Telephoto camera comparison, low light
At the telephoto’s nominal zoom level, we’re getting solid results from all three phones, but there are fairly wide scene-to-scene variations and it’s hard to name a winner. The Magic’s detail is consistently the most natural-looking while the others have stronger sharpening applied, particularly the vivo. Conversely, the Magic’s shots appear softer, but the first scene has much finer detail in the Honor’s rendition than the other two. That’s before the Magic’s AI magic too.
When it comes to colors, the vivo is again leaning towards orange with certain types of lighting and the Oppo isn’t immune either, while the Magic remains closer to neutral in these situations. The Honor also still tends to produce brighter shadows, which is hard to argue with.
Low light, telephoto cameras: Honor Magic8 Pro (3.7x) • Oppo Find X9 Pro (3x) • vivo X300 Pro (3.5x)
Give the Honor a little light to work with and it captures pretty great photos at 7.4x zoom as well, typically better than the other two at their respective 6x and 7x. Again, you can check out the Magic’s review for a glimpse of the AI versions of these shots and be properly impressed.
Low light, telephoto cameras: Honor Magic8 Pro (7.4x) • Oppo Find X9 Pro (6x) • vivo X300 Pro (7x)
Which brings us to the 10x zoom level. Funnily enough, here it’s the vivo that has the upper hand, but we have an explanation – it’s got a zoom enhancement algorithm of its own and that’s enabled by default and acting in full-auto shooting as well. Another layer of ethical dilemmas here.
Low light, telephoto cameras, 10x: Honor Magic8 Pro • Oppo Find X9 Pro • vivo X300 Pro