[Update rolling] OnePlus 7 Pro camera update with all DxOMark changes might be coming in a week

New updates are being added at the bottom of this story…….

Half baked software, feature update, new bugs and issues, consecutive bug-fix updates – this is eternal circle of modern smartphone industry.  To cope up with the fierce competition, phone makers are bringing truckload of new devices everyday, but what about proper software testing?

Another aspect is the expertise to tune up certain characteristics. While someone can assemble various components and come up with a rudimentary ‘flagship’ phone quite easily, the unpolished software stack will ruin the true potential of the underlying hardware.

Talking about smartphone cameras, the photography section is not the stronghold of OnePlus. The Chinese OEM is known for their premium offerings (formerly the ‘flagship killer‘), but inadequate post processing and lack of computational photography techniques prevented them to take the high rank.

With the introduction of the OnePlus 7 series, the Shenzhen based OEM worked hard to bridge the gaps. Besides the 48 MP Sony IMX586 sensor (12 MP effective output) as the primary rear camera, the OnePlus 7 Pro features additional ultrawide and telephoto sensors, alongside laser/PDAF autofocus.

OnePlus imaging director Simon Liu talked with Wired UK regarding the improvements in the camera stack and the triple rear camera setup found in the Pro variant of OnePlus 7. Liu was somewhat against the usage of AI in taking photographs, rather prefered manual controls.

We slightly change the tuning but OnePlus users shouldn’t expect too much difference on the surface. If you’re trying to shoot a plant and the camera tells you it’s a dog, that’s not useful.

As a matter of fact, the reviewers of DxOMark Image Labs found the camera of the OnePlus 7 Pro quite compelling. In their benchmarking, the camera performed incredibly well in areas like autofocus, texture recognition, color balance  and noise reduction.

The reviewers stated that the review units came with a different build of firmware (OxygenOS) than the one found on the retail units. Nevertheless, OnePlus should roll out an update to bring the improvements to the masses.

Please note: The camera firmware used for the DxOMark tests is not yet currently available to consumers. OnePlus will make it available as an over-the-air update before the end of the month.

Coincidentally OnePlus rolled out a day-one patch for the early adopters of OnePlus 7 Pro. The changelog mentioned about camera improvements, thus end users were happy to get them without any delay.

Meanwhile, OxygenOS PM Jimmy Z. took part in the OnePlus 7 series AMA suggested that the firmware running in the DxOMark review units and the retail units should be identical.

There is no difference between the firmware of DxO and that user get in their hand. We never stop improving the camera performance and it’s appreciated if you can provide more feedback for us to make the camera better

(Source)

However, the users have found the camera of the OnePlus 7 Pro rather mediocre in real life. Besides social media, the official forums of OnePlus is getting populated with countless negative reviews about the stock camera app and the broad difference from the DxOMark review.

i experienced OnePlus 7 pro everything was just great when i switched to camera , the camera app was so laggy and having issue while Focusing also and switching between triple lens for portrait,widezoom etc it was lagging too much .

OnePlus should focus more on camera.

(Source)

one plus 7 pro.

camera quality is very poor.

1. very poor capture of color.
2. too much of exposure
3. angles are not proper, getting streched too much.
4. too much of whitening
5. selfie camera photos too much of auto correction and sterching.

(Source)

Once again, Jimmy stepped in the discussion and confirmed that the upcoming OTA update will address some of the issues pointed out by the reviewers and regular users. Moreover, the tentative timeline of the next update should be a week from today or so.

The camera team have been working all the time on analyzing and fixing issues. Every system update contains code from camera of improving the camera quality. I believe some of you receive an update when you got your OnePlus 7 Pro. That’s a significant update for camera and I think you don’t want to miss it.

Moreover, we are working on the next update which is going to be rolled out in a week or so. This update contains improvement on the HDR effect and Nightscape mode, and more tweaks based on some feedbacks from you and reviewers. From our test, photos look substantially better.

He also shed some light on their internal photography testing infrastructure and mechanism, which were indeed way too much complex than imagined.

Interestingly, Jimmy’s initial post mentioned that the update should pack all the fixes from DxOMark testing, but that portion was silently edited afterwards.

Hopefully the next update (and subsequent ones) will further improve the camera performance of the OnePlus 7 Pro and justify the hefty price tag. Team PiunikaWeb is tracking the software updates quite closely, so expect new article(s) from us as soon as they drop.

What are your experiences with the OnePlus 7 Pro camera? Comment below with sample photos.

OnePlus is rolling out a new update for the OnePlus 7 Pro as per schedule, addressing some known bugs and bringing camera fixes. The bootloader has also also updated.

For further details and download links, see here.

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