Technically, the OnePlus 7 Pro's telephoto cam doesn't have 3x optical zoom

24 May 2019
And it's actually 13MP and not 8MP.

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Chithu, 24 May 2019I'm an iPhone user and I thought to buy OnePlus but meh I'l... moreLol iPhone probably the most lying company in a world, with so many times screwing customers and you crying for One PLUS making it as 3x just not fully optical, lossless still, you people are really something :D

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    • Ademeion
    • mhZ
    • 26 May 2019

    Nick Tagataka, 25 May 2019"Cropping a photo gives you worse quality than zooming in w... more"There would've been an pixelation and loss of detail relative to the MP count if the section of the 13MP image had been cropped and then upscaled into 13MP again, but that's not really the case here."

    Let's not forget the viewing situation – photos are not just for capturing them. Let's say you view two photos on a computer screen, one 13MP and one 8MP, the first one being zoomed to the subject and the second one being cropped to match the framing. Both are taken of an identical subject. Then you enlarge the 13MP photo on your display so that one pixel on the photo equals one pixel on the display. If you now enlarge the 8MP photo so that the subject on it is visibly as large as the same subject on the 13MP photo, the quality of the 8MP photo is worse, because it has been upscaled by the computer. So the "digital zooming" just moves the burden of upscaling to a later phase. You can avoid upscaling by not enlarging the smaller photo as much, but then you just experience the loss of image data in another way. You have to either upscale or limit you viewing options.

    "Perspective changes with the distance between the camera and the subject, not the equivalent focal length."

    As soon as I read the above sentence I realised that I had made a terrible mistake – I didn't even have to read the article you linked. I have never really seriously thought about the perspective matter in question, and it just seemed quickly thinking obvious to me. Of course focal length doesn't affect the perspective. Thanks for the correction, and sorry for my erroneous comment. Perhaps I should reveal that I'm not really even an amateur photographer, as my only photo taking device is a few years old cheap mobile phone with a pretty bad camera :-).

    "Let's say that a soft drink company announced that they would start selling 350ml juice..."

    I think that comparison doesn't quite hit the nail, based on what I describe in the beginning of my comment. The cropped photo is worse than a genuinely zoomed photo.

      I’m generally against laying, false advertising, misleading and fooling people. I ask myself why not telling the truth instead of hiding the truth/lying????

        Ademeion, 25 May 2019"...the customer still gets what has exactly been advertise... more"Cropping a photo gives you worse quality than zooming in with an optical zoom"
        Except this is an 8MP photo cropped from 13MP sensor. There would've been an pixelation and loss of detail relative to the MP count if the section of the 13MP image had been cropped and then upscaled into 13MP again, but that's not really the case here.
        They advertised in their website that phone has 8MP optical zoom. This phone does indeed produces 8MP image at 3x magnification with no upscaling or additional interpolation processes going on. On OnePlus 5 it became an issue because it WAS upscaling the image and this resulted in really fuzzy image that lacked fine textures, but the situation is entirely different this time around.

        "Sorry, but wrong again. The change in perspective is explained in the article (with a video)"
        Perspective changes with the distance between the camera and the subject, not the equivalent focal length. This is a common misconception among some amateur photographers as well, and if you want more information about it you should go check this link for detailed explanation. He describes the idea very well.
        https://martinbaileyphotography.com/2017/04/10/the-effect-of-subject-distance-and-focal-length-on-perspective-podcast-568/
        So in conclusion: this phone would've had the same perspective even if it had 3x telephoto lens instead.

        "Did you read what people say in this thread?"
        Maybe I should have said "nobody SHOULD BE feeling deceived by it". If you acknowledge what's really happening here you can also tell that OnePlus 7 Pro is delivering exactly what the company advertised to their customer - 8MP image that is identical to what you can get from real 3x 8MP telephoto lens.


