The difficult tests that Oppo smartphones pass to improve their cameras

Photography has become one of the most important aspects when purchasing a new mobile phone. Most users want a mobile phone with the best possible camera that can capture the scenes they experience every day with great precision and quality, and they are willing to change brands to achieve it.

So it’s no surprise that manufacturers put the rest in the camera section. In recent years, we have seen continued growth in sensor size, resolution and lens improvement; and we are not very far from a classic mobile phone that can do better photos than a dedicated camera

which costs, for example, three times as much.

Now, Oppo has revealed how it achieves these advancements; or rather, how to verify that this is indeed progress. And getting a good camera is much harder than buying the best sensor on the market and putting a good lens on it; especially today when algorithms have great weight when creating the final image. Two identical phones with the same “hardware” can achieve very different results in the same scene.

Tests passed by OPPO mobiles are carried out under various conditions

OPPO

Hence the importance of the “hundreds of tests” carried out by OPPO in its OPPO Intelligent Imaging Lab in Dongguan; because they have to check that their mobiles really have the pho tographic quality they promise

its specifications, and make appropriate changes, often small but important. Again, this seems simple but it is not, since the company dedicates no less than 100 engineers to work related to image processing.

The process involves defining a key camera function and continuously optimizing it until the desired result is achieved, using 150 sets of imaging tests which focus on aspects such as color, brightness, sharpness and noise. Of course, for the average user, a mobile phone capable of creating perfect photos in a controlled environment is not of much use; After all, you will never find perfect conditions to use your mobile in “real life”. Therefore, the tests carried out by OPPO are based on real scenarios and the most common uses that users give it. This includes the use of two different zones, one with artificial light and the other with natural light, ensuring that the mobile is able to capture the most common light sources.

In total, they use 16 realistic scenes where one can usually take a photo, such as a restaurant (with different dishes and therefore colors), a hotel lobby, a karaoke room and a bar with complex mood lighting. To ensure that photos are taken correctly and without differences in angles or movements, engineers use fully automated robots, which take 500-point photos of the scenes. In this way, the 75,000 photos can be compared and the best possible balance for the “material” can be achieved.