OnePlus recently launched its brand new flagship, the OnePlus 6, and it brings a number of new changes. While everyone has been talking about the new glass design and the notch, there are some improvements on the camera front too. The OnePlus 6 comes with a 16 f/1.7 + 20MP f/1.7 dual camera setup and while it seems similar to the camera setup on the OnePlus 5T, there are some noteworthy upgrades. Firstly, there’s OIS, which should help in low light situations and the camera sensor is now larger. So, if you are wondering how the OnePlus 6 camera fares, well, here’s our OnePlus 6 camera review.
OnePlus 6 Rear Camera Review
Let’s start off with the rear camera on the OnePlus 6 because that’s the one which as received the most improvements. So, how does it fare? Let’s find out.
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Shots Taken in Good Lighting
Okay, so we took a few shots in good light from the OnePlus 6 and the results were rather encouraging. The most striking thing about the OnePlus 6 camera is how well it captures details. I mean, look at the photo below. You can easily read all the text here.
The same is the case with this photo too:
And it’s not the case with only landscape photos, even the macro shots come out good with nice details and sharpness. Take a look:
The details are something that the OnePlus 6 camera captures well in almost every shot but apart from that, I really like the colors in the photos. Plus, the dynamic range is pretty decent. Here are some more photos that showcase the same:
As you can see, all of the shots taken from the OnePlus 6 have great detail, nice colors and decent dynamic range. To be honest, the colors do seem a bit oversaturated in some of the shots and the shadows aren’t very well captured but apart from that, the OnePlus 6 camera is pretty good, in good lighting.
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Shots Taken in Low-Light
Low light is where the OnePlus smartphones have traditionally struggled, so does the OnePlus 6 manage to lift off that curse? Well, sort of. The OnePlus 6 cameras perform pretty well even in low light. I mean, just like in good light, the OnePlus 6 manages to take in a lot of detail and captures a lot of light, even when the light isn’t all that great, which should be due to the larger sensor. Just take a look at a couple of photos below. The colors are so good and the details are pretty amazing too.
So yes, the OnePlus 6 camera takes low light shots that are detailed and have great exposure overall. Plus, in my experience, none of the low light shots from the OnePlus 6 came out blurred and that might be due to OIS. There’s also very little noise, which is nice but at times, the camera does oversharpen things. Anyway, here’s one of my favorite shots, because it’s a moving shot, obviously, yet the OnePlus manages to capture things almost perfectly.
Here are some more low light shots I took from the OnePlus 6:
It’s pretty clear that the OnePlus 6 is pretty capable when it comes to low light camera performance. Sure, there are problems like oversharpening, but other than that, the low light photos from the OnePlus 6 are bright, have good colors and are sharp.
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Portrait Mode
The OnePlus 6, like the OnePlus 5 and 5T, comes with a dual-camera setup on the back, which means there’s the portrait mode on board. Well, the portrait mode on the OnePlus 6 is kind of a mixed bag. Just take a look at some portrait shots from the OnePlus 6:
They look nice, don’t they? Well, it’s definitely decent, if you just look closer, you will see that OnePlus 6 just smoothens out the details on the face, which is something I don’t like and that’s when I haven’t used the annoying and bad beautification option here. This is a problem in almost every portrait mode shot from the OnePlus 6 and it’s not just that. The edge detection can be a little finnicky too. Here, look at the photo below:
The same problems are even more heightened in low light shots. The face is just smoothened out and if the light is really bad, the photos look like an oil painting.
Look, the Portrait Mode on the OnePlus 6 is not necessarily bad. I mean, it has the same problems as the portrait mode on OnePlus 5 and 5T but having said that, it’s decent for the price. Just don’t expect much from it. Definitely do not expect Pixel 2-level portrait shots.
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Videos
The OnePlus 6 brings improvements on the video front as well. It now shoots 4K@60FPS videos, which seems pretty great. Well, I tested that out and the results were pretty mixed. While the footage looked great with some nice colors and exposure, the camera had problems focusing. Also, stability wasn’t too great either.
I also tried out the usual 4K@30FPS mode and it had this weird problem. No matter how straight I kept the phone, the videos captured were always tilted at an angle. I am not sure what’s wrong here, but I am hoping OnePlus fixes things with an update.
Lastly, I shot a 1080p video, which is what you should shoot at if you get a OnePlus 6. The videos captured are nicely focused, have nice colors and stability but that’s in day time, in low light, the camera seems to have problems with exposure.
The OnePlus 6 also has a new super-slow mo mode, which shoots 720p videos at 480 frames per second. Yes, it’s not as super as the super slow-mo on the S9 but it brings a couple of advantages. First, the OnePlus 6 lets you shoot 60 seconds of super slow-mo footage and secondly, you can choose the part which you want to slow down after you have shot the video. While these advantages are nice, the super slow-mo here, works well only in good light.
Overall, the video recordings from the OnePlus 6 are decent but nothing out of the world. You can check out the videos shot from the OnePlus 6 at 5:35 in the video below:
OnePlus 6 Front Camera Review
OnePlus smartphones have had great selfie cameras and the OnePlus 6 continues that trend. The OnePlus 6 comes with the same 16MP f/2.0 selfie camera from the OnePlus 5T and it’s great, especially in good light. The selfies have great detail and exposure and it has great dynamic range, which isn’t something we see a lot in selfie cameras. There is some noise when it comes to low light selfies but they should be good enough for social media usage. Here are some selfies I took from the OnePlus 6:
There’s no Portrait Mode here but if OnePlus is to be believed, it’s coming soon.
SEE ALSO: OnePlus 6 Review: A Little Pricey but Hard to Beat!
OnePlus 6 Camera Review: As Good As It Gets at This Price
Well, the OnePlus 6 cameras are actually pretty good. If you are wondering if the cameras on the OnePlus 6 are better than the cameras on the OnePlus 5T, well, they definitely are. The photos taken in good light and even in low light from the OnePlus 6 are pretty great and I’d say flagship worthy. The device does take average portrait mode photos and has problems when it comes to video recording but hey, it’s got a great selfie camera and the super slow-mo video recording is pretty good.
So, if you are planning to get the OnePlus 6 for its camera, you should. It brings cameras that are definitely the best in the sub-₹40,000 price range. It’s great but just don’t expect it to beat the Pixel 2 or the P20 Pro.
Abubakar Mohammed
