Let’s not kid ourselves: The most exciting thing about the Google Pixel 8 Pro (and 8, for that matter) is the camera, and because of Google’s commanding position when it comes to computational photography, anyone interested in the state-of-the-art will be paying extra attention to this smartphone’s yearly upgrade. My entire life is essentially a tug-of-war between my desire to take great photos and my desire to carry as little equipment as possible, so I’m particularly interested in what’s new camera-wise.

All the megapixels

Google made a big deal at the launch event for the Pixel 8 about the improved camera modules in the phones. The 8 Pro gets improvements across the board, with the ultrawide jumping from 12 megapixels to 48 megapixels; that joins a 50 megapixel main sensor, and a 48 megapixel sensor for the 5x optical zoom, too.

The nice thing about these options is that there are a lot of options, depending on your needs: You can capture in JPEG with standard settings for social and friends/family sharing, and Google will do the heavy lifting to get you a great result. Or you can capture in high megapixel mode, with JPEGs, for flexibility when it comes to cropping and sharing. Or you can go whole hog, capture in RAW+JPEG mode, and high megapixel, and get eminently editable RAW files for manipulation in Lightroom or your favorite editing software, along with a JPEG ready to share complete with Google’s image magic applied.The 5x zoom is also excellent in high-resolution mode, and provides ample detail and crisp rendering when shooting in JPEG with Google’s autocorrection applied. Having all that detail available with that range is a huge advantage when it comes to pocket photography, and means you have one less reason to carry around a dedicated camera body with a long-range optical zoom lens.The improved resolution on the ultrawide likewise makes these photos more usable, but in my testing it’s still probably the weakest of the cameras. It does produce some interesting results when it comes to macro (more on that below) thanks to the better resolution and improved autofocus, however.By default, Google will use all those megapixels to run some computer magic and generate a 12.5 megapixel final image that won’t eat up all your storage and that provides some excellent benefits in terms of color rendering, noise and more at the expense of detail. You can also opt to turn on high megapixel mode, however, and capture at the full resolution of the sensor — handy if you’re looking to print or crop the image, for instance.