Realme today hosted a Camera Innovation Event to showcase all the new hardware and software innovations that will make an appearance on the upcoming Realme 8 series. To kick things off, the company first announced that the upcoming Realme 8 Pro will pack a 108MP primary camera with 3x in-sensor zoom capabilities and a new clarity enhancement algorithm. It then showcased a couple of new software features, including a Starry Mode with time-lapse video, tilt-shift photography, and more, that will debut with the upcoming devices. Here's everything you need to know about the new camera features:

108MP primary camera on the Realme 8 Pro

The upcoming Realme 8 Pro will feature Samsung's ISOCELL HM2 low-profile sensor that was announced in September last year. The sensor is 15 percent smaller than its 0.8μm-based predecessors and reduces the camera module's height by 10 percent. Along with that, the sensor offers nine-pixel binning technology, ISOCELL Plus, Smart ISO, and 3x lossless zoom.

Realme has rebranded the sensor's lossless zoom capabilities as "in-sensor zoom" and has added a new clarity enhancement algorithm to the mix to deliver high clarity images that can match or even exceed the performance offered by a 3x optical telephoto camera in terms of sharpness.

Starry Mode with time-lapse video

Realme Starry Mode

The upcoming Realme 8 series will also be the first to offer a new Starry Mode that will let users capture starry time-lapse videos. The company explained that the new mode uses an exclusive time-lapse video algorithm based on starry photos to deliver impressive time-lapse videos. The mode takes just 480 seconds to shoot up to 30 photos of the night sky to generate a 1-second time-lapse video.

Tilt-shift photography

Realme will also introduce a new software-enabled tilt-shift photography mode with the Realme 8 series. This mode will use Realme's new tilt-shift photography algorithm to capture tilt-shift photos. On top of that, the Realme 8 Pro will also be capable of capturing tilt-shift time-lapse videos.

Realme tilt shift mode

The tilt-shift photography mode will give users a bunch of customization options to help them configure the shape, angle, position, and size of the bokeh effect. It will also include an option to change the transition effect between the part of the image that's in focus and the part that's not.

New Portrait filters

The Realme 8 series will also come with a couple of new Portrait filters to help users capture impressive portrait shots. These include Neon Portrait, Dynamic Bokeh Portrait, and AI Color Portrait. Here are a couple of images showcasing the kind of portrait photos you can capture with these new modes:

Along with the aforementioned features, Realme also announced that going forward its number series will focus on bringing new camera innovations to the market. In an interaction with Realme regarding these new features, we also learned that the tilt-shift feature wouldn't be limited to the primary camera on the Realme 8 series. The company also revealed that users will be able to zoom in/zoom out while recording tilt-shift videos and even apply filters to the videos.

When we asked why Realme chose to go with Samsung's 108MP ISOCELL HM2 sensor instead of the 50MP GN1 sensor if they wanted to provide better low light capabilities, the company revealed that the demand from users for the 108MP sensor was higher. Hence, it chose to go with the higher megapixel count and fine-tuned the low light features accordingly.

We also asked if the company had plans to continue using the same 108MP sensor on upcoming devices and fine-tune its performance as it did with the 64MP sensor last year. Company representatives confirmed that Realme will launch more devices with the 108MP ISOCELL HM2 sensor or better this year and introduce software optimizations along the way to improve its performance even further.

What's your take on Realme's decision to focus on bringing camera innovations with its number series? Do you think the upcoming Realme 8 series will be able to compete with the Redmi Note 10 lineup based on its camera chops alone? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.