Camera
For testing the camera on the OnePlus 7t I changed things up from what I normally like to do. Typically I have a few things inside to photograph and I get maybe one picture outside. Well, when I was doing this testing it was a great fall day so I went around town to get a few unique pictures. I took the Oneplus 6t, OnePlus 7t, and the Samsung S10 that Verizon Wireless provided to get pictures and took advantage of all two or three of the zoom/cameras that each has. My first stop was right outside of my house, taking a picture of a late blooming flower that my wife planted this year. For this, I used just one camera mode on them all, with the exception of the 7t where I also wanted to test out the macro function. All three of the phones take a great picture and the differences between them are slight at best. The S10 does bring out the colors more, which is something I have seen a lot of Samsung phones do, to a point where sometimes it is too much. But for this photo, it looks great. The macro shot from the 7t, however, is the best, bringing out even more detail.
OnePlus 6t
OnePlus 7t
Samsung S10
For my next round of photos, I took a picture of a local church and when doing it on each of the cameras I used all of the available zoom levels. Which means a 1x and 2x with the 6t and wide, normal, and zoom pictures from the S10 and 7t. You will notice that I ended up with my finger in the wide-angle shot from the S10, I’ve had this happen a lot actually. Its field of view is crazy. The 7t is close as well, but just a touch less and both having that option is more helpful than you might imagine. Especially during the holidays when you need a picture of everyone in a room that is too small to really be taking that photo or if you want to get a bit of a fish-eye effect in your picture. I found it useful when taking pictures of our car after washing it without having to even walk off our driveway. The zoom photos show that you can get a proper picture up close of the building while standing across two lanes plus angled parking on each side, not to mention the sidewalk and all of the walk up space on the church side. As for the photos themselves, you can see the S10 again having more color and the 6t being a little light on the color but the 7t found a happy medium that is most like what I was seeing in person as well. Its shadows are a little too dark which cuts out some of the detail that you can see in the bushes. In the normal zoom photos the 7t also brings out more of the detail in the clouds, you can see some streaks of clouds in all of the pictures, but the 7t photo shows a LOT more.
OnePlus 6t
OnePlus 7t
Samsung S10
My next stop, with it being fall at the time of the photos I wanted to find a tree that was changing colors that I could get a picture of and frankly I wanted to find one that didn’t have me taking pictures out in front of someone’s house. I don’t need to be posted up on social media and being shared like some creepy ring footage of some guy casing a house or something. I ended up downtown, which some of you might be surprised at what rural Ohio downtown looks like. But for these photos, I took a picture from each of the cameras using the default/normal lens and I took it twice, once with a 4:3 aspect ratio and then again with the “full” mode that goes to the aspect ratio that fills your ultra widescreen. I just wanted to show what switching between those camera modes could include or cut out depending on what you need at the time. Also with the 7t, I slipped in a third picture using the wide-angle to show how the wider aspect ratio really gets that fish eye effect. Again the S10 has a richer photo making the brick almost orange on one building and darker on the other, not to mention the ground. But the two OnePlus’s are closer to what I was seeing.
OnePlus 6t
OnePlus 7t
Samsung S10
The last batch of photos was out in the country looking at the sun setting. I took zoom, normal, and for the 7t and S10 wide-angle shots. I did notice that the zoomed in photo from the 7t came out noticeably out of focus compared to the others. The S10 is once again a little last natural in the coloring, but I have to admit that it looks amazing. This also brought out even more blue in the sky. The 7t, however, shows more detail out in the field/dirt and the grass is a more natural color.
OnePlus 6t
OnePlus 7t
Samsung S10
I also wanted to show a few random pictures I took while testing the 7t that take advantage of a few of the camera modes. The cat picture below was taken using the portrait mode which adds bokeh, which is a fancy word that means background blur. You can see the detail in the hair in his face and on his arm but that detail fades in the background, as does the mess from my wife's desk on the other side.
The photo may be completely unassuming and frankly not that great of a picture. Until you know that I took it using the nightscape mode in the middle of the night. The TV was on in the room, but with a dark stream and in person I couldn’t see anything in the corner. It was pitch black to me but the night mode picked up everything and made our white living room look like daytime without any flash. The night mode takes a series of photos to bring out the detail in night or even extremely dark areas like this. It is also really good for taking a nighttime lighting photo or a picture of a skyline, by using multiple exposures they can bring more out of the image. It is supported with the normal and wide-angle cameras, but not the zoom.
The last picture was taken is a mostly dark room using the macro mode at the bottom of a Noctua NH-L9i. You are actually seeing the full machine marks where they end in the center of the heatsink’s contact surface! I used the zoom camera because given the dark room when I got too close using the normal (and higher detail camera) I created a shadow.
