Robert Triggs / Android Authority
TL;DR
- The first HUAWEI P60 Pro sample image has been posted online.
- It suggests that the phone can clearly capture the moon and a landscape in the same scene.
- This was a feature Google hinted at back at the Pixel 4 series launch in 2019.
HUAWEI’s smartphone unit may have seen better days, but the company still delivered a standout camera phone in the Mate 50 Pro last year. Now, HUAWEI is gearing up to launch the P60 Pro, and the firm has just shown off the first sample image taken with the phone.
HUAWEI consumer group CEO Richard Yu shared a “random photo” taken with the P60 Pro on Chinese social network Weibo. The picture shows a building tower with a full moon in the background. Check it out below.
We’re guessing this is a zoomed-in shot rather than an image taken with the main camera. We’re not sure if the moon has been edited in any way, but this would be an impressive shot if there’s no tomfoolery here.
Why would this be a standout image?
The picture shows both the foreground and the bright moon in the same scene, with both elements accurately exposed. This is something Google was working on at the time of the Pixel 4’s release, according to former Google camera chief Marc Levoy.
The big challenge with this type of scene is that the moon is exponentially brighter than the landscape. So conventional phone cameras will either expose for the moon but have an ultra-dark landscape or expose for the landscape and have a blindingly bright moon. Google still doesn’t seem to have this capability with its new Pixel 7 phones, with this feature presumably falling to the wayside when Levoy departed the company. So it’s great to see another phone brand apparently picking up where Google left off.
Unfortunately, HUAWEI is still unable to offer Google integration on its phones. Furthermore, the US has stepped up sanctions against the Chinese brand. So even if the P60 Pro delivers fantastic image quality, it will be compromised in other areas for global users.