This year’s OnePlus flagship was marketed as a camera phone. The tag line on the box says ‘Dual Camera. Clearer Photos’. The company claims a lot about the camera of OnPlus 5. So, I decided to test the camera and here is my camera review of OnePlus 5.
This year, OnePlus added dual camera setup at the back. One is the regular Sony IMX 398 sensor with 16 megapixels and a f/1.7 lens. The second is a telephoto lens which is 20-megapixel with f/2.6 aperture. It is for the 2x zoom. These two cameras combine to give a photo a greater field of depth.
Rear camera (wide angle)
| Rear camera (telephoto 2x zoom)
| Front facing camera
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The camera app is minimal and light weight. It is very fast in focusing and capturing images. You also have a manual mode to try if you want manual control over the camera settings. You can also capture RAW images.
This camera delivers sharp images with good dynamic range and excellent color reproduction.
Even if it boasts 2x optical zoom, it is not exactly the 2x but 1.6x optical and remaining 0.4x is captured through the phone’s built-in SmartCapture technology. This is the reason, the quality after 2x is not as good as the primary wide angle shooter.
There is also a portrait mode to capture some excellent photos with bokeh effect. But this is not as good as it was claimed. In many photos, it does not look natural and it feels like the result of software processing. I hope OnePlus will fix this in upcoming updates. The portrait works best at 1 – 6.5ft away.
Indoor photos are also excellent and offer balanced colors with sharp details. Depending on the light, there could be a little noise in few images.
Under low-light, you see noise but I still find images quite good. Because there is no OIS, you need to keep your hand stable in very low light to avoid blurry photos. Being true, sometimes it becomes a challenge to capture photos in very low light
At the front, it has 16 megapixels camera. It also captures plenty of detail. You also get a beauty mode to use if you prefer a fake beauty to show the world. The auto-HDR mode has also been extended to the front. There is also a display flash option to help in low-light. It also works pretty well.
Video:
- 4K resolution video at 30fps (EIS)
- 1080P resolution video at 60fps
- 1080P resolution video at 30fps
- 720P resolution video at 30fps
- Slow Motion: 720p videos at 120fps
- Time-Lapse
This camera can record up to 4K videos and quality is decent. I personally missed OIS but the recent update brought EIS to help you out. You can also shoot Time-lapse, Slow-motion videos. The front camera can also record good videos.
Final Words
In this article, I only talked about OnePlus 5 camera. The phone is high class in performance but the camera could be better. Lack of OIS is the disappointment and it could really make this camera impressive. Portrait mode could also be improved, but I am not sure if you also think in the same way.
You have already seen the camera samples. So, I also want to know what are your views on the camera of OnePlus 5.
