Tecno Camon 30 Pro review

Standard triple-camera setup

The Camon 30 Pro has largely the same camera hardware as its more expensive sibling, the Camon 30 Premier, but skips the telephoto camera altogether. The rest of the camera hardware (main and ultrawide) is identical except for the depth sensor.

• Wide (main): 50 MP Sony IMX890, 1/1.56", 1.0µm, f/1.9, 23mm, PDAF, OIS; 2160p@60fps
• Ultrawide: 50 MP Samsung ISOCELL JN1, f/2.2, 1/2.76", 0.64µm, 14mm, PDAF; 2160p@30fps
• Macro: 2 MP Galaxycore GC02M3, f/2.4.
• Front camera: 50 MP Hynix Hi5022Q, f/2.45, 24mm, 1/2.8", 0.64µm, PDAF; 2160p@30fps

It's also nice to see the same great 50MP selfie camera with autofocus - it's a rare find.

Daylight photos

Main camera

Since the Camon 30 Premier and 30 Pro share the same camera hardware, for the most part, and image processing is likely the same, we are not surprised to see similar performance throughout the day.

The Camon 30 Pro takes excellent daytime stills with lots of fine detail, good sharpness and a wide dynamic range with vibrant colors. Watch out for some focus hunting, though, as the camera can sometimes miss the focus. We observed similar behavior with the 30 Premier. You can see the second camera sample below for example.

Main camera daylight samples

Indoor photos retain the same good qualities, and noise is kept to a minimum. Excellent job!

Portraits: Photo • Portrait mode

For some reason, Tecno decided to upscale the 50MP photos to 100MP instead of keeping the native resolution, and needless to say, the results aren't great.

100MP samples

2x zoom samples

The 2x zoom samples are surprisingly clean and offer near-identical to the standard 1x mode rendition. There's minimal loss in quality, and noise is kept at bay, but the dynamic range could be better.

2x zoom daylight samples

Ultrawide camera

The ultrawide camera outputs photos with the same quality and rendering as the ultrawide unit found on the 30 Premier, so there are no surprises here either. We are once again pleased with the overall quality - sharpness, detail, colors, and noise control seem to be in check. Dynamic range is a bit limited compared to the main unit, but that's also to be expected.

Ultrawide camera daylight samples

The only issue we have with the main camera is the limited field of view. It's definitely not the widest we've seen and that's probably the reason why we can't see extreme edge softness, or barrel distortion. Bonus points for offering AF on the ultrawide, though.

Low-light photos

Main camera

The low-light samples look identical to the ones we took with the Camon 30 Premier. We like how natural they look without going overboard with sharpening. The colors could use some boosting, but detail, dynamic range and contrast are good.

Main camera low-light samples

The automatic Night mode took over most of the time, which improves dynamic range and light sources, but the overall rendition has the tendency to go for lower exposure, leaving some shadows a tad darker.

2x zoom

We didn't have high hopes for the nighttime 2x zoom photos, but they are all right. Of course, the 2x zoom mode inherits the 1x's rendition but produces softer and less detailed pictures. If you enjoy them on your phone's screen or use them for casual social media posting, they'll do the trick. But upon closer inspection, they aren't exactly ideal.

2x zoom low-light samples

Ultrawide camera

The ultrawide camera once again surprises with good overall quality after dusk. It's not as sharp as the main camera, but that's quite understandable. Dynamic range is also a tad narrower, but the Night mode does a pretty solid job at fixing that. Still, the photos are far superior than all of the 8MP ultrawide cameras competitors offer.

Ultrawide camera low-light samples

Selfies

The selfies are unrivaled in this price bracket. The Camon 30 Pro's 50MP selfie unit outputs excellent photos with plenty of fine detail, sharp rendition, wide dynamic range and accurate color reproduction. The fact that it has autofocus puts the device in an entirely different league too.

Selfies

Video recording

The handset is capable of recording 2160p60fps videos with all its cameras, including the front-facing one. The software includes an Ultimate video enhancement mode, which aims to boost video quality in various ways, though we'll discuss that more later. We believe the Ultra steady mode functions as an EIS mode, because when it's disabled, the stabilization appears to rely solely on OIS. This is merely our assumption, but since there's no resolution restriction, we recommend keeping that option on. Even so, we've seen better EIS implementations elsewhere.

The main camera's 4K footage is impressive, leaving little to criticize. The videos are clean, sharp, detailed, and the colors are vibrant without being excessive. The exposure leans slightly high, but it's not a significant issue.

Activating the Ultimate enhancement mode introduces artificial sharpness and increases brightness, which isn't ideal. We preferred the video without enhancements.

The telephoto camera also captures excellent 4K videos with ample sharpness, detail, and superb contrast. It's a dependable option for video recording.

We were pleasantly surprised by the ultrawide camera's performance. It produces video quality close to the main camera's, which is rare. Despite being an ultrawide lens, the video is sharp, detailed, and has an impressive dynamic range.

The low-light videos are surprisingly good, too. We compared a standard sample with one using Ultimate Enhancement mode and preferred the former. It offers more natural color tones and retains more shadow detail without excessive noise. The "enhanced" footage is slightly sharper with a wider dynamic range and less noise, but the color reproduction and white balance seem off.

Video sample playlist

You can check out the playlist below, which includes multiple video samples taken with the Tecno Camon 30 Pro.