Don’t fall for the beautiful images posted by brands while boasting their smartphone’s camera quality.
It has almost become a routine for brands to build the hype around their smartphones by publishing some beautiful images supposedly captured by the devices. While the brands intend to make you believe the smartphone camera is the best, it’s very difficult to replicate them in real life. And this makes you wonder if the photos shown by the companies have really been captured by the smartphone? The latest incident involving Huawei has raised more apprehensions about these sample photos shared by the brands. Here’s what has happened.
Huawei posted a photo on its Google+ page supposedly shot by the Huawei P9’s much-hyped Leica-certified rear camera. But turns out that the image was actually taken using a DSLR camera. The caption for the photo reads, “We managed to catch a beautiful sunrise with Deliciously Ella. The #HuaweiP9’s dual Leica cameras makes taking photos in low light conditions like this a pleasure. Reinvent smartphone photography and share your sunrise pictures with us. #OO.”
The photo shared actually looks quite beautiful with near excellent focus, color level, sharpness and details. But what Huawei forgot is that images posted on websites like Flickr and Google+ retain the EXIF data, which is available for everyone. According to the data, the picture shared by Huawei was in fact taken by a Canon EOS 5D Mark III using EF70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM. The DSLR is available for $2,600 on Amazon, while the EF70-200 f/2.8L IS II USM lens is priced at $1,900. Pricing of the Huawei P9, on the other hand, starts at $600.
After the expose, Huawei not only took down the photo but also released a statement tendering an apology for misleading users.
“It has recently been highlighted that an image posted to our social channels was not shot on the Huawei P9. The photo, which was professionally taken while filming a Huawei P9 advert, was shared to inspire our community. We recognize though that we should have been clearer with the captions for this image. It was never our intention to mislead. We apologize for this and we have removed the image,” the statement read.
It is not the first time a brand has been caught faking the smartphone camera quality. About four years ago, Nokia had drawn flak for claiming to have shot an ad using Lumia 920 to show OIS capabilities of PureView sensor. But like Huawei, it was actually taken using a professional video camera set up. Later, the company confirmed that the OIS video was not shot using the Lumia 920.
Camera is one of the most important factors people consider before buying any smartphone. It is most probably why brands tend to overhype their devices’ camera quality. But at the same time, these brands should share EXIF data to make these sample videos and photos more authentic.
Source: bgr.in
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