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Thursday, 16 August 2018

The Future of Photography? The Huawei P20 Pro Smartphone


Forget the Z something Nikon Mirrorless camera, the future of photography is going on somewhere else entirely. Welcome to my latest camera and more than likely to be my camera of the year - The Huawei P20 Pro Smartphone.









































First off, it's not just me. Check this out.




Well I'm stunned too, I'd read about the Huawei, but some of the samples I'd seen were terrible. But then I saw some more and was very impressed. I only saw the PetaPixel review a few days ago and after reading that decided to get one. And I'm glad I did. This is quite simply an amazing camera. And yes it is a camera. It has a smartphone attached to it but I have no intention of ever putting a sim card in it. The results are simply amazing.
Here's some specs. of the three main lenses. 2 x 27mm and 1 x 81mm. (35mm 'equivalents')
  • 40MP RGB 1/1.7in type sensor, f/1.8 aperture
  • 20MP monochrome, f/1.6 aperture
  • 8MP 3x zoom, f/2.4 aperture
  • Optical Image Stabilisation (OIS) for all
  • 24MP front camera, f/2.0 aperture
  • Laser autofocus and colour temperature sensor 
This camera has three overiding features that I find very useful.

1. It has a genuine medium telephoto option, the 3X zoom which gives an 81mm equivalent. It's only a 10MP option, but it's very good. I read some reviews that said it wasn't, but that's nonsense. The files are actually excellent.



2. Huawei have found a way to crack the low light / high noise issue for static subjects. It's done by stacking images during a long exposure. And it's hand holdable. How they do this is almost magic, since it compensates for the camera movement and produces a low noise sharp image.


Now the above location was VERY dark, I would estimate it to be about ISO 6400 at f/1.4. Impossible territory for a small smartphone sensor. But hand holding it for a few seconds produced this. Absolutely remarkable.

3. The files look like they were taken with either a full-frame or APS-C sized sensor. Now whether this is because of the slightly larger sensor and the f/1.8 aperture I don't know, but in the 40MP files there is a clear point of focus visible in every image. In much the same way that FF renders images.





























You see the roll off of focus towards the wall and trees in the distance in the above image. I wasn't that close to the Dahlias either. Below is the shot information from the file.


Now I just had to post this shot.


Now it would be nice to say I intended this but I only noticed it when I looked at the file on my computer.

Now I like the B/W camera as well. It produces images that remind me of old Ilford films, a cross between FP4 and HP5. And yes the 40MP files are VERY impressive but what I really like is just how 'photographic' the images are. I suspect Leica have had an input in that as well as designing the lenses. Because there's a lot of 'Leica colour' in what I've shot with the camera. Not at all like the ubiquitous Sony Bayer Sensor that blights so many cameras. The Huawei has a cooler colour balance which I like very much, instead of that artificially warmed up look. Neither the raw files or the jpgs. are over sharpened either, which gives a lovely smooth natural rendition. 

Now there are three areas where my iPhone 7 Plus has it beat.

  • The 4K video, while very good for some reason doesn't have IS. The HD 1080 option does.
  • The Panoramic creating software isn't a patch on the Apple version. In fact it's terrible.
  • It's claimed to have something similar to Apple's artificial bokeh effect. I couldn't get it work.
So, it's not the ultimate singing and dancing smartphone picture taking machine, but as a stills camera it's easily the best smartphone out there and gives a lot of mirrorless and DSLR cameras a run for their money. I've already decided to sell my Lumix GX9 because I like the look of the Huawei images better. It's also going to be interesting to see how often I take this out compared to my other cameras. Because going out to shoot with this plus my iPhone is a much lighter and smaller option and of course with those amazing smartphone screens I can clearly see what the image will look like before I take it.

As a smartphone it's beautifully sleek, but actually very slippy, so I've got a leather case on order. If you want to know about apps. etc. and all the standard smartphone stuff, then I suggest you look for some other reviews since I don't use this stuff or take selfies. But if you are a photographer looking for a new smartphone, you simply HAVE TO check this out. I defy you not to be impressed. 


Stock photography by david martyn hughes at Alamy

© David Taylor-Hughes / Soundimageplus Blog


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