The OnePlus 10 Pro's cameras promise richer colors, more pro settings and 150-degree ultrawide images
Small upgrades on the OnePlus 10 Pro's cameras will make pro photographers happy.
OnePlus continues to trickle out details about its new flagship phone, the OnePlus 10 Pro, ahead of its official release on Tuesday in China. The company said Thursday the phone's trio of rear cameras will look largely the same as last year's OnePlus 9 Pro, but they'll bring a few improvements to shore up photo quality for casual users and enthusiasts alike.
The 10 Pro will be part of the second generation of OnePlus phones to get Hasselblad-tuned shooters. OnePlus says its new phone's cameras will be able to capture more vibrant colors, have a more refined Pro Mode to save images in RAW+ format and allow you to tweak video settings while recording.
An ultrawide camera with a new 150-degree field of view will be helpful for capturing more subjects in frame than usual. In the sample images provided, the sides were warped, but you can always opt for the default 140-degree field of view. There's also a fish-eye mode that bends the sides of images even further.
OnePlus has already revealed the new phone's design, but as far as camera specs, has only stated it will have a triple rear camera setup with 48-, 50-and 8-megapixel lenses, as well as a 32-megapixel front-facing camera. Those specs are about the same as on the OnePlus 9 Pro, though that phone had a 16-megapixel front-facing shooter.
Even normal photos should benefit from Hasselblad's continued tinkering with OnePlus phone cameras. Normal photos are now captured in 10-bit color, and with new software tweaks, the company says the OnePlus 10 Pro captures and processes more color over the phone's predecessor, leading images to have more true-to-life hues. Better still, all three rear cameras take photos in 10-bit color, which prevents "banding" of colors in visible layers.
Beyond enabling users to manually tweak settings like shutter speed and aperture, the Hasselblad Pro Mode supports a new empowered RAW+ format that OnePlus says will lead to photos with greater dynamic range and less noise in shots. We'll have to see, though, whether combining the phone's photo software with information-rich RAW images performs better than other phones that take photos in 12-bit RAW, like the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra.
Video mode has been refined as well. As mentioned, you can tweak settings like ISO and shutter speed in the middle of recording to finely manage light, depth and other aspects on the fly rather than locking them for the entire video. You can also shoot in the information-rich log format without setting a picture profile first, removing a step for those who just want to start recording video without pre-selecting an exposure level.
We'll have to test the phone against its contemporaries to determine whether the changes are enough to bring the phone up to par with the photo capabilities of Apple and Samsung flagships. But the OnePlus 10 Pro will be a step up from its predecessor in a handful of ways, some more useful than others.