I know that every time I write an article related to mobile photography I raise blisters, more than one or one stirs in their seats and some even decide to say goodbye to the blog. Well, there are opinions for everyone and all equally respectable. I am convinced that it is one more tool, like all photography applications and that the photo is taken by the person behind it and not by the camera.
I already opened a debate about it and I am not going to repeat myself like garlic. But in short, you always carry your smartphone with you (or not?), while the camera is not easy to transport anywhere. Especially if it's an SLR. If we limit ourselves to the moments in which we carry the camera, we can lose moments that are very worthy of photographing. I must admit that some of my best photos in the last three years have been taken with my smartphone. And it is that moving with a little girl attached to your skirts all day does not make it easier to carry an SLR.
Now we can enter qualities and others. Of course not, the sharpness that you can achieve with an SLR is not the same as with a telephone. But it is that the size of the sensor is not comparable. Now, within the smartphone there are also different qualities. Some take better photos than others, as there are manufacturers who, aware of this love for photography, take special care to improve their cameras. Today I bring you one of these examples: Huawei P9.
WHAT IS SPECIAL ABOUT THE HUAWEI P9?
In this case, the mobile manufacturer Huawei has teamed up with Leica's photographic technology to create a phone with two cameras. Why two cameras? Although there are other phones with two cameras, the function here is quite different. In this case, one camera collects information in color and another in monochrome. Combining these two cameras achieves much more vibrant colors , sharper images , and more accurate black and white. In addition, it is created to be able to photograph in low light conditions.
Its technology (which I am not going to describe here) facilitates faster images, with better focus and depth. The front camera is also very careful, so if you like to take selfies, this is your ideal phone ;). It allows you to modify the aperture to achieve background blurs, as well as other manual adjustments.
If this has convinced you, keep reading that we are going to go into more detail.
CHARACTERISTICS
I am not going to describe the phone beyond the data that interests us as a photography blog, so I will focus on dimensions and weight and the details related to the camera, which are relevant to us:
- Dimensions: 145mm/Length 70.9/Width 6.95/Thickness
- Weight: 144 grams approx.
- Screen: 5.2 inches
- Internal memory: 32GB
- External memory: SD card
- Camera: Dual Camera Dual 12MP f/2.2 Leica BSI CMOS Dual-tone flash. Front Camera 8MP, f/2.4. Here we stop because among all these strange names and initials that seem hieroglyphics, we find a rear camera with 12 MP and an aperture of f / 2.2, what does this translate into? In that you can achieve better photos with less light and with greater blurring of the background. And the front camera has nothing more and nothing less than 8MP and an aperture of f / 2.4. In the case of a front camera, it's amazing, because it's much better than many rear ones, that's why I said before that if selfies or self-portraits are your thing, this detail should make you fall in love instantly.
- Video: 1080p 720p@120fps
- Sensor Size: 1/2.9″
- Optics stabilization: No
- Camera filters: Original, Sentimental, Shock, DN, Valencia, Sad, Halo, Nostalgia, Sunrise (7 in color and two in black and white)
- Modes: Beauty (With levels from 0 to 10 to soften facial features), Video with Beauty Function (same but in video), Light Painting* (for long-exposure photographs such as lightpainting, light trails, stars or silky effect water), Watermark (enter location, temperature and date), Monochromatic, HDR (very useful when there is a great difference in light in the different areas of the image), Night Shot (longer exposure to capture more light), Slow Motion, Photo, Video (Full HD), Panoramic, Fast Motion, Document Scanning, Audio Note (allows you to take a photo and record a sound of up to 10s). (*for this mode you need a tripod yes or yes ? )
- Camera resolution: 12 MP (4:3), 9 MP (16:9), 9 MP (1:1), 8 MP (4:3), 6 MP (16:9)
- Movie Mode: Standard, Vibrant Colors, Sharp Colors
- Automatically add Leica Watermark
- Camera grid option : different types of grid to help you compose the image
- Silent mode: so that the shutter does not sound when you take a photo
- Timer: Off, 2, 5 and 10 s
- Tap to capture option: you can activate this function to tap on the screen and shoot or deactivate it to only focus when you tap on it+
- Capture smiles: automatically shoots when it detects a smile in the frame
- Object tracking: to focus on a moving subject
- Press and hold the shutter: for burst photography
- Volume key function: you can configure it as shutter, zoom or focus
- Image adjustments: saturation, contrast and brightness
- Professional mode (or manual mode): aperture, metering mode, ISO (up to 3200), exposure compensation (-4.0 EV,+ 4.0 EV), AF-S / AF-C/ MF (manual focus or single autofocus or continuous), white balance.
- Photo editor: It has an integrated photo editor that includes functions such as Rotate, Crop, Filters, Colors (to highlight a single color in the image, for example), Illusion (that's what they call the blur: circular, linear or blurred), Adjustments ( brightness, contrast, saturation, sharpness, reflections, shadows, tonality, black and white), Beauty (soften, whiten, remove spots, lose weight, enlarge eyes, brighten eyes, whiter teeth…), Mosaic (with pencil and eraser erase), paint brush, watermark, tagging (to add balloons and other drawings)
YOUR STRENGTHS
For my taste, the strengths of this smartphone are its double camera that allows for greater definition and sharpness of the image, its ability to manually control many photographic parameters, which is very intuitive to use and which for black and white photography is ideal. better than there is now on smartphone.
DRAWBACKS
As there is always a downside, I have to say that it is not one of the best in screen resolution and that it does not record in 4k , but in Full HD. But of course, it's not something so important to stop thinking about it, these technologies change so quickly... Not long ago Full HD was the latest trend and now we're going for 4K, maybe in a camera it's more relevant but I don't think that you are going to record professional videos with a smartphone, right?
DESIGN
The truth is that the design has been worked on, it is beautiful and elegant. With soft lines and an aesthetic that immediately enters the eye.
The details are very careful at a visual and tactile level.
PRICE
You can find it on Amazon for N/A
GALLERY
Since we are talking about a smartphone to take photos, it is best to show you what it knows how to do, yes, it is clear that a Huawei P9 is not enough to achieve images like the ones I show you, the photographer or the photographer have to put everything of their part, but these are some examples of what you can achieve with this terminal:
OFFICIAL VIDEO
You know, if you are looking for a smartphone that can be used to shoot when you don't have your SLR handy, or as a second camera for "emergencies", or for whatever reason but that achieves good images, I hope this article has clarified some of them for you. ideas. If this has been the case, I will be infinitely grateful for a "Like" or that you share it on your favorite social network.
