OnePlus 6T — The Camera
With my initial impressions of the OnePlus’s new flagship (killer), I completely left out the camera aspect of the device. A few days with the phone and with a bit of travelling around, I’ve managed to get a good idea of how the camera performs in various conditions for a daily driver and I’ve managed to break down the good, bad & ugly of the OnePlus’s shutters.
NightScape
Google literally lit up the stage when they showed off their new NightSight feature in the Pixel 3 event. OnePlus sure did make note of it and came up with “NightScape” — their answer to the search giant’s camera software trick. But does it stand tall against Google’s software capabilities — unfortunately, not so much. While OnePlus’s night mode sure does best a lot of their competitors, when put hand to hand with the Google Pixel 3, they fall short — not by much, mind you. They do put up a good fight.
If I could improve something about the NightScape mode in the OnePlus 6T, it would be the post-processing that happens after you take the picture. OnePlus somehow seems to have missed out the ‘do the processing behind my back, not in front of me’ concept, which has been there for ages in smartphone space.
Portraits
While everyone around the world has gone crazy for the blurred out ‘bokeh’ effect in photos, it was evident that every single smartphone manufacturer would take note. OnePlus didn’t take long before optimising their own way of rendering that effect. Introducing, the OnePlus 6T’s portrait mode,
Probably the coconut monkey was not the best candidate but lets go with this. The way OnePlus carefully sharpens the edges of the subject in focus is impressive. In fact, the camera does it before even you take a shot. My experience with Google Pixel line of phones was different — take a portrait mode picture and only when you open it to see how it has come out, the blur effect takes place, post click. With OnePlus, they show you a sneak peak into how the portrait is going to turn out — win.
Landscapes, buildings, cars & whatnot
Usual daily picture subjects are not always human faces, nor are they shot in low light. Performing extremely well in low light or with portrait shots is not a great thing unless the camera does what it was supposed to do in a basic situation — on a bright environment, shooting a random subject. How does the OnePlus perform in this case? You’d never see anything like it!
Motion Pictures — Videos
Capturing priceless images is one thing. Being able to re-live those moments is another, and videos are the closest we can get to experiencing such a thing. The OnePlus 6T boasts an impressive camera setup allowing users to record videos in 4K, although only for 10 minutes at a stretch, time-lapse (also with a time restriction) & slow motion videos up to 240fps in 1080P.
The slow-motion videos are superb and do not miss a single detail, from a dog’s water splash to fireworks, everything is there.
Time-lapse on the 6T
Many a times, there are things which are amazing to watch when fast forwarded. OnePlus provides a cool time-lapse setup which allows you to record a sequence and gives it a fast paced effect, making it amazing to look back at later. I’ve played around with this quite a lot and found it so much more satisfying recording the final approach and landing of a brand new A320neo aircraft.
So… is it good?
Good is a subjective term. So let’s go with the basics. Trends in the smartphone industry right now are just these — great portraits, night shots & maybe don’t add too much artificial lights, maybe?
OnePlus 6T’s camera comes up easily in the top when it comes to smartphone cameras. The portrait mode lenses are not as refined as the iPhone’s, while the rendering software is also not as well written as a Google Pixel 3, but as long as you don’t keep all three phones side by side and check, you’ll hardly notice any difference.
Megapixels, dual cameras are all things of the past. What matters is a smartphone’s capability to capture real life moments as they are, then and there, with no extra noise or delays. OnePlus does just that and a lot more, making it a complete package when it comes to a top spec camera, both on paper and in real life usage.
For the price in which the 6T retails, the camera is nothing other than exceptional and puts up a good fight with the likes of its big budget rivals.
I couldn’t get my hands on other rival devices for a detailed camera comparison. But if you’re interested, check out the review from The Tech Chap — https://youtu.be/AiiH0yiTMT8
