Realme seeks to make the mobile phone the best street camera. And it has joined the street camera brand par excellence

Shenzhen and Beijing have two things in common: they are endless and both have been the perfect setting for two mobile presentations that have photography in the spotlight. He Vivo X300 Pro hit first, betting on a very long zoom to capture every last detail of the highest roof. The Realme GT8 Pro arrived later with a contrary argument: “Take me out on the street and start taking photos.”.

Realme’s new high-end has been an open secret for weeks and I’ve already had it in my hands for a few days. But with one condition: I can’t talk about the phone, only its main camera. The reason? They have not presented the mobilebut an agreement with a striking camera brand: RICOH. And below I’ll tell you my first impressions of the Realme GT8 Pro camera.

Technical specifications of the Realme GT8 Pro?

Maybe they are the strangest first impressions I have ever made because… I can’t tell you about the cell phone. In fact, any detail is extremely generic: screen that occupies the entire front, an imitation of the Dynamic Island of the iPhone that Realme has been implementing for some time in its models and a design with flat sides.

There was a rule: you cannot remove the case, you cannot remove the sticker that covers the camera module. Because I can’t, I can’t even tell you what hardware it has because the characteristics in ‘Settings’ are falsified. What I can tell you is that it has a periscopic telephoto, a wide angle and a main camera.

And I’m going to get into it now because it is the jewel in the crown (beyond a power and battery that, if they follow in the wake of the Realme GT7 Prowill be rubbing shoulders with the best mobile phones of 2025).

Realme GT8 Pro: a mobile phone made for the street

“The collaboration with RICOH to create the Realme GT8 Pro goes beyond a union of brands.” Also about specifications: RICOH has overseen all aspects of the camera’s hardware and software. In the presentation of the agreement (because the mobile phone has not yet been officially presented), the Chinese company made it clear that the differentiating point of the new terminal is the main camera.

It has a wide angle, it has a telephoto, it will surely mount the latest from Qualcomm, but the protagonist is the result of a very close collaboration between the Chinese and Japanese brands. Megapixels? Why do you want to know that (it’s not official). Focal? 23mm. Opening? 1.8. Does that matter? Not the slightest. Let me explain.

Entering the Realme GT8 Pro camera app is like doing so in any mobile camera app: a carousel of options that are overwhelming in some cases and processing that feels excessive in some aspects. However, the secret is if we slide our finger down on the shutter button: this way we access the RICOH GR mode very, very quickly.

To give some context, RICOH is a company that makes very compact cameras, ideal for street photography. They have specialized in fast focus cameras, silent shooting and ‘stealth’ modes to go unnoticed in the urban jungle. Also by 28 mm or 40 mm fixed focal lengths, depending on the model.

Entering that GR mode directly activates the 28mmbut it is not a real focal length: it is a small cutout of the sensor to go from the native 23 mm to that RICOH-type focal length. It is not the only one: we also have a 40 mm (which would be a 1.8x crop of the sensor) and if we tap on the 28 mm and 40 mm icons, two more distances are added. That is, in practice the main camera is:

• 23mm in normal mode
• 28mm in GR mode
• 35mm in GR mode
• 40mm in GR mode
• 50mm, or 2x, in GR mode

I imagine at least the 50mm or 2x will also be available in the regular camera app, but it wasn’t available on my test unit.

The use is very intuitive and there are other things that change a lot in this GR mode. To start, the colors. We have several filters typical RICOH tonal variations. As in its day with Apple ringtones, It’s not about filters. In fact, from Realme they commented that “People are tired of filters that make all photos look the same”. What they have done is work with RICOH to apply their color science to photo processing.

Thus, there are tones that vary slightly, opting for a more bluish tone in elements such as shadows, but in addition the processing does not enhance the shadows to the extreme nor does it apply aggressive HDR (in normal mode, yes). And we have five default color profiles that are based on the technical characteristics that RICOH has set.

Within each “color recipe”, we can create our own, modifying parameters such as tone, contrast, exposure or black level to create a unique profile that adapts to what we like. And they stay stored, something that I loved.

