I Was WRONG About the OnePlus 8's Cameras... By Mark Spurrell

In my review video of the OnePlus 8, I said in true OnePlus fashion. The cameras on the 8 just aren't that great and I think that's a little misleading, saying the cameras aren't great sort of kind of implies. I think they're bad, and they're, not okay. Maybe the two megapixel macro camera is pretty bad but other than that. The other three cameras on the OnePlus 8 aren't bad at all: they're, actually pretty good in a lot of scenarios, and I'm going to spend the next five minutes proving that to you. I'd make a longer video, but it's almost lunchtime and I didn't eat breakfast.

So just a quick refresher, the OnePlus 8 has four cameras in total on the back of the phone, sits a vertical camera array which yes does protrude from the phone and will rock side to side on the table. If you don't have a case on it in this array, there's a 16 megapixel ultra-wide angle, camera at the top, a 48, megapixel, wide angle, camera in the middle and then there's a 2 megapixel lens at the bottom. There's also a dual led flash underneath the ultra-wide angle. Camera can shoot up to 4k and 30 fps. While the wide angle camera can shoot the full 4k 60.

The macro camera can't shoot video at all and that two megapixels. Why would you ever want it to on the front of the OnePlus 8? There's a 16 megapixel hole, punch, selfie camera that can only do 1080p, 30fps video recording, but the video from it isn't actually all that bad which we'll talk about in a bit. First, though, let's get into some photo samples for the most part, I like the colors and the sharpness of the photos that come from this phone portrait mode works great from the main camera. As long as you switch it off the default 2x crop and the dynamic range of most photos is good. But these cameras do have some strange quirks.

For instance, colors between the main camera and the ultrawide camera aren't consistent. The wide angle camera has more of a natural warm color profile, whereas the ultra-wide tends to bias heavily into the cool blues. The ultrawide also isn't nearly as sharp as the wide angle, which becomes especially apparent in close-up shots. Shots from far away are fine, though, and they actually pair quite nicely together. Another strange quirk is that all photos coming out of this wide-angle camera default to 12 megapixels, even though it is a 48 megapixel sensor.

When you tap on the 12 megapixel button, it switches into the 48 megapixel mode and claims to offer higher resolution for well lit scenes. When you switch back, it says the 12 megapixel mode is for higher dynamic range and that's what's recommended. I actually agree with OnePlus on this one. In all of my testing, I found that the 48 megapixel mode consistently produces sharper images slightly anyway, but with a pretty significant drop-off in dynamic range, you can see the difference easily in this photo. If you look at the shadows in the plant, as I mentioned in my previous video about the OnePlus 8, the 2 megapixel macro camera is its just bad, and I honestly I got that one right, there's no way around it.

If you use the 48 megapixel 2x crop you'll actually get better macro shots than if you use the dedicated macro lens, pretty sure. The only reason that it exists on this phone is so that OnePlus can claim that they have a triple camera on the back of this phone OnePlus dedicated night mode called nights cape does an excellent job, though in this picture I actually couldn't see that there was a buildup of dust all over the table with the naked eye, and it was only until I switched it into the nights cape mode that I could see it night modes are really blowing me away. Lately, it's one of my favorite features on modern smartphones. The OnePlus 8 also comes with a dedicated pro mode equipped with raw capabilities and even a histogram straight out of the default camera app. I love this mode.

It's got a lot of cool features, but OnePlus, please, for the love of everything that is good in this world. Stick a video recording button right next to that photo capture button, because the fact that I can't use this mode for video makes me very, very sad. The biggest disadvantage for these cameras for both photos and video, which you're going to see in just a bit, is actually the image processing that goes on inside the software. I find that photos come out a little too underexposed and contrast and in some cases too, desaturated look at this. This is an okay photo overall, but do you see all this white down here towards the bottom of the waveform? That means that the photo is underexposed and if we just take all that white and move it up a slight bit, look how much better this photo looks.

This is actually good news. It means that OnePlus can continue to refine their image, processing, algorithms and then the cameras may get much better over time. Photos from the front-facing camera tend to be a bit better. Generally speaking, I don't have much to complain about any of these selfies other than the fact that I had to take them. The portrait mode works great, and none of the aforementioned exposure issues creep their way into any of these photos, and that brings us to video roll eclipse.

The OnePlus 8 video resolution does cap out at 1080p 30fps. However, the microphones are pretty good and the dynamic range seems pretty good as well so thumbs up for that OnePlus. Well, thanks for that now, if you are absolutely bonkers about video quality like I am, you can flip the camera around or flip the phone around and use the rear facing cameras to get full 4k, 30 or 60fps with the wide-angle camera. I think the videos that come out of this phone are a bit weaker in terms of quality than the photos are dynamic range and stabilization seem to both be excellent, but the video does have some strange artifacts and compression issues, and again videos tend to err on the side of under exposure and desaturation like the photos. As long as you're shooting 4k at 30fps, you can switch between the ultra-wide and wide angle cameras, while you're recording, there's no doubt that the video can be good, but more often than not.

I just run into some image processing issues that lead to less than ideal video quality. I expect that OnePlus will be updating their software to improve image processing in the coming months and, honestly, I'm excited to see how far they can push the cameras in this phone to get better images. Overall. For now, though, I can say that the cameras in their current state are good, but not flagship, good again. The whole reason why I made this video is that I felt I was speaking a little unfairly about the cameras in my full review, but I feel much better now that I rambled a bit and hopefully cleared some things up for you again I'll, be posting some more samples, as well as some observations that I make about this phone as I continue to use it on my Instagram and Twitter, and I'll leave links for those down in the description down below if you're interested hey.

I actually made a good time for me to go eat because I'm starving and time for you to hit that like button. If you like this video and subscribe to support my channel and as always have a great day.

Source : Mark Spurrell