Google asked anybody who owns a Pixel or Pixel XL and has a knack for photography to share their best pictures on Instagram under the hashtag #teampixel, and the best pictures from the past week or so are now featured in this week’s roundup on the company’s blog. This week’s picks are all summer-themed, and include both indoor and outdoor shots. In this week’s bunch of “Pixel perfect” photos, you’ll find a monastery in Russia, a lighthouse, a couple of great pictures of cityscapes from unique perspectives, a mountain sunset, animals in beautiful landscapes, some fun fireworks, and a swingset that offers the bravest of the brave a truly incredible view.
The promotion was initially announced back in May, and even got its very own trademark earlier this month. The photos all show off the Pixel’s amazing camera chops just as effectively as they show off the Pixel owner’s photography skills and the beautiful subjects and views being photographed. Last week’s bunch was just as beautiful, and carried a similar theme; Pixel owners got some truly breathtaking shots of things like pink skies and morning fog over a field, dizzying architecture, and even a beautifully prepared summer brunch of strawberries, tea, and oatmeal. While this week focused on wider views, last week’s collection was clearly bent on showing off the Pixel’s close-up prowess as well as the powerful visual acuity offered to far-off subjects thanks to the wide lens aperture and excellent HDR+ and focus management on the software end. An earlier collection even got turned into a pop-up art installation.
The Pixel’s incredibly powerful camera was only recently dethroned by the HTC U11, even managing to leave the Samsung Galaxy S8 in the dust. The software, as mentioned above, is also no slouch; a number of post-processing and in-shot tricks happen behind the scenes when a user snaps a simple photo. This promotion sees some of the best shots taken on the Pixel phone lineup featured, but since Google does not stipulate that the photos have to go directly from the camera to Instagram with no user-end processing, users can put in some pretty unique effects, such as the incredible results of a photography experiment done not long ago by a Googler who largely succeeded in bringing photography with Nexus and Pixel devices up to par with professional cameras.
