Ricoh does not have the color style of Leica or Zeiss optics, but Realme has chosen it

According to sources, on October 14, in Beijing, the company realme will announce a strategic partnership with the Japanese company Ricoh Imaging Company Ltd. It is reported that to lay the foundation for this partnership, both companies have been working diligently together for four years. The first result of this collaboration will be the Realme GT8 Pro smartphone, which is expected to be announced this month.

Leica enjoys collaborating with mobile brands — from such collaborations, they earn almost as much as from selling their own photographic equipment. You can also sometimes see Zeiss badges on phones, although it is currently unclear whether the German manufacturer really supplies its branded coated optics to smartphones or, like Leica, simply adds branded color correction. However, Realme decided to partner with a professional camera manufacturer not just for the well-known brand on the advertising banner, but to solve a specific problem.

Realme is trying to overcome the limitations of smartphone camera sensors. The phones use a very limited range of camera sensors, and the confined space in a phone does not allow for gathering much information from the light stream. Additionally, people mainly take photos on the go, not overly concerned about how to frame, focus, or at least hold the phone still during shooting. So, it is necessary to learn to squeeze as much information as possible in field conditions, without blurring images with algorithms.

What Ricoh has

Ricoh is known for creating a whole range of compact cameras with fixed optics. Because of this, they are compact, reliable, and widely used in street photography and videography. Ricoh also owns the camera manufacturer Pentax. It is their experience working with small cameras and poor shooting conditions that attracted Realme. With Ricoh technologies, Realme hopes to move away from oversaturated images with aggressive noise-reduction algorithms and sharpening to more natural images.

Whether Realme can fundamentally change mobile photography, or if this is just marketing talk — only time will tell. But fortunately, we only have to wait a few weeks.