Flagship smartphone cameras have reached a saturation point, making it difficult to compare one shot taken from either the OnePlus 10 Pro or the Xiaomi 12 Pro, because images produced on both phones appear great with all the details caught and minimum noise. The similar argument can be made for the iPhone 13 Pro, the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra, and the Oppo Find X5 Pro.
As a result, smartphone manufacturers in 2022 are delivering greater camera variety and creativity choices to their consumers, such as Apple's Photographic Styles on the iPhone 13 series, Google's Astrophotography Mode on Pixels, and Vivo's ZEISS Style Portraits on their newest X series handsets.
Xiaomi may be the next manufacturer aiming to expand their camera creativity possibilities, since the Beijing-based Xiaomi Software Corporation was just given a patent for their automatic "night sky star trails time-lapse photography" camera software technology in China (via ITHome). The camera software technology underlying the star trails time-lapse photography option is detailed in Xiaomi's patent. First, when the user selects the "Star Trails" option in the camera application, the camera will automatically concentrate on the night sky and calculate the best settings for the picture, such as ISO, white balance, and white balance.
The camera must then remain in the same location during the timelapse to capture images of the starry night sky between each successive time interval of the stars' movement in the night. The system then saves these photographs in order to comprehend the data and color science underlying them. Using the interpreted data, the program then collects all of the shots and transforms them into a short-form film that depicts the time-lapse trip of the star trails as they develop on the screen.
Users may also use the algorithm to create different forms of moving star trails movies, such as indefinitely looping star trails or a snapshot of swirling star trails in the night sky.
Since the patent was recently approved and made public, we expect Xiaomi to include this "Star Trails" mode in its next camera-focused flagship, which could be the Xiaomi 12 Ultra, which is expected to launch in China early next month with a Leica-branded camera and Qualcomm's unannounced Snapdragon 8 Gen 1+.
