On a recent trip to Japan, I brought with me two camera-centric smartphones: the ASUS ZenFone 3 Zoom (which you can read more about here) and the OPPO F3 (which, in case you didn’t know, is also available in Black now). This post is turning the spotlight on the shooting capabilities of one of the newest “Selfie Experts” out there. How does it do?
Before we dive into that, we just want to remind you of the camera specs of the F3. While it features the new must-have piece of tech (a.k.a. dual camera setup), OPPO flips the script and places the dual camera setup in the front-facing camera. It has a 16-megapixel selfie camera with a 1/3-inch sensor with f/2.0 aperture and partners this with an 8-megapixel wide 120-degree angle camera with f/2.4. The rear setup features a 13-megapixel 1.28-inch sensor with phase detection autofocus, f/2.2 aperture, and 1.12µm pixel size.
But instead of focusing on the specs, we’re turning our attention to the actual photos taken by the phone. I shot in auto to get the feel of the device but we did play with some of its features, which you’ll get to see below. All of the images and videos are unedited and came straight from the phone.
If there’s one thing we associate with OPPO phones, it’s there selfie-taking capabilities. But with its latest line of F3 devices, OPPO pushes the bar further with the wide-angle, dual camera setup—which we’ve seen in the past in the LG V10. But how does this mid-range smartphone perform? Fairly well.
OPPO has touted its Beautify 4.0 as a way to enhance your selfies. And we’ve noticed it isn’t as obstrusive or too made up. Of course, you have the option to play around with that, but if you’re not a fan like me, having something that looks as natural as it can. The two selfies below are taken in different lighting conditions. One is in a subway station with more yellow lights and the other is taken in direct sunlight. Colors look more or less natural.
And if you’ve noticed that these selfies seem wider than usual, it’s because I had the wide-angle lens toggled and as you can see it gets more of the background in. It works even more amazing in group shots, like the ones below.
Shooting during sunny and dreary days in Japan, I notice you tend to lose details in the highlights but the photos do look faithful to the colors we see.
Closeups go from great to serviceable even in different lighting conditions as you can see below.
With a bit of patience even the shots you’ve taken in low-light areas come out pretty good, too. Some will be more grainy than others but you have editing tools to make it look like you intended for a shot to look that way.
What about its video taking capabilities? It’s good enough for personal use. I posted this clip on my personal Instagram account and it shows how it performs on auto without any tweaks. It was a dreary day in Hakone and that shows but I have to put a disclaimer that there’s a filter over the video already. The shot is quite steady because I basically put the phone to the glass of the cable car. It’s generally a clear video with mild shakiness every now and then.
Here’s a quick time-lapse video I did with the OPPO F3 in case you were curious:
