OnePlus 7 Pro 3x zoom camera: an exclusive hands-on experience

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OnePlus is expected to unveil its 2019 smartphone lineup on May 14, but perhaps because its new products are coming weeks and months after Samsung and Huawei, there are fewer and fewer products to unveil that day.

It has already been confirmed that we are expecting more than just a phone. The OnePlus 7 will be the updated version of the Android phone recommended countless times to friends and relatives who want something upscale but who feel stolen at the mention of a £ 1,000 mobile .

The OnePlus 7 Pro is a little different. It is a high-end phone that, he hopes, will allow OnePlus to increase its prices without attracting treason and "sell" accusations from the most enthusiastic segments of its fan base. Expected to arrive with a 5G option, a OnePlus 7 Pro leak suggests that it could cost around € 749. This may seem too expensive for some, but it remains around £ 150 cheaper than its main competitors, the Samsung Galaxy S10 + and the Huawei P30 Pro.

A little more than two weeks before its launch, we tried the OnePlus 7 Pro to test its main camera and its new 3x zoom feature. OnePlus has already confirmed that his phone has a set of three rear cameras via Twitter. The device we had access to was an "almost final" pre-production model and our full review on the phone, including the camera, will feature in our post-launch review.

A 3x zoom allows this type of composition without the obvious degradation of the digital zoom

"From the point of view of professional photographers, optical zoom is one of the biggest differences between smartphones," says Simon Liu, Director of Imaging at OnePlus, the camera's closest author.

"On our previous phones, we wanted to keep the case sleek and not too thick, and make sure the lens does not go too far," says Liu. "In this case, the contribution of users to forums has helped to get these features over the phone. But we tried to find a balance on the whole phone experience. "

The request of the OnePlus fans for a correct zoom is not a surprise. Almost every other major phone maker now uses either zoom or wide-angle hardware in their best phones, while the OnePlus story in this area is checkered.

In 2017, he released the OnePlus 5 and claimed that he had a 2x zoom. It turned out that the phone had a 1.6x lens and made up for the difference with the crop. The fact that it was not much better than the assisted digital zoom techniques used in every OnePlus phone since tells you how successful it has been. This iteration marks a return to the "real" zoom.

The OnePlus 7 Pro camera does not feel deliberately disturbing and eye-catching, like the Huawei P30 Pro. The simple and simple camera interface used in the OnePlus 6T is more or less replicated here. No "pro" identifier is needed to use it. "Our main goal is to provide users with a simple user interface," says Liu.

The 3x zoom lets you create cropped images without cropping them.

However, this may mask this important photographic jump of the OnePlus 6T. The 2x zoom of this phone could leave a red and white striped t-shirt to a distant man like a gray-pink porridge. The OnePlus 7 Pro 3x Zoom lets you view not only the separate color bands, but also what their outlines indicate as to the number of kilograms of seasonal pâté this stranger can still lose. It's an excellent little zoom that shows the OnePlus 6T and other software solutions, such as Google Pixel 3's smart OIS engine solution.

Of course, it does not beat the 5x zoom Huawei P30 Pro. The enlarged images of OnePlus 7 Pro are slightly less detailed, noisier and less contrasting. But the 3x zoom is a more accessible field of view than 5x. In some situations, 5x may seem too much.

Liu's own expectations seem realistic. "I think we have a chance to compete with first-rate phones," he says. "I do not think we can beat them, but the world of imaging is always subjective."

The settings are all minimal, but there is also a 10x digital zoom on board, and from the images taken during this test, the video captured with a 3x zoom is stabilized to a certain extent and looks good.

OnePlus records information from the full line of 7 Pro lenses – as well as full specifications of both phones and the camera configuration of the OnePlus 7 – at the official launch in mid-May. For those who question the ads and leaks, it should be noted that there is no depth of flight sensor on the 7 Pro, an additional sensor used for portrait and RA modes more and more seen on competing phones.

Putting the sun directly into shooting is a nightmare for any camera, but the OnePlus 7 Pro resists well

Other elements of the OnePlus imaging strategy become clearer after filming footage of cars during Baku F1 in Azerbaijan. At first, this seems to be a familiar upscale camera experience. The shutter lag of 0.3 seconds or less allows the OnePlus 7 Pro to feel instant enough, if it's not quite 3 pixels fast. You can take photos directly in the sun while retaining usable images thanks to the automatic HDR function. Thus, the option to turn it off is enshrined in the settings menu. The slight burst mode delay and its 20-frame limit are not friends for someone trying to capture cars exceeding 200 mph. But in most situations, it will be more than enough.

