ONE PLUS 8 FULL CAMERA REVIEW
we are going to take a very detailed look at the triple cameras on the OnePlus8. One Plus is known for making amazing smartphones at an affordable price. And while they moved away from the affordable price point, it is true that they still make amazing smartphones. But the cameras on their phone have always been their Achilles heel. As amazing as the design, hardware, and software on their phone are, One Plus has never managed to get the cameras right. And the performance of the cameras on their phones has been average at best. Does that change with the One Plus 8, let’s find out. After trying out the circular camera module on the 7T, One Plus has gone back to a simple triple camera module on the One Plus 8. I really liked the camera module on the 7T, and I wish they kept it the same on this phone as well. The design of the camera module is not the only thing that has changed, One Plus has shuffled around the cameras as well. For starters, on the One Plus 8, you won’t get a 2x telephoto lens, instead, we get a 2-megapixel sensor with F/2.4 aperture and a macro lens. 7T used the ultra-wide camera for taking macro shots, which is not the case anymore. Speaking of the Ultra-wide camera, thankfully it is still present on this new phone. This camera gets a 16-megapixel sensor with F/2.2 aperture, and a 14mm lens. This field of view is wider than the 17mmultra wide lens on the One Plus 7T. And finally, the main camera retains the same48 Megapixel Sony IMX586 sensor as the One Plus 7T. But the Aperture is now narrower at F/1.75 against F/1.6 on the 7T.
Lens optics also shift down from 7P on the7T, to 6P on the One plus 8. It still gets optical image stabilization, but it is only put to work while shooting images, and all videos are stabilized just with the help of electronic stabilization. With the primary camera, you can shoot 4Kvideos at 30 or 60fps, 1080p videos at 30, 60 and 240fps, and 720p videos at 480fps. With the wide camera, you can shoot 4K and1080p videos in 30fps. At the front, we again get the same 16 megapixels Sony IMX471 sensor, like the One Plus 7T, but the aperture is now much narrower at F/2.45. This has got to be the narrowest aperture on any selfie camera that I have used in the last couple of years. The interface of the cameras has also changed a bit. You get the lens selection button above the shutter button, like on most phones, and you can swipe to the left or right to switch modes. Now the option to change the resolution is not just available in the pro mode, you can just tap on this icon at the top to switch between 12 and 48-megapixel mode. Right next to it is the option to switch to the macro camera. Settings have been moved to the top right corner, and to change or even check the video resolution, you have to go deep into this settings menu. Pro mode is pretty much the same as before. You can change all settings like ISO, white balance, shutter speed, focus, and exposure, according to the scene, or according to your liking. It lets you shoot RAW images and you can even have a histogram, right on the viewfinder.
The range for ISO in the Pro mode is from 100-3200. And the range for shutter speed is from 1/8000thof a second, all the way up to 30 seconds. While the camera specs don’t sound like an upgrade of the One Plus 7T, maybe Image signal Processor on the Snapdragon 865 will help this phone deliver better results. My One Plus 8 is running on the latest version of Oxygen OS, which is available at the time of uploading this video. images appear a bit darker than they should. Most of the images look good from the primary camera, and if you are getting this phone, I think you will be happy with the primary camera’s daylight performance. Indoor daytime images also turned out to be pretty good from the primary camera.
One Plus seems to have worked a lot on getting the colors right because, in almost all of these shots, colors turned out to be exactly as the actual scene looked. There is just a bit more contrast in these images, as I mentioned before, but they look good for the most part. And we don’t see the weird green or magenta tint that we saw in some of the images from the One Plus 7 series phones, so thumbs up to One Plus, for getting it right this time. In terms of dynamic range, I think One Plus needs to work a bit on getting it even better. In some of the shots like this, it does well to bring up the details from the shadows, but it fails to preserve the details from the highlights. You can see something similar in this image. It did bring up many details from the darker parts, but if we zoom in, we see that it did not preserve any of the details in the brighter area, and this is with the UltraShot HDR mode turned on. Now in this shot, it did well to bring up the details in the building and preserve the details in the leaves, despite the sun behind them.
But the overall image still needs some work, here is how it could look if the image processing did a slightly better job. In this image, it did well with the sun but barely brought back any details in the building. I think there is potential in this sensor and the ISP to do better, but OnePlus just needs to tweak the software a bit, so it can take better advantage of all the RAW data that this sensor captures. Before we move on to the closeup shots, here is a quick focusing speed of the primary camera. There is a 4K 30fps video, and as you can see, it is pretty quick at switching the focus from a near to the far object, and then back again. If you remember, on the previous OnePlus phone, there was a pretty big dip in the focusing capability when I switched from 30fps to 60fpsvideos. I think that was because they were using OISfor stabilising the 60fps videos.
