Huawei P30 Pro camera review: Rewriting the rules of mobile photography

Smartphone companies have long tried to take on entry-level DSL₹obsolete. And some of the recent phones have come actually come close to doing to that. Google Pixel 3 stepped up the game with its Night Sight mode. Samsung Galaxy S10 brought in advanced camera sensors. And now it's Huawei's turn.

Huawei's latest P30 Pro phone comes with four cameras on the back. The setup consists of 40 megapixel (Wide Angle Lens, f/1.6 aperture,OIS), 20 megapixel (Ultra Wide Angle Lens, f/2.2 aperture), 8 megapixel (Telephoto, f/3.4 aperture,OIS), and a Time of Flight camera. The camera setup has been developed in collaboration with Leica, popular German optics company.

While the camera specifications are certainly impressive, what makes Huawei P30 Pro stand out in the crowd is a right balance of software-hardware optimisation. The AI-driven camera works as auto image optimiser for those who want the best quality results effortlessly. Interestingly enough, Huawei P30 Pro processes images quite fast in different modes compared to some other phones.

Low light photography

Zoom

Huawei P30 Pro offers the best mobile camera zoom. Period. The smartphone comes with 5x optical zoom and 10x hybrid zoom. While the optical zoom delivers fine results in daylight, it does lose a bit colour and sharpness in lowlight conditions. What makes the camera different is the ability to focus in zoom modes.

The key talking point of the camera is 50x zoom. The quality of 50x zoom photos is as good or bad as you'd expected it to be. A phone can take 50x zoom photos is amazing. During our usage, 50x zoom photos, if taken right, can be pretty good as well.

Macro shots

Love macro shots? Huawei P30 Pro does a fine job at close-up photography. The ToF sensor allows the phone to capture great deal of depth without losing sharpness of the subject.

 You may utilise the same set of skills to take portrait shots. The camera comes with auto macro mode to make it easier to shoot such photos.