OnePlus 8 Camera Review

I’ve had a OnePlus 8 for a while, but the current situation made it difficult to get all the photos I’d normally seek to take with a new phone.

This is the camera review part of my full OnePlus 8 review.

Below you’ll find a selection of photos and some video from the OnePlus 8. You can also see more in my public Google Photos gallery. If you’ve got a OnePlus 8 yourself, please do share your photos and video in there.

The Camera Review

Photos

The OnePlus 8 isn’t quite as powerful in the camera department as the OnePlus 8 Pro (which has much in common with the Oppo Find X2 Pro) but it still offers a decent enough configuration for most usage scenarios.

The camera setup consists of a 48-megapixel primary camera (Sony IMX586; as used on both the OnePlus 7 and 7T models, as well as in the OnePlus 8 Pro as the ultra wide-angle camera), a 16-megapixel ultra-wide camera (with a 116 degree field-of-view), and a 2-megapixel macro camera for close-ups.

As you may note, there’s no telephoto camera on the OnePlus 8. Instead, you get a 2x zoom image cropped from the primary sensor.

I’d have loved to get out more to try the camera in some more exciting locations than just my locality, but in my limited testing I cannot see anyone not being satisfied with the camera on a day-to-day basis.

Click on any photo below to view a larger image.

Video

Video recording on the OnePlus 8 goes up to 4K 60fps, with a choice of 16:9 or 21:9 ratio video. The camera application even does a nice job of giving an approximation of data usage (e.g. 1080p 30fps using 70MB for 30 seconds of video, right up to 500MB for 30 seconds of 4K Cine 60fps video).

There’s also a super stable mode, but as you can see below the resulting video is a little disappointing. It may remain fairly stable as I walked along, but an awful lot of detail was lost in the process.

You can only record with the primary camera, meaning it starts at 1x zoom and offers only a digital zoom up to 8x. You really will want to avoid this unless you’re only intending to share the video to those who will only view on a mobile device.

My thoughts

My full thoughts can be found within the main OnePlus 8 review, but if you’re not interested in reading that now, I can say here and now that there’s nothing fundamentally wrong with the camera set up here.

Yes, the OnePlus 8 Pro offers a more dynamic camera setup, but at a £200 premium. The Pro will let you get a better zoom range, while the newer main sensor will also perform better in lower lighting conditions. The focus will also be faster.

But not everyone wants or needs those features, and OnePlus has included a decent camera configuration for the mainstream.