Apart from the color profiles and focal lengths, the GR mode allows you to save in the usual JPG, JPG+RAW and RAW, but something else: modify the focus point to leave it fixed.

We have several options here and, basically, it is about making the mobile even faster in its point & shoot function. A practical example: if I am shooting at everything in front of me, be it close-ups or panoramic shots, I can leave the focus on auto so that the phone decides. But it is not optimal if I know that everything is going to be more distant or medium-distance shots.

To do this, I can set the fixed focus to infinity if I want to capture buildings, for example, or to 2.5 or 5 meters if what I am doing is street photography purer. The advantage? If I’m on the street and I want to take a quick photo of something that catches my attention, the phone doesn’t autofocus on the faces it considers, but simply shoots.

The first day I ‘shot’ on automatic and I missed many photos because some came out blurry or the element I was really interested in didn’t turn out well, but the second day I went down the street with my phone set to focus at 2.5 meters and I am very happy with the results. I also noticed that it heated up less, logically not having to process the autofocus.

And speaking of ‘processing’, let’s talk about these RICOH color profiles. On the trip I met Iker Morán, from Photolari, and we were chatting about this matter because RICOH, precisely, is not a company that is characterized by a specific color.

That is, there are Canon colors, which are vivid, and Fuji’s famous color science. Zeiss has its lenses and Hasseblad can replicate its panoramic modes, but RICOH… it is street photography.

Well, although At the event they talked about ‘RICOH Blue’ as distinctive and it is not very clear to me that it is something so differentiating, I have to say that I like the “feel” that the different profiles give to the images. Both during the day, with those greener tones, and at night, with very attractive shadows.

At night, the 1.8 aperture allows the night mode to not jump out easily and I like the ‘look’ of the photos, but I have to say that it does not control the lights very well at times.

But, of all the modes, the harshest black and white (there are two, one softer and one more aggressive), is the one I liked the most. In fact, on the first day I was switching between modes, but on the second I left black and white and that focus at 2.5 meters. And I couldn’t have made a better decision..

Furthermore, I consider that this is what the company is looking for because, by limiting the mobile phone’s options, I have turned it into a full-fledged street camera.

It is a complex mode because there must be contrast in the image or it will not work, but it adds a very aesthetic digital grain and we all know that a regular photo can only be achieved with black and white.

When zooming in there may be some artifacts that shouldn’t be there (in fact, it happens more in color photos than in black and white ones), but The mobile phone has a few weeks left in the oven and things can change. It is something that we will see in the analysis, but the general feeling is that I have not missed a ‘dedicated’ camera because in the end, to save memories, a mobile phone with a single camera and “layered” in a single shooting and color mode has completely satisfied me.

Clear, I would have loved to be able to take photos with the telephotosince Beijing is a movie setting for it and every two steps I regretted not having the option available (and this is literal, since the camera app was blocked so that we could only take photos with the main camera). But hey, I understand that this is relegated to the tests we do for the analysis of the Realme GT8 Pro, like the rest of the usual tests.

Now, warning: the modes are irreversible. If on the iPhone you can shoot with one tone and then apply a radically different one without worsening the quality of the image and the colors, on the Realme GT8 Pro the philosophy is different: we will die on the beach of the color profile we choose.

But I have to say that I have a good taste in my mouth and that, of all the ways there are to capture a collaboration with a photography brand, Realme’s seems to me to be the best. You have that feeling of sliding your finger on the camera app and turning your phone… into a compact camera.

It is not a sticker on the camera module, it is not four filters or a shutter release with a special color: it is carrying the philosophy of a camera like the RICOH GR IV to the mobile photography experience.

And… for asking? That Realme had gone all out, launching a huge deal and sending away the 23 mm in the main lens to go directly to a native 28 mm. Although that is a concession that seems impossible in a world that wants wide angles.

At the moment, this is the only thing we have about the Realme GT8 Pro. There is no mobile data and, for that, we will have to wait a few days.

Images | Xataka

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