Use Super Res Zoom on your Google Pixel 3 Camera
One of the most useful camera tricks that Google introduced with the Pixel 3 is Super Res Zoom. Super Res Zoom comes with a great promise: to clean up digital zoom in such a way that makes it stand toe-to-toe with optical zoom. How the feature works, however, is something we did not know until Google decided to explain everything in a recent blog post.
Long story short, Super Res Zoom works by merging many frames to form a higher resolution image rather than upscaling the crop of a single image. This finally leads to improved details that are “roughly competitive with the 2x optical zoom lenses on many other smartphones.”
And Google even gives us several tips on how to get the most out of Super Res Zoom on a Pixel 3 device, including the need to keep the magnification factor modest, to avoid fast moving objects since Super Res Zoom will capture them correctly, but you will not likely get increased resolution or to note that Google Lens complements Super Res Zoom better than expected, so you can zoom in and get details from a poster or billboard in no time.
Some claim that Google’s Super Res Zoom is still behind Apple as the clarity doesn’t even come close to matching the photo captured using the iPhone XS’s optical zoom. That’s up to you to decide! What I know is that I find it really useful and Super Res Zoom is certainly an impressive camera feature that compares favorably to any other regular digital zoom that I have tried up to now.
How to Use Super Res Zoom on your Google Pixel 3 Camera:
- First of all, you have to open the Pixel 3 Camera app;
- You must now tap the magnifying glass in the bottom right corner to open the zoom slider;
- When the zoom slider appears, drag right to increase the zoom;
- Note that you can also tap the “+” and “-” buttons in order to increase zoom incrementally;
- When you’re happy with the shot you’ve framed up, all you must do is to take the shot.