You need to take a closer look to understand the character of the OnePlus 7 Pro camera network. "We bring a lot more clarity and density to our images," said Liu. "Our images are much more detailed compared to our previous phones."

In practice, this means that the OnePlus 7 zoom is more about keeping the finer details and revealing information in the shadows of a scene than eliminating any noise. This will not impress all pixel peeper shapes. Look closely and you'll see a not inconsiderable amount of specular noise on the 3x shots, even in the daylight pictures, and occasionally a popping sound in the darker areas. However, it also makes them much less manipulated. Color blocks do not end up like fresh skins of botox and do not become smooth and smooth, and noise reduction will not obscure the finer details.

On the other hand, the OnePlus 7 main camera uses subsampling or pixel grouping to create 12-megapixel images. In the software version used, there was no option to create photos in full resolution. This sub-sampling is mainly aimed at reducing noise. That's right, but noise reduction is still less aggressive than Huawei's. As Liu suggests, the OnePlus 7 rivals the Huawei P30 Pro pretty well. There is more shadow noise here, but they are not separated.

After spending hours scrutinizing the images of the OnePlus 7 Pro, you end up wishing that the main unit stops pounding the distant foliage in watercolor patterns. But this is now the norm in the world of smartphone photography led by treatment.

OnePlus has also made progress in other areas. The HDR implementation of OnePlus 7 is better than that of OnePlus 6T. This latest-generation phone is extremely effective for highlight preservation, but may eventually compress the midtones. This is what can make HDR images strangely flat, in contrast to the quality of a good HDR photo. The HDR look is much more natural this time, and the OnePlus 7 Pro maintains the realistic color temperature and tone fidelity when many dynamic range amplifications are needed. The mapping of HDR tones is a minor problem for OnePlus since its first phone, but it seems that the company has finally solved it.

The OnePlus 7 HDR processing balances the shadows on the left with the highlights on the right.

OnePlus, however, is not trying to break your head if progress is made. There is no "IA" mode bursting here, although the Camera application has asked us to try one of the new lenses based on what we had filmed. "Our competitors use artificial intelligence scene detection and we perform similar tasks, but the purpose is not to show them to the user. Most of it is behind the scenes, "says Liu. "We're tweaking the settings a bit, but OnePlus users should not expect too much difference on the surface. If you are trying to photograph a plant and the camera tells you that it is a dog, it is not useful. "

Some additional items are even muted compared to last year. "The portrait mode is more natural," says Liu. "The bokeh effect is closer to what you will get from a business goal. Previously, it was more artificial to prove that there was an effect, but when you use a digital camera, it is not as powerful. "

In use, the portrait mode of the main camera has a slightly cropped view, as it uses the 3x lens as a depth aid. He is also pretty picky about which topics he will apply and will not be applied, depending on how far apart they are from you. Place your subject at the required distance of 1.5m to 2m, however, and the results are interesting. The subject's isolation and progressive blur are also better here than those of the OnePlus 6T.

New Sensor and Optimized Processing Enables OnePlus 7 Pro to Manage Night Scenes

As expected, the images look better at night. OnePlus added a Nightscape mode dedicated to 6T post-launch, the same type of multi-exposure composite phone designers to add after Huawei introduced it into the P20 Pro. It was pretty solid, but no match for the better.

The seemingly renowned night mode of the OnePlus 7 Pro is a little closer to the level of the P30 Pro, with less bloom light and a sharper appearance than the 6T. The best of Huawei is not yet up to par and we can not say for the moment if it will manage the scenes lit by a single candle at about thirty meters away. But this does not require you to wait five to ten seconds to capture an image. It's only a little slower than "normal" shooting, which is refreshing and fast.

OnePlus did not design this phone to show up in previews like this one. It does not have features that attract projectors like the 50x digital zoom or AI modes that catch the attention while performing operations similar to the automatic scene processing seen for years in compact cameras.

The OnePlus 7 Pro, however, represents real progress. OnePlus will finally offer a "zoom" with optical credibility. Its zoomed images have a texture quality different from that of the main camera, but this favors the preservation of details. We also found a difference in tone between focal lengths lower than that of the Huawei P30 Pro. Liu wants to encourage user feedback as soon as possible, especially on the zoom, so that OnePlus "can fix the correction on our next phone" – a solution on which the company has naturally already started to work.

And when the treatment takes a lead, the photos of the OnePlus 7 Pro tend to be more natural or more faithful than those of previous OnePlus phones. From what we have seen so far, the 7 Pro's camera range bridges the gap between OnePlus phones and the less competitive competitors of Huawei and Samsung. It remains to be seen whether there is enough price difference. We will know it on May 14th.

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