        Let's say that a soft drink company announced that they would start selling 350ml juice, but then when they started selling it people complained about it because the company put 350ml juice in a 500ml bottle instead of simply putting it in a 350ml bottle. Obviously the company should've prepared 350ml bottle to avoid the controversy and confusion, but either way you would still get 350ml of drink and nothing less or more than that.
        That's why I said "OnePlus should be more careful about the what to write on the spec sheet next time" - because it is definitely confusing at first for most people. But they didn't lie about what they phone can deliver, hence "we should just let them go *on this one*".

        You might also want to check out Juan Bagnell's analysis on this matter, it's pretty fun to see where people's overreaction is coming from.
        http://somegadgetguy.com/2019/05/24/the-oneplus-7-pro-does-have-a-3x-optical-zoom-why-generic-consumer-measurements-suck/

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          • Ademeion
          • mhZ
          • 25 May 2019

          Nick Tagataka, 25 May 2019So while OnePlus *technically* was dishonest to their custo... more"...the customer still gets what has exactly been advertised - 3x zoom with no loss in quality..."

          Wrong. Cropping a photo gives you worse quality than zooming in with an optical zoom. This has already been explained on this thread.

          "...and exactly the same perspective..."

          Sorry, but wrong again. The change in perspective is explained in the article (with a video).

          "...which is equivalent to the optical one."

          That's fuzzy wording. "Equivalent" doesn't have a well defined meaning in this context. The results of optical zooming and cropping yield different results, which one will easily notice, depending on the amount of zooming and cropping. Again, this is explained in the article.

          "I think we should just let them go on this one because nobody actually is getting hurt..."

          If we OK distorting of words to mislead people, language will get worse. It will become more difficult to convey a meaning, and understand what other people try to say. Even a worse consequence is that people start to think that distorting facts and misleading people is normal or even acceptable. Along with a well functioning language, honesty and trust are one of the most valuable assets of a society.

          "...or feeling deceived by it."

          Did you read what people say in this thread?...

          "OnePlus should be more careful about the what to write on the spec sheet next time, though."

          I'm glad we agree about this.

            r33fd, 25 May 2019Not entirely true. Croping from higher MP camera means t... moreAbsolutely correct. But again, quite a few assumptions have to be made for this logic to apply, don't you think :) Regardless, at the end of the day, the important bit we wanted to get across is that the zoom is not optical.

              • r
              • r33fd
              • mEA
              • 25 May 2019

              taghack, 24 May 2019Those are some pretty strong opinions to throw around and y... moreNot entirely true.

              Croping from higher MP camera means the size of each individual pixel used on the portion that is being cropped is smaller than it would have been if the camera natively had less MP, assuming identical sensor size, which means you do actually get poorer picture that you would with a natively lower MP count.

                • r
                • r33fd
                • mEA
                • 25 May 2019

                They should give the option to take full 13 MP shots from the zoom sensor.
                Croping in at time of shoot is useless since you can easily crop later.
                And sometimes you might care about the extra details on the edges.

                  • ?
                  • Anonymous
                  • kHZ
                  • 25 May 2019

                  Personally, I don't mind getting an 8MP zoomed photo. But I don't like such play on words. Especially when there's actual cropping.
                  I'd like to get the widest FoV possible off of every sensor. When there's cropping, I expect to be notified before buying the phone.

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                    • AnonD-731363
                    • SH3
                    • 25 May 2019

                    Still its camera is awesome.
                    Even magicians does not tell their tricks but this one were really revealed which is shame for Oneplus.

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                      • Anonymous
                      • fFA
                      • 25 May 2019

                      Anonymous, 24 May 2019so much money pay for what?! a phone carrying camera thats... moreLol most of us want smartphone that can shoot good pic and video.. We enthusiast enough to demand it, but not deept enough to buy dslr..

                        So while OnePlus *technically* was dishonest to their customer about having 3x OPTICAL zoom, the customer still gets what has exactly been advertised - 3x zoom with no loss in quality and exactly the same perspective, which is equivalent to the optical one. I think we should just let them go on this one because nobody actually is getting hurt or feeling deceived by it. OnePlus should be more careful about the what to write on the spec sheet next time, though.

