I spent an entire month last year using the Xiaomi 15 Ultra as my primary camera. It checked a lot of boxes for me as a long-time photographer and became my favorite camera phone, not least for the natural photo quality of its large 1-inch sensor.
This phone was recently updated with the Xiaomi 17 Ultra, which appears to be a relatively minor upgrade, but shares the same hardware as Leica’s first phone available globally (other than the US), the co-branded Leitzphone. (There was no Xiaomi 16 series, because Xiaomi hopes “directly [compete] with the iPhone of the same generation.”)
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Leica has added its own design touch to the phone’s exterior and it’s typically sleek, with a black finish and knurled silver trim, as well as a unique mechanical control ring that surrounds the circular camera unit and which can control zoom, but is assigned to another control instead, like exposure compensation.
There’s also a nod to Leica’s camera UI, with the camera app UI sharing the same style and font, which will be familiar to people who have used a Leica digital camera such as the D-Lux 8. And, perhaps inevitably, when it comes to price, there’s also the ‘Leica tax’: the Leitzphone costs £1,700 / AU$2,299 (approximately $2,000), or about 20% more than the Xiaomi. 17Ultra.
Ah, I mean Leica’s user interface for the camera. So the font and UI style of the camera app is the same as that of Leica cameras.
I approached my time with the Leica Leitzphone by effectively treating it as an upgrade from my favorite camera phone, and so I couldn’t help but compare its image quality to that of my professional mirrorless camera in a few tests.
I’ll soon share an in-depth look at my experience with the Leitzphone as a photographer, based on using it daily for two weeks, but here I’ll highlight one aspect of that experience: comparing the same portrait taken with the Leitzphone’s telephoto lens and with my Nikon Z6 series camera paired with the superb Viltrox 85mm f//1.4 Pro lens.
Leitzphone vs full frame hybrid
Before I tell you how I take and edit portraits with the Leica Leitzphone, let’s take a look at the two photos together and see if you can spot which is which.
One photo is taken with the telephoto lens of the Leica Leitzphone, the other with a Nikon Z6 II and a Viltrox 85mm f/1.4 Pro. For context, the kind of quality that my camera and lens are capable of is equivalent to camera equipment costing around $5,000 / £4,500 / AU$8,000.
Think you know which photo was taken with which camera?
How to take portraits with the Leitzphone
You may already have an idea, but before I reveal which photo is taken with which camera, let me explain how I arrived at the final edit of the portrait taken with the Leitzphone.
I used the Leitzphone’s 3-4x telephoto lens to get a similar perspective to the superb Viltrox 85mm f/1.4 lens used in this comparison. However, the phone’s 1-inch sensor, while larger than the sensors on most other phones and capable of blurring backgrounds nicely, is dwarfed by that of my full-frame mirrorless camera, and so background blur, or bokeh, needs an extra helping hand.
For portraits, the Leitzphone offers a “portrait” mode. It uses the 3-4x telephoto camera and the captured photo looks as if you had used the camera’s regular photo mode. However, there is one key difference: modification.
Selecting portrait mode activates a bokeh effect option – you can use a slider to create (simulate) a wider aperture effect. I selected f/1.4 to match the aperture setting of my mirrorless camera (see screen recording below).
It’s also possible to select a bokeh shape – I opted for the natural (and desirable for purists) circular bokeh shape, while the Viltrox’s bokeh is a little more cat’s eye, so now it might be a little more obvious which image is which.
Another clue is that the Leitzphone captures a greater depth of field than an 85mm full-frame lens at f/1.4, so subject details are sharper throughout, whereas the Nikon mirrorless camera’s portrait depth is shallow – see the tip of the beard, which is blurry.
If you haven’t already figured out, the top image was taken with the Leitzphone and the bottom image was taken with my Nikon Z6 II and Viltrox 85mm f/1.4 lens. I don’t blame you if you had trouble telling the difference, especially if you’re reading this feature on mobile: the differences between the two are minor and prove just how smart smartphone cameras have become.
In a way, the Leitzphone offers the best of both worlds in this scenario: big bokeh (albeit computationally achieved) with more depth in the subject. In a pinch, you can narrow the aperture of the mirrorless lens for more depth in the subject and follow the same editing process to increase the size of the bokeh.
While I was at it, I made slight tweaks to the Leitzphone’s portrait brightness, sharpness, and tones to get the look I liked. The preview makes the bokeh effect look ugly when you view the edit up close, but once the image is saved, most of these artifacts around the subject are gone (see before and after below).
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Honestly, when you look at the end result of the Leitzphone’s portrait mode, it’s breathtaking.
I don’t know about you, but the effect is so convincing, especially when viewed on a smart device, that I would happily use the Leitzphone for taking portraits. It’s not about replacing my mirrorless camera, but it might make me think twice about packing it.
I’ve added a few more photo comparisons below. I hope you enjoy – and let me know what you think of the Leitzphone in the comments below.
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