Now they have switched to using EIS for keepingall these videos stable, so even while shooting at 4K 60fps, focusing is just as quick for the primary camera. Faster and accurate focusing, means we getto take amazing close up shots like this one. The subject is in perfect sharp focus, and since it is a large sensor and it has F/1.75 aperture, the background as you see gets a very nice optical blur. Now since a 48-megapixel sensor is large fora smartphone, as you get closer to the subject, the plane of focus starts getting narrower, makingit harder to keep things in focus. You also see some artifacts in the thingsthat are just slightly out of focus. If you want to get even close to the subject, there is a dedicated macro camera on this phone. Normally I am defending the lower resolution macro cameras on most smartphones because given right conditions, you can take really good macro shots even with most 2 megapixel macro cameras. But the one on the OnePlus 8 has to be one of the worst out there. First of all, you can’t get too close to the object, and even when the focus is set, there just aren’t too many details in the subject, no matter how well lit the subject is. I have found a workaround for this, you can use the digital zoom on the primary camera to get even better macro shots than the macro lens. Since it is a bigger sensor, and it has a wider aperture than the macro lens, these digitally zoomed images look much better than the onesfrom the macro camera, and there is also a lot less noise in these digitally zoomed shots. The ultra-wide lens on this OnePlus 8 is even wider than the one on the OnePlus 7T, and it lets you capture so much more of the scene when compared to the normal lens. Unlike the 7T, we don’t have a telephoto lens on this phone, but you can still take 2x digitally zoomed images. These ones are not as sharp as the ones from a telephoto lens would have been, but in ample of light, they get the job done.
The colors and while balance are a bit inconsistent when you switch from the normal to the wide lens. Overall color tones from the primary cameraare natural warm, but the wide lens tends to lean on capturing cooler color tones. OnePlus needs to work on the software a bit,to match these 2 lenses as closely as possible in terms of white balance and colour temperature. We all know this by now, that the wide lens is not as sharp or as detailed as the primary camera, and most of its images are softer, especially towards the edges. You might notice this while taking close up or indoor shots with these lenses, but for outdoor or far away shots, you won’t notice the lower image quality, unless you zoom way in. All the images from the primary camera wesaw till now were 12-megapixel pixel binned ones. But if you wish to take higher resolution images, you can switch to the 48 megapixel model. When you switch to 48mp, it says this model offers higher resolution and captures details in a well lit scene. And that 12 megapixel mode offers better dynamic range, and that this is the recommended mode for most of your shots. When you take 48mp images in ample light,it does capture more details than the 12megapixel ones, but you will have to zoom in 5-6timesto notice the difference. 48mp images are also much bigger in terms of file size, so it is best to stick to the default 12-megapixel mode for most of your shots. Now portrait mode on smartphones is the bestway to make your images look like they were taken with DSLR camera and an expensive prime lens. OnePlus 8 does a very good job with theseportrait shots. I think edge detection needs a bit of refinement, but the shots look good for the most part. Faces are in perfect sharp focus, and thebackground gets a very good natural looking blur. The dynamic range seems to be amazing whiletaking these shots. It might be a bit aggressive at times, but it does a good job for most of these shots. I just hope we get better results more consistently. Edge detection and dynamic range is just as good while taking portraits of objects. Edge detection is definitely not perfect while taking these portraits, but I am sure OnePlus can fix this with software updates, as they did on some of their previous smartphones.
There is again a bit more contrast in these images, but I like that the subjects are sharp and detailed in all these shots. Let us move to images shot in indoors, artificial and lower lighting conditions. F/1.75 aperture and optical image stabilization lets it keep on capturing pleasing images even as the light goes down. This phone makes the indoor lighting images look really good. There is some noise in the darker parts onthese images, but that is to be expect out of any phone when the light is low. Nightscape mode helps in reducing that noise and capturing much sharper images. As we zoom in, look at how much more detailsthe image with night mode managed to get in the shot. OIS on the main camera helps the shutter remain open longer, and capture more light which when combined with the nightscape mode, gives us such good images.
OnePlus has been using the same sensor forthe selfie camera since quite a few generations, even tough its performance gas not been anythingout of ordinary. It is a decent shooter, But the sharpness and detail levels don’t really match up to the level of other front-facing cameras in the market. I have said this about previous OnePlus phones as well, that I am not talking about an increase in the megapixel count, but OnePlus reallyneeds to take a hold of the image processing for this camera. Edge detection is good for the portrait selfies, and since the background is blurred out, subjects appear a bit more sharper in these portraitselfies. It does really well even when you have multiplefaces in the shot. The dynamic range takes big hit while taking portraitselfies. While I think that Oneplus has got a lot right with the rear-facing cameras on this phone, I think they really need to put in more efforts into the front facing camera. Here is a video from the front facing cameraof the OnePlus 8. You can see how it handles overall coloursof the scene, exposure, and stabilisation when I am walking around with it.
Coming to video. Just like previous OnePlus phones, OnePlus8 lets us shoot 4k videos in upto 60fps and these videos are amazingly smooth becausethey are stabilized via EIS. While stability and dynamic range are excellent these videos, the overall quality of the videos is a bit underwhelming. There aren’t too many details in the 1080pvideos. 4K videos do look great, and if you are looking to get this phone for shooting vlogs, you can get some amazingly smooth 4K footage out of the primary camera. There is not a lot to complain about these videos, but they are not as smooth or good looking as videos from some other flagships.
You can take 240fps slow motion videos in1080p resolution and 480fps slow motion videos in 720p resolution. If you shoot these slow motion videos in plenty of light, they can look pretty good. OnePlus has finally managed to give us a decentset of cameras on this OnePlus 8. While these images are not minded blowing great, but other than the disappointing macro camera, there is really not a lot to complainabout. I have not compared its images with any other smartphone yet, so we don’t know where does it stand against the competition. But on its own, I think the OnePlus 8 hasgot a set of decent cameras on its back. Now all OnePlus needs to do is tweak it abit with software updates, to make it even better, specially the selfie camera.
I am really exited to test these cameras against the ones on the OnePlus 7T and see if we really get enough of an upgrade in terms of cameras. What are your thoughts about the cameras on this One Plus 8? And based on its cameras, would you choose it over the 7T?
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