The Camera App
The Huawei P60 Pro's camera app features AI enhancement presets. This is, by default, an automatic process, meaning that the app applies the AI enhancements automatically based on the shooting scenario. However, you can turn off the feature through a toggle in the camera app. Pretty neat!
Camera app | Photo credit: Android Authority
The Pro mode is, as usual, what you'd expect from a Pro mode- more than a dozen of camera features and settings. Here you can adjust the camera settings to your own preference. Huawei threw in the kitchen and the sink in here from adjustable aperture to ISO settings and Shutter speed settings. Here is the list: primary rear camera adjustable aperture presets (f/1.4, f/1.6, f/1.8, f/2.0, f/2.2, f/2.5, f/2.8, f/3.2, f/3.5, f/4.0), exposure compensation (-4 to +4EV in 1/3 stop increments. A warning will pop up on your screen if the phone thinks you messed up the exposure compensation), shutter speed (1/4000s to 30s), white balance (presets and light temperature adjustments), focus settings (continuous, single and manual), metering mode (spot, matrix, center-weighted).
The Pro mode is available for all three rear cameras. This, and RAW mode too.
For video recording, the Pro mode is available as well. You can adjust the shutter speed and the ISO settings. The maximum ISO for the primary camera is 6,400. For the rest of the cameras, you have 3200 max ISO.
What about camera zoom? Yes!đ It's available for the front and rear cameras. The front camera offers wide angle (18mm without crop), 0.8x (21mm crop and no upscale) and 1x (27mm crop and upscale) zooming levels and they should be lossless given the higher camera resolution than was advertised.
With the rear camera, you can choose between Wide-angle, 1x, 3.5x, 10x zooming levels. 3.5x zoom (80mm - 100mm) produces the highest photo quality of all the zoom levels. The image quality at the telephoto zoom mode is maintained by utlizing some sort of image bining algorithm, combining the images captured by the primary and telephoto cameras to produce the final result. This comes into play in a variety of use-cases and shooting conditions.The P60 Pro offers better video zoom quality than previous Huawei devices.
Daylight Photography
The Huawei P60 Pro is among the best if not the very best in it's category for daylight photography thanks to it's 10-step variable aperture. It means that the phone's camera can adjust itself and take incredible shots in different lighting conditions.
Pro users can take great advantage of the 10-step aperture and manually adjust the aperture to take in as much light as could be necessary, especially at night time when it's usually dark.
The largest aperture on the P60 Pro is f/1.4. It captures the most light compared to the rest of the aperture presets on the P60 Pro. As a result, pictures taken in this aperture will result in a shallow depth of field with a fantastic bokeh. The outcome is simply mind-blowing. This is the best aperture for taking night shots too.
The main rear camera saves 12MP shots by default, and the shots are usually taken while automatically utilizing f/2.0 aperture. The results look incredible. The photos taken have great amount of details, they have the perfect degree of sharpness, they have great contrast and dynamic range, they look natural, did not retain noise and have an overall accurate color rendition. They're something you'd expect from a cutting-edge camera like the P60 Pro's, and they might even beat your expectations.Â
Huawei's in-house image processing algorithm kicks in with it's characteristic mature approach to image processing to make your photos look natural without looking overtly processed. Photos of people and things alike look natural and the Huawei P60 Pro performed just as well, if not better with its smaller sensor than phones spotting 1-inch sensors.
Photos taken with the P60 Pro | Photo credit: VulcanPost
2x high quality zoom is available for the Huawei P60 Pro's main camera, granted the pictures taken with it aren't as detailed as 1x shots, but they're close and the rest of their properties are the same as those of the default mode. There is a dedicated icon for it in Portrait mode.
For high-res shots, Huawei got you covered with 48MP AI and 48MP shooting options available for the primary camera. 48MP AI combines multiple high-resolution images into a single sharp photo. The result however, is not as stellar as you'd expect and downsizing the photo into a 12MP photo will give you similar results as you'd get from the auto mode. Still, even without downsizing the photo, the 48MP AI mode, as you'd soon see, takes better shots than the regular 48MP mode.