                          • ?
                          • Anonymous
                          • nmF
                          • 25 May 2019

                          Many praised them for the OP7 Pro, about the fact that thay are going to bring OP7 software features to the older devices and that they gave Android 9.0 to 3/3T and after this announcement they started hating on them. Tbh I don't find it that bad.
                          *For me a high MP super wide angle lens, would have been awesome. Digital crop to go to wide or normal view. And maybe a 10X periscope style telephoto lens.

                            Ademeion, 24 May 2019I'm glad I'm not the only reader noticing this. "Lossless" ... moreThose are some pretty strong opinions to throw around and you are certainly entitled to them. However you seem to have an issue with semantics here. I will more than readily agree that "lossless" is probably not the best term to use for what is essentially a cropped image from a 13MP sensor. You appear to be missing the main point, which is that the OnePlus 7 Pro zoom is not really optical. That being said, it still produces an 8MP image. No upscaling or interpolation is taking place. OnePlus also officially advertises the camera as being 8MP. So I hope you can see how the "no quality is actually lost" argument is still kind of, technically valid.

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                              • Ademeion
                              • mhZ
                              • 24 May 2019

                              [deleted post]I'm glad I'm not the only reader noticing this. "Lossless" doesn't even make sense in this context. Using the word is probably an idea of the phone makers marketing department, and the writer of this article has swallowed the hook, line and the sinker. In this case you do lose resolution compared to real zoom (optical), because you cut away pixels. When you zoom optically, your pixel count stays the same, so you resolve more and more detail of the subject the more you zoom in. When you "zoom in" with fake zoom (digitally, in other words crop), the remaining content of the photo doesn't get more pixels, so compared to actual optical zooming, you get less visual data. So "lossless" is definitely a wrong word to describe the process.

                              Unfortunately many writers of GSM Arena seem to have problems understanding the basic mobile phone technology. They write in a style that implies knowledge, but the amount of errors reveal that they are just some random people who got hired (probably cheaply) to write about mobile phones.

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                                • Atta
                                • 35n
                                • 24 May 2019

                                tomsoyar, 24 May 2019maybe it is the case but if you check out the highfive tech... moreI am disagree with ProJames and agree with tomsoyar.

                                Every phone has to do photos as they advertise them. If they say optical zoom it must be that. (and not a lower resolution at the end) To bad that only GSMarena and small youtubers goes deeper, test and then tell us the true.

                                So Samsung s9 optical problem on youtube, this Oneplus crop gate here and even Huawei DSLR advertisement fiasco, all the same: misleading consumers!

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                                  • Jake
                                  • 0WL
                                  • 24 May 2019

                                  From the benchmark cheaters specialists we have the Honor of present you... "The cheated zoom" with fake 3x optical lens. 2.2x optical lens are not 3x geniune ones LiarOPlus. Definitely OnePlus joins the Lienovo club and become LiarOPlus.

                                    • ?
                                    • Anonymous
                                    • ntJ
                                    • 24 May 2019

                                    so much money pay for what?!
                                    a phone carrying camera thats not even work correctly based on detailes writed on paper?
                                    just go & buy professional camera instead of this phone & end this discussions here if you care for photography

                                      Hasukazu, 24 May 2019Yes, pretty much. Oneplus is caught cheating red-handed onc... moreFlagships come out without OIS, companies force people to buy PRO version and pay $$$ for extra ram, storage etc no one asked for. It's okay.
                                      3x optical zoom is only 2.2x SKY IS FALLING

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                                        • Luxor
                                        • 70g
                                        • 24 May 2019

                                        So, OnePlus advertised the camera as 3x optical zoom but in reality only 2.2x optical zoom while the other 0.8x is just cropping. Very smart. Cropping pic vs zooming digitally. After increasing price OnePlus also lies nowadays. We can expect a drastic increase in sales...in OnePlus dream.

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