Xiaomi is making the most of its partnership with Leica, and the new Xiaomi 13 Ultra represents the most technically impressive release from the pair yet.
It’s absolutely all about the camera, with Xiaomi and Leica filling it with technology and focusing key design elements around Leica’s M camera series. It’s more camera than phone — in a way that we haven’t seen in a while.
It has also got all the power of the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra and promises to rival it in terms of the camera’s ability too, but it doesn’t try to be all things to all people. You won’t find a stylus hidden inside, for example. It’s made for taking photos, and if you don’t have any interest in that, it’s best to look elsewhere. Similarly, if you want a sleek, slim, and lightweight phone, the Xiaomi 13 Ultra definitely isn’t for you.
If it’s all about the camera, what’s it like? I’ve only spent a few hours with the Xiaomi 13 Ultra and taken just a few dozen photos so far, but that’s enough to get a good initial impression of this monster phone. Let’s talk about it in more detail, look closely at the specifications, and see some photo examples of what it can do.
The Xiaomi 13 Ultra’s giant camera
The star of the Xiaomi 13 Ultra’s camera show is a 1-inch, 50-megapixel Sony IMX989 sensor with a variable aperture, optical image stabilization (OIS), and Leica’s Vario-Summicron lens. Alongside it is a 50MP 75mm telephoto camera with OIS and a 50MP 120mm super-telephoto camera with OIS. Finally, there’s a 50MP wide-angle camera with a macro mode. Leica worked on the telephoto cameras with Xiaomi and also provides photographic styles, filters, and bokeh modes.
Many of the Leica features are also found on the Xiaomi 13 Pro, where the camera really impressed when we reviewed it. There are also Leica’s black-and-white filters with two options, Natural and High Contrast, both of which are superb on the 13 Pro. Xiaomi says the 13 Ultra is ideal for street photography and includes a “Fast Shot” mode where the camera is ready to take a photo in just 0.8 seconds.
The 75mm telephoto and wide-angle cameras have f/1.8 apertures, allowing plenty of light into the sensors, while the 120mm telephoto has an f/3.0 aperture. Inside the camera app, there are 2x, a 3.2x, and 5x telephoto modes.
On the front of the phone is a 32MP selfie camera with a selection of different features, including a Night mode and HDR, while the video camera can shoot up to 8K resolution at 24 frames per second (fps). There’s also a 4K/60 fps Dolby Vision video mode.
Taking photos with the Xiaomi 13 Ultra
The big new feature of the Xiaomi 13 Ultra is the adjustable aperture. You can manually change the physical aperture on the main camera from f/1.9 to f/4.0, allowing for greater depth of field or for more light into the massive sensor. It’s not minutely adjustable like the Huawei Mate 50 Pro, and to use it effectively, you’ll need to understand what an aperture does and the situations where it can be best used.
It’s very effective and is easily adjusted using a button in the viewfinder, and the camera creates a stunning depth of field in almost all situations without having to use Portrait mode. It’s genuinely impressive and will really make your photos look special. But as to how appealing the feature is will depend on your knowledge and willingness to mess around with settings.
If you regularly use the Pro mode on a phone camera, you should be fine. The Xiaomi 13 Ultra is a camera phone for camera fans, and it may be overkill for anyone also looking at the Galaxy S23 Ultra, which is simpler to use, but arguably just as powerful.
Looking closely at the photos, Xiaomi hasn’t boosted the saturation much, giving pictures a realistic look without sacrificing a degree of visual pop, but it still needs work on color accuracy. In difficult lighting, I’ve already seen it struggle to get greens and blues right, and the results are clearly wrong at the moment. It doesn’t happen all the time, and I am using the phone ahead of the official release, so a software update may solve these issues.
When the camera does get it right, photos can look glorious, with a real character of their own. There’s good consistency between the main, 2x, 3.2x, and 5x modes, with colors, exposure, and white balance looking similar throughout — but the wide-angle camera differs quite a lot. There are obvious differences in exposure, with less detail in shadowy areas.
