ⓘ Fandroid, edited

In the smartphone world, Leica has become synonymous with Xiaomi cameras, even though there are other manufacturers with Leica-branded cameras, for instance Insta360 and Sharp. The expensive Leica Leitzphones have been manufactured by Xiaomi as well so in a sense, the Leica name also suffers from the mistakes Xiaomi smartphones make. 

During the recent solar eclipse on August 12, 2026, these devices did not exactly prove to be reliable camera partners, as can be seen not only on various social media platforms but also in a camera comparison test between the Xiaomi 17 Ultra, the Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra, the Google Pixel 10 Pro XL, and the Oppo Find X9 Ultra—more on that later.
 

The image above looks particularly dramatic, but it’s pure AI slop. Apparently, the Xiaomi algorithms mistook the sun for the moon and superimposed the typical craters of the moon’s surface onto the photo. This has also happened with partial images of the sun, for instance in the example below:
 

It should be noted that both Samsung and Huawei have had their own moon-related scandals in the past. Many smartphone manufacturers offer a dedicated “moon mode,” in which images of the cratered landscape are superimposed onto the photo, sometimes the entire moon is/was replaced by a stock image. However, the fact that Xiaomi flagship models mistakenly switch to this “moon mode” when photographing a solar eclipse, as many observed last week, adds a new dimension to the list of AI problems we had to observe over the years. Hopefully this will be fixed in future software updates. Of course the AI and the moon mode can be disabled in which case the Xiaomi 17 Ultra was able to created good pictures of the eclipse, as can be seen here for instance. Below is the full camera test video in French:
 

Editor of the original article: Alexander Fagot - Managing Editor News - 11809 articles published on Notebookcheck since 2016

As a young tech enthusiast with a history involving assembling and overclocking projects, I ended up working as a projectionist with good old 35-mm films before I entered the computer world at a professional level. I assisted customers at an Austrian IT service provider called Iphos IT Solutions for seven years, working as a Windows client and server administrator as well as a project manager. As a freelancer who travels a lot, I have been able to write for Notebookcheck from all corners of the world since 2016. My articles cover brand-new mobile technologies in smartphones, laptops, and gadgets of all kinds.