Named phone with the best camera for portraits

The abundance of a wide variety of smartphones on the market does not really make it clear which one is the best. Today

A lot of phones that can be considered an excellent alternative to a professional camera. But we will not be interested in the overall quality of photos and videos, but portrait shooting.

The best camera for portraits

I must say that over the past few yearsmobile cameras have evolved greatly. Still, they are not as good as professional ones. One of the first companies to make a big step in the direction of professional portraiture was Apple. Three years ago, the portrait mode was first introduced on the iPhone 7 Plus. After that, the rest followed. Now almost every smartphone has this option, but its presence does not guarantee really cool portraits on the camera.

One of the bloggers being the owner of the newOnePlus 7 Pro, I decided to compare portrait photography on several phones at once. In his opinion, it is OnePlus 7 Pro that makes the best quality portrait shots.

Lens

If you ask any photographer what the quality of portraiture depends on first of all, he will tell you - the lens. In professional photography there is such a term as “portrait lens”.

Lens is crucial one by oneThe reason is proportions. If any part of the face looks distorted, you will immediately notice it. In order to properly compress the human face in a photograph, photographers use long telephoto lenses. However, real telephoto lenses in professional photography have nothing to do with the misuse of the term “telephoto lens” on smartphones.

With the exception of the Huawei P30 Pro, a telephoto lens onmost phones these days are about 55 mm in terms of focal length. This is not a telephoto lens in professional photographic speech. On the contrary, it is a “normal lens,” which simply means that this focal length is usually associated with the focal length of human vision. However, to get great portraits, you need a real telephoto lens: the most frequently used lenses start at 85 mm and more if you want a truly creamy background blur or bokeh effect.

What camera does most phones use for portraits in 2019? Usually a 26-28 mm lens, which is considered a professional wide-angle lens.

A wide-angle lens does something like this:

The left photo was taken on the Galaxy S10 + withwide-angle camera; notice the cartoon look and the disproportionately large head and small body. The second photo (on the right) was taken on a OnePlus 7 Pro telephoto lens; notice how everything looks proportionally.

iPhone XR wide angle lens

OnePlus telephoto lens copes with proportions much better

Here is a complete list of flagships that use their wide lenses (usually 26 mm) for portraits:

• Samsung Galaxy S10 / S10 + / S10e
• Apple iPhone XR
• Google Pixel 3 / 3a
• LG G8
• Huawei P30 Pro

And the list goes on and on.

From the very beginning, all these phones incorrectly set up the portrait mode: they use a wide lens that is simply not suitable for creating an attractive portrait image!

Contrast

Another important parameter that dependsThe quality of portrait shots directly is the contrast. Too sharp and excessive contrasting will give a negative result. In particular, exaggeration of wrinkles and other deficiencies.

Pixel 3 adds too much contrast, making you look 10 years older.

Pleasantly soft details and a bright exposure at OnePlus provide great portrait photography.

Most smartphones come with smallsensors, and these small sensors require a lot of additional processing to get the right parts. On most smartphones, one trick is used — a high level of sharpness and aggressive excessive contrast. Sometimes it may look good: for example, if you shoot details in nature, landscape, etc. But if we are talking about portraits, excessive sharpness and contrast are exactly what we don’t want to see. If you are over 30, there is a chance that all your flaws (wrinkles, tired eyes) will be strongly emphasized.

Google Pixel 3, by the way, sharpens the mostdetails compared to how they look in reality. Thus, as a result of combining the wrong lens with improper processing, portrait shots are obtained that do not look very attractive. OnePlus 7 Pro is different! Correct lens and correct handling.

The OnePlus 7 Pro is the only phone thatsolves these two main problems and produces cool portrait shots at the exit. Unlike most phones in 2019, it uses a 3x telephoto lens, rather than a wide lens. It gives you a beautiful short look that looks very attractive. The processing is very soft: soft details and no aggressive and excessive contrasting, which is used on other phones. It brightens the face and makes them delightfully beautiful. No other phone takes portraits as well as the new OnePlus 7 Pro does. Examples below.