The OnePlus 6T is just a week away from launch and as usual, the hype machine is in full swing. Adding some fuel to the frenzy is OnePlus co-founder Pete Lau who has shared a full resolution camera sample from the upcoming smartphone. Lau shared the 13-megapixel JPG with a watermark that says “shot on OnePlus” but the image has no EXIF data, which means we can’t actually verify if the photo was actually shot on the OnePlus 6T. Additionally, due to a lack of EXIF data, it’s hard to draw any inferences about the camera hardware. However, seeing the image, there are a few things that we can talk about.
The image shared has a resolution of 4163×3122, meaning an effective resolution of 13 megapixels. The photo is from downtown Shanghai and has obviously been shot just as the sun was setting. There is a faint purple hue in the sky which can generally be seen just seconds after the sun has set. The foreground, along with much of the buildings in the frame seem underexposed, however, the skyscraper that seems to be the central subject of this photo is exposed well enough. It appears that while maintaining the primary subject as well lit, the camera hasn’t managed to bring out much detail in the shadow areas. This could very well be a factor of how the photo was originally exposed and not as much a testament of the camera’s dynamic range. What is, however, clearly visible is the significant loss in detail due to noise reduction. While this doesn’t show up in the small web-preview embedded below, but if you click here, you can see the full resolution photo in the original.
Whatever we may deduce from the image shared by Lau hinges on the assumption that the photo has not been edited or manipulated in any way. If it is indeed a straight out of camera file, then it demonstrates the OnePlus 6T’s ability to produce noise-free images in low-light, but at the cost of overall detail and dynamic range. We will refrain from passing any final judgment on OnePlus 6T’s camera performance till we have actually extensively tested it out.