Day 3: Camera Review
Please note that the photos presented below were not edited in anyway other than cropping and/or resizing to fit here in the forums. They are as accurate a representation of the camera's ability as I was able to get.
Also: Fair warning.This part of the review is long! I got a little carried away.
Open up the 5T's camera app and you are presented with a few options. On the top are four options: self timer, HDR modes, aspect ratio, and flash options. above the shutter button is a small 1x button that you can be used to toggle the zoom quickly to 2x. Video mode, and portrait mode are available by swiping to the left or right on the main screen. By swiping up from the bottom you are presented with additional options including: Video, Photo, Portrait, Slow motion, Pro Mode, Time-lapse, and Panorama. Overall, the app is mostly intuitive and easy to use. When you launch the camera, it takes you to the automatic photo mode, set to HDR (auto), which I assume the majority of people will use. The camera is fast and there is not perceptible shutter lag. In almost all situations I've encountered, the auto-focus is fast and accurate.
Auto Mode (default camera)
With those things out of the way, let's jump right into photo quality and the HDR mode that is built in to the main shooter. There are four options: HDR off, HDR auto, HDR on, and HQ.
In this example, you can see that the HDR mode helped to brighten the shadows in the foreground, and looks as if it applied a "tonemapping" effect to the clouds.
In this example it's hard to tell a strong difference between the modes, although in a busy scene like this, I think the HDR (off) mode did the best job.
At first glance, it can be hard to tell the difference between HDR(auto) and HDR(on) and occasionally even with HDR (off). I believe what's happening on HDR(auto) is that the camera is choosing when to turn HDR on or off. In my testing I haven't been able to tell if the HDR has a sliding scale of how much of the effect is applied. So far, I have not impressed with the HDR mode base on how it handles light. Although as I will present below, I am also not impressed with it based on how it handles sharpness. The actual “look” that you get with HDR is up the individual preference, however the sharpness issue as you’ll see below is unacceptable, and I can’t see myself turning on HDR mode in the future.
There has been no editing of any kind to these photos, other than enlarging a portion of the photo to show the sharpness and detail.
As you can see in the above examples the HDR mode drastically reduces sharpness in some situations, to the point where the photo is nearly unusable in comparison to the non-HDR photo. Also, in my opinion the HDR mode does not make a more pleasing photo in terms of balancing highlights and shadows. I'll be curious to see what a software update could do to fix this. In case you think all photos taken in auto HDR mode are bad, let me show you the following two "low light" evening shots. They turned out incredibly well in my opinion and were just quick snapshots.
Taken in auto mode: (ISO 1250, 1/50 sec.)
Auto mode: (ISO 500, 1/100 sec.)
The following photo was taken in the main camera mode with HDR off.
Capable of retaining great details!
Before we move on to the other camera modes I want to talk briefly about the "zoom". OnePlus has kept the zoom button front and center in it's camera app. OnePlus first introduced this in the "5" when it debuted it's dual lens technology, include a 2x telephoto lens in addition to it's normal lens. In the 5T however, the second lens is an additional standard lens and does not offer an increased focal length. I'm disappointed both by the decision of not including the telephoto lens, and by the decision to keep the 1x zoom button. Essentially when users push the zoom button, the camera is just zooming digitally, and resulting in a photo with half the details. In an interesting decision by OnePlus, the camera software automatically up-scales the photo taken at 2x zoom, to math the resolution of photos taken at the 1x position. The resolution of both standard and zoomed photos is: 3456 x 4608 (when shooting in 4:3 mode). Below I have attached a side by side comparison of a photo that was taken at the standard zoom beside a photo taken with the digital zoom. I then manually up-scaled the original photo taken at standard zoom to match the in camera up-scaling. These photos were both taken with HDR off, and no additional adjustments were made before or after capture on either photo. You can see the results below.
It's a close call, but I prefer the original photo that I enlarged/cropped myself. The digitally zoomed photo lost detail in the branches next to the sky.
Except for a quick share on social media, I would encourage all users to not use it. It feels slightly dishonest by OnePlus to keep it there and market it, after they removed the lens that actually provided those results. The 1x button is nothing else than a way to digitally zoom, which can already be achieved by pinching your fingers on screen.
