Up until now, smartphone zoom has essentially come in two flavors—hardware and software. Hardware zoom is the simplest, and also the most realistic. This uses a built-in telephoto lens to physically magnify a shot, but it can have pretty limited range. All the detail captured is genuinely present in real life, but on both the Pixel 9 Pro and Pixel 10 Pro, it tops out at just a 5x zoom.
What is Super Res Zoom?
Pro Res Zoom isn’t replacing Super Res Zoom entirely, but because they sound pretty much identical to anyone but the most die-hard Google fans, it’s worth going over, especially because you can still use it if you prefer. Debuting with the Pixel 3 all the way back in 2018, Super Res Zoom essentially takes multiple photos while you’re zooming in, and then uses details from multiple distances and exposure levels to produce a better final shot. There is machine learning involved, but it’s not generative AI as most people imagine it, as the only data the phone uses for this is what your camera has captured. It’s not trying to create a brand new image using training data.
The result, though, is that Super Res Zoom still runs into many of the same limitations as a standard crop-zoom, which you’ve probably noticed if you’ve owned a Pixel at any point over the past seven years. Google still leans on Super Res Zoom for the 20x software zoom on the base Pixel 10, but by default, the Pixel 10 Pro and Pro XL will instead favor Pro Res Zoom, even if there are still ways to use the old method.
How does Pro Res Zoom work?
A photo of a truck shot using Pro Res Zoom Credit: GoogleThe results, at least for now, have gotten a mixed response from my team. Google demonstrated Pro Res Zoom by showing off a landscape shot where the Pixel 10 Pro zooms into a heavily pixelated truck far into the distance, then uses AI to try to make it look more real. “That car looked like AI” was my editor’s immediate response, with another colleague hopping in to say, “Really does.”To be fair, that’s about the best as can be expected from a “zoom in and enhance” feature, since the camera can only see so much of the original vehicle, and no amount of software is going to give it more raw resolution to work with. It's not surprising that an AI tool looks like AI, but the question is whether that artificial quality—which isn’t strictly accurate to real life and can look cartoony to some—is worth the lack of pixelation. Is it "faking it" enough, if it can be distinguished with a naked eye?
In essence, as my editor put it, “You can zoom in to what the algorithm thinks a car looks like.” Take that how you will, but if you’re as skeptical as we were, you’re not out of luck.
Pro Res Zoom will still show you photos without AI
I haven’t had personal hands-on time with the Pixel 10 Pro’s camera yet, but I did get to see this in person at a demonstration after yesterday’s Made by Google event. Here, a Google Rep zoomed into a prop in the distance, then showed me both the Pro Res Zoom and Super Res Zoom results. She said she hasn’t come across a situation where she prefers the old method more, but here are both shots, for your comparison.
A Pro Res Zoom image (left) vs. an image without Pro Res Zoom (right) Credit: Michelle EhrhardtOn that note, Pro Res Zoom taking the zoom cap all the way to 100, but still letting you select photos that don’t use AI, does mean you can now use Super Res Zoom beyond 30x (by simply selecting that option over the AI one), although you’ll probably get diminishing returns at that point.
What is a photo?
While Pro Res Zoom certainly adds an element of unreality to your shots, it’s worth remembering that this is far from Google’s first camera feature to have people asking what a photo even is nowadays. Inserting AI generated imagery into a photo and pretending it’s simply a zoomed in shot definitely has the feeling of crossing a line to some of us here at Lifehacker, but in an era of filters, automatic lighting adjustments, and even the frame merging of Super Res Zoom, it’s worth remembering that few of the photos we see these days truly represent what the photographer saw with their own eyes. Still, if your gut reaction is “that looks like AI,” the idea might still need a few years to bake before you can truly say it looks like a real “100x zoom.”
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