- Vivo announces a new G2 Ultra 4.7x teleconverter lens alongside its flagship X500 series of phones
- The lens comes in the X500 Pro Max Photographer’s Kit, or it can be purchased separately. It is compatible with all three X500 phones
- The phones and accessories are China-only for now, with a wider rollout TBD
My first time was… OK, but my second was a revelation. Behavior, I’m talking about photos with a smartphone and teleconverter, of course, and Vivo has shown Oppo, Honor, and everyone else, in fact – even Apple – how to do it.
Available separately (only in China) or in the Vivo X500 Pro Max photographer kit (like the previous X300 Ultra-compatible model), there are now two teleconverter lenses that extend the reach of the phone: a 2.3x and a new ‘G2 Ultra’ 4.7x.
Like the Oppo Find X9 Ultra and its teleconverter lens, they are designed to be paired with the phone’s telephoto camera, but in this case it’s a 3.5x lens with an 85mm effective focal length. Add the ‘G2 Ultra’ 4.7x teleconverter – which is a real piece of equipment with Zeiss optics – and you therefore have a 400mm lens, no digital zoom required.
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What particularly impressed me on the Vivo X500 Pro Max is how its teleconverter is implemented in the phone’s camera app. You check the teleconverter option in the camera menu, after which an icon always appears on the screen.
If you want to use the teleconverter, tap the teleconverter icon, follow the prompt to select which teleconverter is attached, and the phone will correct the image for use with the phone (the teleconverter uses mirrors, so the image would otherwise be upside down).
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(Image credit: Tim Coleman)
The Oppo phone, on the other hand, requires a dedicated teleconverter mode to optimize the image. This mode is very simple and limited, and therefore you cannot use it with the best camera features of the phone. The same can be said for the new Honor Magic 9 Pro Max and the latest iPhone 18 devices paired with third-party options like PGY Tech and its associated app (as demonstrated by @byteddyk).
Meanwhile, the Vivo X500 Pro Max does not require a dedicated mode – it can be used with any of the other modes, without any real restriction in place, making the teleconverter more useful.
A teleconverter without limits
Works with all shooting modes and the 3.5x telephoto camera means users can access the phone’s maximum 200MP resolution. You can also select Pro mode with RAW file format and full control over exposure.
Or how about SnapShot – a mode designed for action photography that automatically uses a high shutter speed, which you’ll probably want to use at such an enlarged 400mm focal length for wildlife and sports photos.
Oppo’s teleconverter mode can do none of these things, and it’s real use case is quite limited, as I discovered when I tried to photograph a Pro Champions League soccer match from my far seat in the stadium.
The icing on the X500 Pro Max and the teleconverter cake is that the lens is backed by decent image stabilization, although you don’t get the 7EV in-body image stabilization you get with the phone’s main camera.
The lens comes with a collar and a tripod mount, so it’s easy to attach to a tripod. It’s best to use one, but I’ve found that I can still shoot sharp images, smooth video and track subjects handheld at 400mm.
It’s also possible to extend the 400mm reach digitally, with 800mm, 1200mm, 1600mm, and 3200mm options, but I find that using the digital zoom with a Vivo phone makes for artificial-looking photos (if pixel peeping, at least. A better option is to set the resolution to the default 50MP and then check the c02 and C0rop gallery here below to see how much you can extract from a 200MP file.
I still have the Oppo Find X9 Ultra and its teleconverter, but I could never get past the limitations of using it. The Vivo, on the other hand, will be the setup I reach for the next time I want to take super-telephoto shots with a phone.
For now, unfortunately, the Vivo X500 series and accessories are only available in China, with a wider rollout TBD, although these flagship Vivo devices have not previously sold directly in the US or UK.
Still, the G2 Ultra 4.7x teleconverter is a real showcase of what smartphone cameras can be capable of – hopefully, one day, they’ll be more widely available.
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