If you like to take close up photos of insects going about their daily business, macro photography sounds like something you’d be interested in. Google hopes to improve the quality of these close-up photographs taken by Pixel users by improving their ability to shoot macro photographs with the upcoming Pixel 10 series.
Currently, Pixel devices that support macro photography use the device’s ultrawide sensor for these photographs. A new report says that the Pixel 10 will use the phone’s telephoto sensor in addition to the ultrawide sensor when shooting macro photographs. The telephoto sensor would be used up until a certain point at which time the ultrawide sensor will take over as it gets closer to the subject of the photo while remaining in focus. Typically the telephoto sensor gets out of focus the closer it gets to the subject.
The process of using a telephoto sensor for macro photography instead of the ultrawide sensor is called tele-macro and it was employed all the way back in 2022 by Samsung with the Galaxy Z Fold 4. While Sammy did try it out for that one year, the next year the Galaxy Z Fold 5 went back to using the ultrawide sensor for the extreme close-up shots.
When it has been employed in recent times, the phone manufacturers have been quiet about using tele-macro. For example, this feature was used on last year’s OnePlus 13. The Oppo Find N5 was released earlier this year with tele-macro capabilities. Of course, using the telephoto sensor for macro shots means that you can be further away from your subject. If insect photography is your thing, you’ll be able to take close-ups of the bugs without being too close and scaring them.
While the Pixel 10 will allow the 5x telephoto sensor to shoot macro closeups, it will not remove the macro capability from the phone’s ultrawide camera. That’s because the minimum focusing distance on the telephoto sensor is further than the ultrawide sensor. The Pixel 10 will determine which sensor to use based on the user’s distance from the subject. We should also point out that using the telephoto sensor for a macro photo creates a blurry bokeh background that helps make the subject pop.
We could see the Pixel 10 series introduced on August 20th with an August 28th release date. Keep in mind that the upcoming series will be powered by the first Tensor chip designed by Google from the ground up, the 3nm Tensor G5 application processor (AP). This should allow Google to add some tasty, exclusive features to the Pixel 10 line. It will be the first Tensor AP built by TSMC instead of Samsung Foundry.
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