Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “Does The “Camera Phone” Have A Place In 2023?”.
This video is sponsored by moft springtime in New York. The sidewalk trees are blooming, the school children are and above it all, the skyscraping landmarks maintain their silent watch for mobile photography but honestly seen a lot of this city through the lenses of my various review devices, and so, by extension, have you so when two of The world’s Criminal focused phones landed on my Brooklyn review desk earlier this year. I wanted to wait for a chance to profile them properly, because these are camera phones with a Capital C, with over-the-top Optics amped Up by tryhard software, each of them leveraging the legacy of a more than century-old camera maker to burnish their much younger credentials when another. Nearly 200 year old company offered to bring me to Austin Texas, to make the case that John Deere is just as much technology company as agricultural equipment wholesaler. Well, I knew right away that that opportunity was not one.
I wanted to pass me by so I traded in my Hornblower Ferry for a Delta A320. It hit my hairdo beneath a farmer hat, and I used those phones to shoot the ever-loving hell out of some self-driving tractors. Nothing runs like a me, I’m Michael Fisher, and this is Austin Texas Through The Eyes of the Oppo, Find X6 Pro and xiaomi 13 Pro on a Mr mobile Road Trip review. Each of these phones has its own individual strengths, and this time around, I just thought would be more fun to play through those strings rather than putting them head to head in order to help viewers reach a buying decision about phones that aren’t even available in the Us, anyway, that’s not to say I don’t have a favorite between them see.
I tend to think that form is at least as important as function. If you’re going to call something a camera phone in 2023 and oppo’s find X6. Pro definitely got that memo dyed. A warm khaki, rarely seen in Mobile the faux leather backplate is soft, often warm to the touch and decidedly more durable than the glass we see on almost every other pump. The top quarter is glass, but at least it’s done up to look like the metal. I wish it was and straddling the border between materials is an aluminum camera module, no, a camera crater, no, a camera Mesa that can’t help, but put me in mind of Nokia’s legendary Lumia 1020 of a decade ago. Oppo tips, its hat to the world of DSLR cameras with the reeded edge and orange alignment Dot, and, of course, anyone with eyes can see.
The Hasselblad word Mark proudly advertising the color science collaboration. That makes portraits such a pleasure to shoot on this device. You’Ll see them shortly, flip the Oppo over and it’s just another Big Slab phone tough to distinguish from the xiaomi 13 Pro alongside and while xiaomi is no stranger to aspirational envelope. Pushing designs check out its Ultra Series. The 13 Pro seems aimed at those who, like their phones, more subtle, while the main shooter uses the same huge one-inch sensor found in the Oppo, the Sony’s 50 megapixel imx989 xiaomi frames it within a much smaller camera cuboid placed off center, like so many other wobbly Phones sprouting from a sea of ceramic that’s appealing in its weighty way, but also predictably prone to prints fingerprints.
That is honestly, I find it to be a pretty generic design to me. The most exciting thing about it is the leather carrying pouch that came with my review unit, which I can’t quite pull off. I admit it kind of how much space you want in the late model. Car, oh and let’s not forget the Leica word Mark stamped above the Flash over the past five years.
I’Ve covered that company’s collaborations, with phone makers from Huawei to xiaomi to Sharp and the byproduct of leica’s. Relatively long tenure in Mobile is, in my opinion, the deepest grab bag of photographic fun to be had on a phone now. Does your phone need a Leica or Hasselblad brand to snap great shots? Obviously not I’ve said that a lot before and just look to my frequent partner in content crime, David kogan of the unlocker who shot the same trip you’re about to see on a plain, Jane, Galaxy, s23 plus from Samsung, and he got some great stuff I’ll link. His real world test in the description when it goes live, but what these camera phones do but or at least do for me is add some intention to the photos I take when I use these, I’m not just shooting from the hip, I’m looking for an opportunity To use hasselblad’s super wide, x-pan mode, whether that’s to capture the scale of 130 foot wide sprayer in a field or to evoke the sense of potential hanging in the bar alongside a vacant piano, I’m trying to find a dynamic atmosphere for leica’s film emulation modes.
So I can develop all those hidden, colors and dimensions that live between the smoke and the sausage at a place like the Salt Lick Barbecue. I know I know we’re already at Peak fake photographer Naval gazing, but if you’re gon na buy a phone like this, you’ve got to be open to the possibility that it turns you into a somewhat pretentious digital picture. Dilettante then, even if you only vaguely know what you’re doing well, there’s still a lot of pleasure in that, especially when the phones, surprise, you that surprise is up next, but since, let’s be real, you’re, probably not buying a phone like this. Today’S sponsor is an old friend with some new accessories that you probably can use.
