Testing Oppo's 10x optical zoom camera

2021-09-16

Oppo announced that it will launch a phone with its new 10x zoom triple camera module in Q2 this year. For now, they let us play with a prototype unit to test out the camera. Before we go on, we should emphasize that both the hardware and software are not in a finished state.

The prototype was put in a case to mask its design as that wasn’t the focus of this presentation. The triple camera on the back, that’s what matters. Oppo said that this is what the camera module will look like and its placement will be the same. The design of the rest of the phone will be unveiled at a later date.

The main camera features a 48MP sensor, though it shoots 12MP photos normally. You have to go into Pro mode to get the full resolution (unfortunately, this was disabled on this phone).

The “10x lossless zoom” claims from the ratio of the 16mm ultra-wide angle camera and the 160mm telephoto camera (both in 35mm equivalent). The ultra-wide has an 8MP sensor and 120° field of view. The telephoto camera has a 12MP sensor. Both it and the 48MP main camera also feature optical image stabilization.

Alright, enough talk – here’s a camera sample going from ultra-wide to wide to telephoto:

And here’s the same thing again, but this time enabling the 2x digital zoom for a total of 20x zoom:

Here’s that digital zoom again for 20x zoom, going from 16mm to (simulated) 320mm:

The zoom slider in the camera is smooth - you can can take it from 1x to 20x in small steps. It interpolates the image for intermediate zoom levels. We wish there was a way to just switch between the cameras to get the best image quality without having to fiddle with a touch slider to hit exactly "10.0 zoom".

We’ll finish up with a few more zoom shots:

The upcoming Oppo phone – we don’t even know its name – will be unveiled between April and June.