The 48MP mode works by upscaling and saving 12MP unprocessed main rear camera shots to 48MP shots. If you manually downsize the images to 12MP, what you'll get is a lower quality version of 12MP shots taken in auto mode. They won't have as much contrast as the 12MP auto mode shots. They'll also be noisier.
Let's discuss the Telephoto camera. It is a 48MP cam with 90mm focal length and f/2.1 aperture-Â the largest aperture on any 90mm smartphone lens. 3.5x zoom is the default optical zoom, but 10x optical zoom is readily available too.
The 3.5x optical zoom shots from the Huawei P60 Pro is the stuff of legends. Plenty of details, accurate color rendition, great dynamic range, the right degree of sharpness, the perfect contrast, no artefacts and no noise. Impressive! Close-ups have good boken effect too, unsurprising for the hardware, but very notewardy.
The phone is capable of some impressive telemacro shots. 10cm - 15cm short-range focusing distance isn't a joke even in the Huawei P60 Pro's price segment. The overall quality of the short-range shots taken are impressive on multiple levels. Pictures will speak for themselves as you'll see below.
What else? The Automatic Super Macro mode is available and it crops and upscales 12MP stills to produce the resulting super macro shot. The outcome is softer-than-desired images. No samples for this one, oops đŹ.
10x zoom shots taken on the P60 Pro (48MP) are better than that of the Mate 50 Pro (64MP)- go figure. By cropping and upscaling from the 48MP camera, the Huawei P60 Pro manages to take some okay-ish zoomed shots. The images were upscaled well but they look washed and have average details. If downscaled to a recommended resolution, say 8MP, they're very usable. Average details, yes, but great dynamic range, noiseless, and accurate color rendition. It's 10x zoom, remember? So trade-offs are well within the margin of expectation.
1x, 3.5x, 10x, 3.5x, 7x, 10x and 20x zoom shots respectively | Photo credit: Android Authority
Coming to the ultrawide camera, it is a 13MP lens and it has autofocus. Reliable, yes it is. And that's an understatement. It is among the best if not the very best ultra-wide angle camera around. Super-wide field of view? Yes. Great quality? Hell yes! Talk of accurate color rendition, the perfect sharpness, perfect details, well-corrected sharp corners, noiseless images, wide dynamic range, true-to-life image reproduction, the P60 Pro's ultrawide camera got it all covered and even exceeds expectations.
Huawei has a texture-engine which it calls XD Fusion Pro, Huawei won't keep mum about it and it truelly lives up to it's hype. Thanks to it, we are able to enjoy the natural-looking camera outputs of the Huawei P60 Pro.
Macro mode on the P60 Pro's ultrawide camera is of excellent quality but not as good as the Telemacro mode.
Rear Camera Portraits
Portraits | Photo credit: Android Authority
Huawei P60 Pro's Portrait mode offers 1x, 2x and 3.5x fixed zoom levels equivalent to 27 mm, 54 mm and 95 mm focal lengths respectively. The first two use the main camera and f/1.4 aperture. The third uses the Telephoto camera and f/2.1 aperture.
All three zoom levels produced amazing results on the Portrait mode. Photo quality was great with excellent bokeh. The bokeh was software enhanced though.
1x, 2x, and 3.5x portrait shots | Photo credit: PhoneArena
Front Camera Portraits
The front camera has three zoom shortcuts for the Portrait mode as well: 0.6x (18mm), 0.8x (22mm) and 1x (27mm). Just like the rear camera portraits, all zoom levels equally produced outstanding results. Great quality, natural looking, good application of HDR and contrast.
Front Camera Samples
Photo credit: VulcanPost
Moon Shot
Photo credit: VulcanPost
Digitally enhanced of courseđ