5 Pixel 8 Pro Camera Features That Are Going to Change Content Creation
The Google Pixel 8 and 8 Pro Are Officially Here - And Content Creation is Going to Take A Huge Change.
Ladies and gentlemen, tech enthusiasts, and smartphone aficianados, brace yourself: real technology just dropped today in the form of the new Google Pixel 8 and 8 Pro.
The release was announced today at Google's Keynote event, and the duo may just easily tilted the landscape of flagship phones, standing out as the "smartest phones" in the room, according to YouTube and Tech Junkie, Marquees Brownlee.
Now, of course, as a content creator myself, I've pretty much been in love with the Google Pixel phones since they release in 2016. Finally got my hands on one at a Google Activation at Miami Art Basel in 2018 and honestly never turned back after that. "The Perfectionist" music video was shot and edited entirely on a Google Pixel and truth be told, there isn't much that I don't do creatively on my Pixel 7 Pro.
After 4 generations as part of Pixel Gang, though, I have a strong opinion that this seals the deal that Google officially has both the best Android phone as well as the best flagship smartphone in the market - yes, even better than the iPhone Pro Max 15 Plus X or whatever it's called.
A Phone That's More Software Than Hardware
The Pixel series has always been about software. Machine Learning has been powering the camera, which are software. The Google Assistant has been within the phone, and expanding what it can do, including screening calls (one of my favorite features). It expanded to being able to wait and hold on calls for you. And of course, the processing power has been pretty good.
Then they introduced the Tensor chips. Now on the Tensor 3, Google was lowkey flexing some features that pretty much make it like having a full-fledge Google Search in your palm, coupled with ChatGPT on steroids (Google calls is BARD). Android 14 is officially the phone's pre-installed OS and Google is promising 7 years of upgrades - and if you know Google, that means this phones camera, OS, battery, security, and more will all continue to stay up-to-date with the latest and greatest until 2030.
That's major.
Hardware specs? It's up there. 50-megapixel camera, Super Res Zoom up to 8x, 12-megapixel ultrawide, blah blah. The hardware is competitive with both Apple and Samsung devices. But, for the average mobile phone photographer, the camera and video capabilities are wild.
Here are just 5 of the crazy features coming to these phones.
Best Take
When great photos are ruined by blinks, smirks, offset eyes, or when bae continuously tells you the photos aren't coming out to her standard, you can just tap the face and choose from a selection of face shots and stitch the greatest ensemble of faces to make a great photos immaculate. Wild.
Video Boost
Wished I would have had this during production for day 1 of The Perfectionist. Shooting 4K images with a range of 24fps to 60fps now runs the photos through what Google called "HDR Image Pipeline", to finalize it to a video product that is clear, vivid, and at the highest quality possible. This feature is a little iffy, but we'll see what it looks like once it releases.
Night Sight Video
At the top of the presentation, announcers commented that Pixel was the first phone to "see in the dark". Night Sight has made using flash in low light spaces feel archaic, but that feature was also reserved to just photos. Now with Night Sight Videos, low light videos come out with better contrast, consistent color and vibrance, and optimal focus.
Audio Magic Eraser
Think of how much background noise like conversations, wind, dogs, and just weird sounds get picked up in the audio of your video. Luckily, sometimes we can just throw an Instagram sound over it. Now with Audio Magic Eraser, eliminate background sounds from videos is a reality.
Pro Controls
Last, but definitely not least. Pixel 8 Pro will have a feature that I missed so much from my days of having the LG flagship phones: Pro Controls. With Pro Controls your phone camera essentially becomes a manual DSLR camera, giving you access to controls over ISO, shutter speed, long exposure, and 50mp quality throughout the 8x Zoom range. Another added feature is that Generative AI will sharpen and clarify photos at the deepest levels of zoom so that you never lose quality on zoomed in photos and videos. For my selenophiles, that means every video and photo of the moon will come out looking like macro!
These are just a handful of features I think are going to make a huge ripple in the smartphone game. I can honestly say I don't think there's much to discuss in the competition between Apple's recent release and these Pixels, so don't take this as a post trying to convince you to get a Pixel. But if you needed convincing, there's so much to consider and be in awe over.
Later this month, I'll be in New York dropping in to visit the Williamsburg Google Store and will be hands-on with these devices to give and show you much more about what it's like to have the power of Pixel in your hands!