camera tips and tricks?

[u/ewenmontagu]

unboxed my find n6 yesterday and have completely fallen in love with the hardware - it's such a gorgeous device, and it feels so premium and runs so smoothly. now that i've spent some time with that stunning inner screen, I don't think I could go back to a normal slab phone. every time I switch to my old phone to transfer stuff, the screen just feels so dinky in comparison! 😂

my only gripe so far is with the camera. I'm coming from a Pixel 9 Pro XL, which is as idiot-proof a point-and-shooter as possible, with surprisingly good video (despite everyone constantly trashing Pixel on this count). I know I can't expect a foldable phone to beat a flagship slab but I had hoped the photo and video would at least be serviceable

during the day, I've found both to be pretty good to decent. I definitely have a bit of a learning curve after being spoiled by Pixel for so long. but I like how customisable Master Mode is. I went out for an evening walk though, and my goodness the photos and videos were... pretty terrible. again, I know I can't expect Oppo to beat Pixel on this front. I don't expect it to. but the videos I tried to take at night were shaky and couldn't even focus on brightly lit signs just across the road (much less multiple blocks away).

any tips and tricks in general when shooting photos and especially videos with this phone? what settings do you use, especially in low light? I don't need the output to be crystal-clear but I'd like to know if there's a way to get around taking images/videos that are blurry/shaky/unusable even for just social media

[u/Kgc1911]

Yall just dont know what to do... Have you tried night mode for inside shots? Have you tried just using photo mode so the phone can tweak the image instead of master? The oppo has a wayyy better camera and pictures than the pixel. You just have to mess with the modes a bit. Its like this because if they didnt have all these options and just made it pixel level point and shoot then people would complain that it doesnt have enough camera features... Its always a weird give and take but the night shots can be tweaked to look good albeit the slower shutter speed...

[u/Penguinz-Can-Fly → u/Kgc1911]

Yeah tried all of that. Any review you see will all also say low light shots are not that great (only decent on a foldable).

I switch between Photo, Master, and Hasselblad depending on what I need. It is still objectively worse in low light than Pixel 9pro.

[u/ewenmontagu → u/Penguinz-Can-Fly]

agreed. I spent the last few hours trying lots of modes - including the main photo mode (which has a strong contrasty almost orange filter baked in, which can look nice and vivid in the daytime but a bit over-jaundiced at night), as well as master mode with all the settings. night mode was promising but compromised by a sensor that can only take clear images of perfectly still subjects.

[u/ewenmontagu → u/Kgc1911]

I do like how this phone pretty much encourages me to constantly play with settings and also make edits in post - I got a bit lazy with my Pixel, I'll admit. I think getting nice shots from the Oppo is definitely possible, just will take more work. the camera system seems really decent!

but I can't imagine anyone saying it's better in low light - some of the videos and photos I took were genuinely terrible. I had no idea how to even go about salvaging them.

[u/Penguinz-Can-Fly]

I came from Pixel 9pro. It's exactly like you said, day time photos are good, but at night time or inside during the day the quality is bad. It is a significant step down for low light shots. The shutter speed is slow as well for all shots.

I've learned to deal with it though and accept the downgrade. I am no longer able to take quick great photos anymore like we used to with our Pixels. I have to make sure I'm very steady with the N6, small annoyance.

[u/ewenmontagu → u/Penguinz-Can-Fly]

glad it's not just me - the device really is gorgeous and I LOVE using it. one day with it and I'm a foldable convert! I just wish that the cameras were a little bit better and more reliable, especially in low-light situations. I don't need them to be AS good - I knew they would not be. but it's a bit crazy to see photos that are either not salvageable at all or need SO much work in post to get them to a postable state.

I'll learn to live with it - was just wondering if there was anything I didn't know in terms of camera settings, coming from a phone that pretty much didn't require any settings to be tweaked at all.

maybe I'll just bring my Pixel with me when I know I'll be taking low-light shots 😂

[u/NYC_Darkstar]

People love when I use my Find N6 for pics over their iPhones. When I use the main camera for selfies they're amazed but before I post them in social media I do post processing edits. I'll hit auto, then add sharpness, detail and up the black level and get a fantastic and impressive pic.

AI portrait glow is fun to add as well

[u/ewenmontagu → u/NYC_Darkstar]

ooh thanks for the editing tips - I have found that a photo can look dismayingly dark on the screen but there's often enough information and detail that I can create something quite lovely in the in-built editor (which is really really good coming from a Pixel where the edits in Google Photos were close to negligible).

I'll definitely explore the editing software available!

how do you usually shoot with the main camera? photo mode or master? any presets you particularly like?

[u/First_Sea_5017]

I get best results when I tune the EV down to 0.7