The Huawei P30 & P30 Pro Reviews: Photography Enhanced
by Andrei Frumusanu on April 18, 2019 9:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Mobile
- Smartphones
- Huawei
- P30
- P30 Pro
Video Recording
Video recording on the new P30’s shouldn’t differ too much to what we saw on the Mate 20 Pro. The new Kirin 980 significantly improves upon the video recording capabilities of its predecessor, and as such, the new P30s should showcase significant uplifts to last year’s P20s. Particularly the P30 Pro will be interesting as it has OIS on the main camera module, which should result in much smoother video compared to what we’ve seen in recent Huawei flagships.
P30 Pro: P30:
Camera Module Transitions (P30 Pro)
Oddly enough, while there is an improvement stabilisation, the difference between the P30 Pro and P30 are quite minor. Both phones video quality is in line with the Mate 20 Pro, which is to say good. However the colour rendition is towards the saturated side, and things do pop a lot more than they should.
The bit-rate for the video is also quite low: For 4K30 we're seeing a 40Mbps AVC High@5.1 stream or a 25Mbps HEVC High@L5 steam, far lower than what we're used from other devices. Huawei here probably is looking to save on storage when recording. 1080p60 video falls at 25Mbps AVC High@4.2 or 16Mbps HEVC Main@4.1, both again very low for 60fps content.
Recording on the wide angle module remains great experience, however it’s extremely shaky as apparently Huawei doesn’t use any EIS. In the past this was available in the settings menu of the camera, however on the P30’s this option is gone. I think this is something that the company will be able to re-add in a future firmware update.
The phones are able to use all three camera modules when in non 60fps modes. Recording at higher frame-rate disables the telephoto module. Transitions between the different modules still isn’t as smooth as what we see on the competition, and there’s a notable delay that is much longer than say on LG’s V40 or Samsung recent S10.
The video clip also showcases exactly just how far you have to zoom in on the P30 Pro to switch over to the telephoto modules; the quality between 3x-5x really suffers significantly due to the excessive digital zoom. For everyday scenarios however this is the region you’d want to frame in the most, so again I do not see the P30 Pro’s 5x telephoto module as an inherent advantage for the phone as it represents a massive double-edged sword, more-so for video recording than for still picture capture.
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boozed - Friday, April 19, 2019 - link
Yeah nahs.yu - Thursday, April 18, 2019 - link
https://1drv.ms/u/s!Apr9zBuBUufHgaMUssv4Mh1vuyVh0gThis is P30P's often bragged about "50x zoom" at default magnification i.e. "zoomed out" vs. a 1" at "8x" zoom at 100% magnification. So you see with a premium compact like the Sony RX100IV or even a cheap one like Panasonic's ZS110 your *real optical* zoom combined with cropping could get you over "100x zoom" in Huawei's terms of usability.
Huawei could get you 5x but that's also worse than the 1" results notable at a glance except I forgot to make a screenshot of that.
Compacts are not dead.
s.yu - Thursday, April 18, 2019 - link
Typo, I meant the RX100VI.Quantumz0d - Thursday, April 18, 2019 - link
First thank you for posting that RX100 series shot. Some people think that real cameras are dead because of smartphones and their SW Gimmicks. The HW limitations truly show their stand. Not even Sony RX but even the old legend Nokia Pureview 808 or the Lumia 1020 have real purpose massive sensor with Xenon flash.Its a shame how so many cameras are being tacked on for marketing purposes, esp that night mode which kills the natural scene with over exposed unnaturally lit shot, a fake perception and deception.
boozed - Friday, April 19, 2019 - link
I thought the best part was the mainstream media fearmongering about the phone because of its "50x zoom". As if this is the first device to have a long focal length.s.yu - Friday, April 19, 2019 - link
It may be the first phone to allow 10x digital crop directly in the camera app though...?crotach - Tuesday, April 23, 2019 - link
DSLR has nothing to fear from these phones, it's a completely different world. MILC is taking care of the death of DSLR, but it will be a long and arduous death.Phones like these are responsible for the death of small compact cameras. These days I only see people buying the compact shooters for their kids, because they're much cheaper than a flagship phone. Give it a few more years and I doubt you'll find many compact cameras in the shops.
katsetus - Thursday, April 18, 2019 - link
Next time I'm planning a vacation, I'll keep Luxembourg in mind.Speedfriend - Thursday, April 18, 2019 - link
Apple is just so far behind in the camera now. Although having bought a P30 Pro, its speed in everyday use seems no faster and possibly slower than my Pixel 2 XL was. Battery life is insane though. Whereas my Pixel 2 XL was dead by the evening, the P30 Pro can make it to the next afternoonstar-affinity - Thursday, May 9, 2019 - link
At least the Iphones has video recording using 4K@60fps and the colours tend to be more natural compared to the P30 Pro in the comparisons I've seen. But sure the P30 Pro has many other advantages such as that nsane zoom and great low light performance.