It had been a long time since a cell phone left me speechless. So I went to China to test the Honor Magic8 Pro camera

If you asked someone from HONOR how they were going to improve the camera on their phones next year, the answer they would give you is that you hold the telephoto. A few weeks ago I was traveling to China to see first-hand the factory and the R&D laboratory from which the HONOR Magic8 Proa terminal that bets (almost) everything on the camera. And what a camera.

Just stroll through the busy streets of Shenzhen or sit and enjoy the sunset in Hong Kong to discover that yes, HONOR has been working hard on its camera. I can’t talk about specifications, yet, but I can confirm that we have a wide angle, an angle and a periscopic zoom which is, without a doubt, the main protagonist. So much so that I ended up using it more than the main sensor for obvious reasons.

That zoom was enjoyable

A quality optical zoom not only makes the photo “look sharper”, but also gives a lot of play. The perspective we get with the telephoto cannot be achieved with a normal zoom (cropping of the sensor), since it is by using a longer focal length that we get that “compression effect” of the shots.

Let’s say that the distance between two objects in different planes of the scene is reduced, something that is very useful in urban photography and allows us to achieve things like this.

But let’s start at the beginning. Little can be said about the main sensor. It is a sensor that HONOR has clearly mastered and whose results speak for themselves. Good control of highlights and shadows, notable HDR work and faithful color representation, although some background work is noticeable to highlight the strongest colors. In this case, green.

At night, the sensor knows how to surprise. It is no secret that there is a treatment for shadows and noise, but The result is one of the best I have seen to date.. These photos are really complex because you have fine details in highlights and huge contrast. The terminal resolves photos well, preserving detail, eliminating noise almost completely and keeping glare at bay.

In this image we have to look not only at the enormous tubular building on the left, but also at its reflection in the next building. It is not a pastiche of lights without rhyme or reason, but the camera manages to perfectly capture the reflection without burning either the background or the building. Also notable is the definition not only of the lines of light, but of the light bulbs themselves hanging from the trees and the texts of the distant blocks.

I liked it a lot during the day, but it’s at night when it really conquered me. If you told me 15 years ago that a gadget I carried in my pocket was going to allow me to take this photo, I probably wouldn’t have believed you. HONOR has done an excellent job not only in the camera, but in the processing. This image would be impossible to take freehand if there were not good stabilization, a good sensor and good background processing.

But if this camera surprises, the telephoto is another story. The HONOR Magic8 Pro has a periscope with 3.7x optical magnification that we can digitally expand up to ten and 100x. The sweet spot, however, is x3.7. Because? Because we can get closer to the subject taking advantage of the full resolution of the sensor and take photos like these, I hope you are not hungry.

In these photos you can perfectly see what I mentioned previously. Without an optical zoom we would not be able to achieve a blur as silky as this image. You don’t have to rely on portrait mode to crop your subject and blur the background, but you can achieve a superior effect by simply moving away from your subject and using the zoom. If you add a large, high-resolution sensor to that, you get a photo with exquisite textures.

If we talk about urban photography, this periscope allows us to get closer to the scene and frame in ways that, normally, we could not achieve, either because it does not have a telephoto (something strange in the high range) or because the resolution of the sensor is not up to par.

It also allows us to see things that we can only intuit with the naked eye. The advantage of having this resolution is that, even when cropping by zooming to 10x, we can achieve good results.

The best thing is that the quality of the photos is preserved even when light is scarce. Normally, it is taking photos at night when I least enjoy testing a mobile phone. It is the most complex moment and where the seams are usually seen by the cameras. The HONOR Magic8 Pro is not exempt from those seams by any means, but the work that the Chinese firm has done is sensational.

I think, however, that it is appropriate to put the zoom in context. To do this, there is nothing better than seeing the same photo taken from all possible angles. This is the promenade near the port of Shenzhen and, luckily, it was a good day for us to do this experiment.

The result is impressive, although quite dependent on processing. It is something that we will address in depth in the analysis, but if there is one thing we can see, it is that HONOR continues to bet a large part of the final result on processing. That has its positive point, its negative point and the opening of a debate.

Because I can’t help but think that a device I carry in my pocket is capable of getting this photo…

… skip to this one. This sign is the little glow that is seen more or less in the central area of ​​the previous image. I took this photo by hand, without a tripod or accessories.

The positive part of relying on processing is that you can achieve spectacular results in almost any situation. The phone assists you at all times to get the photo you have in mind achievable, and it does it wonderfully.

The negative part, however, is that mobile cameras hate the natural finish and noise to death. The blur that we get with a DSLR camera or a large sensor is beautiful, natural, in part, because of the grain, the noise. Grain gives texture, depth, nuances, but mobile cameras eliminate it in favor of a more attractive photo. For photography purists, this is still something to improve.

The debate is whether that really matters.. If we take a photo and upload it to Instagram or share it on WhatsApp, does it matter what camera you took it with or what processing there is or isn’t? My point of view is that terminals like the HONOR Magic8 Pro, the OPPO Find X9 Pro, he vivo X300 Pro and company are allowing us to take visually powerful photos freehand, without complicating our minds and with just the push of a button.

That photo is not a photo taken with a 6,000 euro professional camera and a 3,000 euro lens, it is clear, and there will be contexts in which these cameras are still necessary (I am thinking of a wedding, for example). However, being certain that the camera you carry in your pocket is capable of capturing memories with this quality, regardless of how it does it, is a very powerful argument.

Images | Xataka

In Xataka | The mobile industry has been desperate to improve its cameras for years. Honor believes it has found the key