If you can hang in there with me, I want to share one more cool feature that one of you guys mentioned on this thread. That is burst mode! I absolutely love how this works, and think it's a brilliant software design. By simply holding down the shutter button, the camera takes 20 full resolution photos in very rapid succession. As seen from the screen shots below, it's very easy to select and save the photos you want, without filling up your gallery with unwanted shots.
Pro-Mode + Portrait Mode + Panorama
I am very glad OnePlus decided to add a Pro-Mode. As a photographer, it's something I'll use a lot of the time. I know I'm in the minority, but it's nice to see them consider us with these features. By default the auto mode on this camera seems to overexpose slightly in certain conditions. This is quickly corrected by holding your finger down on screen and pulling down to adjust the exposure compensation. If you want to correct this using Pro-Mode however, you have many options at your disposal. Below is a comparison shot from auto mode to pro mode.
Something I found frustrating on the auto mode, was the 5T's difficulty focusing on small things in front of the lens. Below is an example that shows this. I tried every way possible to get the camera to focus on the white berry, but it would absolutely not do it, even when I adjusted angles, used the 2x digital zoom, and touched the white berry on the screen. Finally, I had to open Pro-Mode to take the shot. With manual focus I had plenty of room to spare and could've focused even closer to the berry that I did. In auto mode, the camera just couldn't find it. You'll notice this in the video footage linked below. In one scene I was trying to get the camera to focus on a small leaf/stalk and it just couldn't do it.
![[IMG]](https://forums.oneplus.net/attachments/pro-vs-auto-jpg.630088/?temp_hash=d777a047b7bc4b53e634451ca16525be)
The 5T also shoots in RAW in the Pro-Mode, but to be honest I'll need more time with the files to let you know how good they are. My first impression is that they are too flat, and way overcompensate for the shadows leaving you with over exposed images to work with. In my few minutes adjusting them, they were much harder to edit than the RAW files from my LG G4 from a few years ago. I'll have to let you know more on this later.
In the few days since I've had the phone, I have not been able to take a single photo using portrait mode that I'd be happy enough to keep. I want to have more faith in it so before I speak out against it too much, I'm going to give it some more time. Below is a photo of a sign in my solo outing this afternoon.
At least to my eye, the edges of the sign look really muddy and unprofessional. Maybe it's not meant to work on things that contrast this much with their surroundings. I'll keep trying, but as of now I'm unimpressed.
The panorama mode worked as expected, and produces very good results. The "stitching" of the grass in this photo is near or at perfect. It processed very speedily, and let me get on with my shooting.
I know that I haven't covered the front facing camera at all in this review, but I can say from my short use with it that it does a really nice job, especially when given a good amount of light. If you have specific questions on the front facing camera, please ask and I'll do my best to answer.
Video
The video did not blow me away like I had hoped it would, and I think the main reason for this is the lack of optical image stabilization. The EIS (electronic image stabilization) works surprisingly well in most situations. It does not handle quick intentional movements, or long slow continuous movements very well. On quick intentional movements the EIS acts like it is trying to keep up, and in long slow continuous movements, it doesn't know when you are stopping or starting and feels very proactive, sometimes resulting in intentional movements being hindered.
I was also surprised that I had no options for adjusting white balance of my video. Also, I would've preferred they added a manual video mode that allowed some adjustments to the shutter speed, iso, and focusing. I had gotten used to my LG G4 which allowed for all of this. For creative video use, the 5T is severely lacking functionality. For everyday use, I think most users will be happy.
The video below was shot in 4K and put together to show the capabilities of the camera. It was not edited, stabilized, or color graded in anyway. It is straight out of the camera footage. The camera was handheld on every shot.
Let me know what you guys think! There's a lot to cover, and I'm sure I left some out so don't hesitate to ask questions!
Just because I am a photographer, I need to share one "edited" photo with you all before I sign off. Enjoy!
![[IMG]](https://forums.oneplus.net/attachments/img_20171124_154948-jpg.630075/?temp_hash=d777a047b7bc4b53e634451ca16525be)
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