Seville to Paris: Putting the Oppo Find N3 cameras to the test

Oppo’s Find N3 was announced in October and we got to review the large foldable late last month. Sometime in the middle of all this we also spent a few days with the phone while travelling around Europe – and the Find’s camera proved to be a mighty fine companion, whether it was the sunny streets of Seville, or the hustle and bustle of cloudy Paris.

The Find N3’s camera system is headlined by a new Sony imager – the LYT-808, part of Sony’s new LYTIA lineup, which benefits from the latest stacked architecture for improved light-gathering capabilities. It wasn’t particularly tested in this respect in the bright Andalusian sun, but it did excel in dynamic range in the often very contrasty scenes that we encountered. The vibrant colors of the photos also do well to convey the atmosphere of city.

Main camera (1x)

It was a different story when we got to Paris, which didn’t greet us all too warmly. Color was harder to find in the French capital, but the overcast weather was another test that illuminated how adept the Find N3’s main camera is at dealing with difficult lighting.

Main camera (1x)

The 50mm equivalent focal length is a popular choice for street photography and we did find ourselves tapping the 2x button in the Find N3’s viewfinder quite often. While it uses the main camera for this task, the phone does manage to capture reasonably well detailed shots – we wouldn’t say we missed having a dedicated 2x camera at any point.

Main camera (2x)

Main camera (2x)

That said, it was the 3x telephoto that saw the most action. The high-res 64MP sensor captures finely detailed 16MP shots with next to no noise. The perspective and compression of the 70mm equivalent focal length, meanwhile, make for very appealing compositions.

Telephoto camera (3x)

The telephoto appeared more capable to catch a glimpse of color in Paris – the tighter framing allowed us to focus on specifics instead of vistas and in the specifics we found more life.

Telephoto camera (3x)

One of the telephoto camera’s key selling points is its ability to deliver photos at twice its native zoom level – 6x zoom total, when counting from the main camera’s 24mm. Those are some praiseworthy shots that illustrate the benefits of a large and high-res sensor on a phone’s telephoto camera. Perhaps that makes more sense than two separate dedicated modules.

Telephoto camera (6x)

At the opposite end of the zoom range, the ultrawide camera didn’t let us down either. Interestingly enough, it left us with a more positive impression of its dynamic range than what we observed with the standard local scenes during our review – in as few words as possible, it was an ‘excellent’ mark vs. the ‘okay’ from the review. The extreme coverage and distorted perspectives are visually striking as well, of course.

Ultrawide camera (0.6x)

Once more, we had to resort to indoor scenes or closeups to get some color out of Paris, but the Find’s ultrawide does well with both.

Ultrawide camera (0.6x)

We had fewer opportunities to take low-light photos during this trip, but the Find rose to the occasion when presented with some… classic Paris points of interest. A flamenco performance, on the other hand, proved that the phone was equally capable of dealing with dim indoor lighting – and it was pretty tough on the white balance too, but the Oppo was unscathed.

Low-light samples, assorted cameras

Low-light samples, assorted cameras

Being a large foldable, the Find N3 is pretty versatile in most areas you could think of. And as it turned out, it also excels when looking at it strictly from the perspective of a travel cameraphone. Its tri-set of cameras cover all sorts of shooting situations across a wide range of focal lengths and do so with minimal compromise. Now if only its price tag didn’t carry that foldable premium…