Huawei has been hailed as having the best camera technology ever since they partnered with Leica for their lenses with the launch of the P10 series. With the P20 series, however, Huawei needed to step up their game in the camera department as the competition is always improving. Here’s how they made one of the best smartphone for photography possible.
A larger CMOS sensor
The Huawei P20 Pro has a 1/1.7-inch CMOS sensor. At the time of writing, the P20 Pro has the largest CMOS sensor ever fitted on a smartphone with its main Android rival, the Samsung Galaxy S9+, only having a 1/2.55-inch sensor while the iPhone X only has a 1/2.8-inch sensor.
A larger sensor also allowed Huawei to get a larger pixel size with the Huawei P20 series. This enabled the smartphone to get capture even more light compared to the competition. This allowed Huawei to take clearer photos even under dark situations.
Implementing AI on its cameras
To keep up with our fast-paced world, the Huawei has implemented their Instant Shutter technology with the Huawei P20 series. This allows both the P20 and the P20 Pro to have minimal shutter lag to capture the moment that’s quickly fleeting.
Object tracking has also been improved with the P20 and P20 Pro with what Huawei calls 4D predictive focus. This allows the cameras to precisely and quickly track a subject within 3 meters.
As with smartphones nowadays, AI has been implemented on the Huawei P20 series. Huawei has gone a step further and even added AI on its image stabilization system with what they call AIS or AI Image Stabilization. Aside from the larger sensor and pixel size, the Huawei P20 Pro helps take superb night shots with hand-held exposures of up to 6 seconds without any discernable distortion or blur.
This is done with the AI having to analyze and sort out details from an image such as objects and edges. The image is then fixed by AI algorithms and Master AI filters to remove any blurry images. The photos are then placed on top of each other to create the best night shot you can have without any user-assisted post-processing.
Improved zoom and focusing performance
Taking zoomed in photos on a smartphone camera has been historically a problem with smartphones. With a fixed lens, most zoom solutions implemented in smartphones have been digital zoom which usually takes pixelated photos.
With the P20 Pro, Huawei raised the bar in terms of zoom performance. With its triple camera setup, the smartphone was able to get 3x, 5x, and even 10x zoom without much degradation of the image as seen with some ridiculous 10x zoom sample photos we have. This was also made possible by making sure that the white balance, auto-exposure, calculation, and autofocus was perfectly in synchronization to deliver better colors and preserving details in a photo.
Camera technology has seen a massive improvement over the past few years. We’re excited to see what other innovations manufacturers make to their smartphones to deliver even better photos. If you want to check out how the Huawei P20 Pro performs aside from its superb cameras, you can check out our review to see if it’s the flagship smartphone for you.