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This is more than just a stamp. It’S a portable charger and a three-card wallet too done up in one of four faux leather colors to match your personal style. My favorite part, is you don’t need to go all or nothing, because the stackable design means you can use the stand without the battery or the battery without the phone moft even brought magsafe to the power cord, letting you juice up your phone and battery with a Magnetic cable, complete with pass-through and a pretty cool blue, LED ring light boost your juice and your productivity hit the link in the description to get your snapstand power set and thanks to moft for sponsoring this video that surprise I mentioned before. Well, I’ve always hated portrait photos on phones. So imagine my delight when I shot a couple portraits of friends down in Austin and ended up loving what the phone was producing. So much that I just didn’t stop for three days now I say I loved what the phone was producing, singular because it really is the Oppo that deserves the bulk of credit. For changing my mind about portraits and no hardcore photographers. You don’t need to comment, but I know you will.
Of course this isn’t going to replicate what you can do with your three pound DSLR or just carry my camera. Why do I need a yep? We get it. Thank you, and – and yes I I said as recently as my s23 Ultra review – that even Samsung can pull proper portraits in the right conditions. But what struck me about Oppo was just how consistent no, how easy it was to snap a quick portrait in almost any condition lots of light or not so much up close or halfway across the room.
Here I will quickly compare the phones, xiaomi’s 13. Pro is very specific about the Leica lenses it’s trying to emulate and it’s fun to play with those focal lengths and virtual film stocks, No Doubt, but those colors sometimes play Havoc with skin tones and by the time you get all the way up to the 90 Millimeter soft focus it’s it’s so shallow that I found it only marginally useful. In my experience, oppo’s find X6 pro has better. Subject: separation, it’s more tenacious when it comes to preserving colors and again it’s just easier. I got so confident with the Oppo that, on a whim, I offered to shoot some of the John Deere employees, whose work we were in Austin to see. I was very happy with the results: oppo’s investment in its secondary cameras, which is to say the ultra wide and especially the Periscope telephoto really paid off here. That’S where the xiaomi suffers a bit by comparison, quick note.
I have honestly thanks to her mode selfie camera. Those of us who talk to our phones for a living really appreciate it. It’S just a shame that that selfie camera is limited to full HD and is fixed focus. Oppos is full HD2, but at least it has autofocus okay. Enough of the comparison I said I wouldn’t do enjoy these captures from both phones from New York to Texas, even a few stragglers from Barcelona in xiaomi’s case before I take us home.
Thank you. So it’s easy enough to document the visual aspect of this beautiful hotel. The proper hotel in Austin, but what I can’t capture with either of these phones is the olfactory aspect.
They are literally pumping scented air into the public spaces of this hotel, not perfume, not a rose, petal kind of smell, like you might find in Vegas, but a Mesquite type, bonfire smell as though someone is having a cookout on the planes not far away. It smells like smoke like every time. I’Ve walked out of my room.
Is there fire in here and now it smells like cow hide in here. This is a very olfactory Hotel, I’m into it. Have you have you seen the worst of me? Sorry, I didn’t mean to be a brat, I would leave without me I’m going to yeah. You may have noticed I no longer roll my eyes as hard when I see uh Hasselblad or a Leica mark on a phone and there’s a good reason for that, while those camera companies aren’t as involved as the manufacturers, would probably like you to think they have.
Finally, started bringing something important to phone cameras, an attitude, an opinion truth be told. I don’t really care what film or lenses like our Hasselblad are trying to emulate when you fire up their special filters, but the resulting color science and framing really is special and in my opinion, it really does serve to inform the photos that come out. The other side, with these very capable, very large sensors that bring in so much light and offer such a shallow depth of field. The results can be quite striking. Is there room for improvement? Always these damn curved screens often screw up my focus point when shooting, because my palm inadvertently touches the sides.
A dedicated shutter button like Sony offers would really help with that and it would solve The Perennial problem of China. Market phones, not letting you double-click the power button to quick launch the camera, like you can on so many other Android phones. Instead, you have to use the volume rocker on the Oppo, which is a poor substitute at best and xiaomi doesn’t even give you that option. The result is that there’s no fast and easy one-handed way to start these cameras on these camera phones and that’s just ridiculous. I set it right at the beginning.
Do you need either of these to properly preserve your precious memories? Absolutely not! That being said, I’m very glad that even in 2023, the concept of a camera phone is still alive and well because, just like I said about that Lumia 1020 a decade ago, and only a few other phones since each one of these makes me want to be A better photographer, and these days it’s rare for a non-folding phone to give me such an aspirational feeling. This video was made possible by review samples from xiaomi and Oppo and filmed on location at the John Deere Tech Summit in Austin Texas, for which John Deere provided travel lodging and a large amount of Texas barbecue. As always, though, none of those companies were given copy approval rights or editorial input of any kind into this content, they’re, seeing it for the first time right alongside you and the lone sponsor of this, video is moft from Michael Fisher. Thanks to the unlocker.
Thanks to you for watching and stay mobile, my .