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Google’s Pixel 10 telephones are among the many greatest digital camera telephones available on the market, and this era marks the primary time shortly that the complete sequence affords a telephoto digital camera. The Pixel 10 ships with a ten.8MP 5x digital camera, whereas the Pixel 10 Professional telephones pack an ideal 50MP 5x periscope digital camera.

There’s one large function lacking from Google’s telephoto cameras, although, and I actually hope to see it on the Pixel 11 Professional line. In fact, I’m speaking about telephoto macro capabilities.

For what it’s price, the Pixel 10 enables you to use the ultrawide digital camera for macro images. This requires you to maneuver your telephone just about on high of no matter you’re snapping, which has numerous downsides, from lackluster bokeh to doubtlessly ruining your photograph’s lighting.

As a substitute, I really like the power to take macro images with a telephoto digital camera; it’s nice for grabbing a close-up shot with out bodily transferring nearer to the topic. That’s useful when you’re capturing a skittish topic (e.g., bugs, little animals) and are anxious that you simply may chase it off.

Telephoto-based macro images additionally has image high quality advantages in comparison with macro mode on ultrawide cameras. For one, you don’t must get so shut that your shadow falls onto the topic itself. You additionally don’t must cope with a really distorted discipline of view, as seen from ultrawide cameras, though many telephone makers crop the picture from the ultrawide digital camera to restrict this difficulty.

The flexibility to focus up shut with the telephoto digital camera additionally has ramifications for normal images. This function provides you extra flexibility when you’re taking images in tight areas or in conditions the place the tele digital camera would ordinarily lose focus.

I additionally discover this function useful for product images, as I often put down my standalone digital camera and take snaps with a telephone at product briefings. Actually, I used my telephone to take loads of close-up gadget photographs at CES, MWC, and Samsung’s pre-briefings in 2025.

There’s one potential impediment standing in the way in which of the Pixel 11 Professional telephones getting a telephoto-based macro mode. The fact is that 5x cameras and better typically don’t provide macro capabilities on account of technical challenges. It’s merely troublesome to attain close-up specializing in a digital camera with such an extended focal size.

One potential workaround could be for the Pixel 11 Professional telephones to supply a shorter zoom vary, resembling 3x to 4x. Telephones just like the vivo X300 Professional, OPPO Discover X9 Professional, and Xiaomi 15 Extremely provide macro performance through their 3x to three.5x cameras. In the meantime, the HUAWEI Pura 80 Professional has a 48MP 4x digital camera and 5cm macro focusing.

The change to a barely shorter focal size would even be welcomed for portrait images, as ~35mm to ~90mm is taken into account the candy spot for portraits in comparison with 120mm (~5x). This has lengthy been a grievance about Pixel Professional handsets amongst some fans.

Nevertheless, long-range zoom high quality will surely take a success if the following Pixel Professional telephones dropped beneath the 5x mark. So I’d positively choose if Google did the technical legwork to deliver macro mode to its 5x cameras. Failing that, we’ve seen producers undertake 200MP periscope cameras within the final couple of years, utilizing all these megapixels to attain good long-range zoom. Google additionally affords its Professional Res Zoom function for higher long-range zoom, though I’m not a fan of such heavy-handed generative AI utilization. However, the items are right here for future Pixels to take care of good long-range photograph high quality whereas including macro performance.

In any occasion, I really like telephoto macro capabilities on trendy flagship telephones. I’m not the one one, both, as colleague Ryan Haines praised this function on the Nothing Telephone 3. So I’d prefer to see Google step as much as the plate and provide this versatile digital camera possibility on the Pixel 11 Professional vary.