lot of light to get the best overall image.
Then, as for portrait mode, there’ll be two focal lengths that you can choose within the app, either 23mm or 60mm, which is nice for situations where you may not have the space or even time to come closer to get nice portrait-style photos.
What’s lovely is that the portrait mode works very well on objects too, with the overall nicer shallow depth of field with tack-sharp focus where the 60mm shots are at aperture 2.0, also filling up the images nicely.Â
And it goes without saying that the portrait mode for humans also looks flawless with amazing skin tones and a perfect blend of dynamic range and background blur as well.Â
And the Master-lens system also performs very well with its dedicated effect presets for the 35mm Documentary preset, the Swirly Bokeh at 50mm, Portrait at 75mm, and Soft focus at 90mm.
Selfie (Day)
Now, one major image quality difference compared to the previous Xiaomi 13 is the skin tones on this phone, because the overall pleasing images for the selfie photos are really great. And here’s where you can really see Leica and Xiaomi working their image processing magic on these amazing skin tones and a very beautiful bokeh, whether or not it’s against the light or even if the light is shining in the camera’s favor.Â
So, overall, I would rate the daytime photos on the Xiaomi 14 a solid 9 out of 10, because I do feel that the portrait mode on objects could be a tiny bit better, specifically for a more complicated type of shape.Â
High Megapixel Mode (Night)
Switching over to the nighttime photos, starting from the high megapixel photos. Similar to the daytime shots, the quality remains consistent throughout all of the lenses, and this time around, you’ll see an average reduction of the file size between 8MB to 11MB instead.Â
Ultrawide Lens (Night)
Then the night shots using the ultrawide lenses look great, capturing perfect light reflections even at darker environments. And once again, most smartphones do not do very well on their ultrawide lenses at night, and it’s lovely to see that the images look very high in quality.
Main Lens (Night)
Then, as for the main lenses, here’s where you’ll see how great the nighttime dynamic range is, as you’ll see a huge reduction in lens flare on the images taken.Â
Telephoto Lens (Night)
However, when you switch to the telephoto lenses, I would advise not to go beyond 75mm, which is about 3.2x zoom, since the maximum of the actual telephoto lenses on an optical level is that, where beyond that, it is actually a digital zoom all the way. So, you might see a little degradation of the image, but still quite usable too.
Portrait Mode (Night)
Now, to my surprise, the portrait mode at night also performs exceptionally well for humans and even for objects too.Â
Selfie (Night)
And to extend my surprise even more, the nighttime selfie images also perform very well, especially for the portrait mode as well, with no noise seen in the images at all.Â
So, from a night photo-taking perspective, I would give this phone an 8.5 out of 10, as I feel that the image processing for the ultrawide lenses should match the image quality of the main lenses since it also has a 50MP lens specifically for the lens flare.
Conclusion
So, that’s my in-depth camera test on the photos taken on the Xiaomi 14. Stay tuned for my in-depth video camera test on the new Xiaomi 14 Ultra, which I’m going to do a video test on that.
And to answer the question if this is the best smartphone photography for the phone’s price and the compact size, that is a resounding YES!Â
And if you want to see how this phone holds up against the Xiaomi 13, check out this video over here: https://youtu.be/XduTwSpGttU
