The full review of the $749 OnePlus 8T is linked here, but this article is about hosting my camera samples taken from the phone. Also features a quick comparison between the 8 and the 8T to critique the price justification for the 8T.
48 MP Wide Camera
Although the 8T has the same Sony IMX586 sensor as the normal 8, I personally am more satisfied with the 8T's wide camera performance than the 8's. The biggest reason why is because the 8T has better, more accurate white balance that tends to be a bit cold at times compared to the 8's slightly warm looks. While there is nothing wrong with warm looks, the 8 had a few instances where warm looks diminished from the scene because it was not color accurate to the real life perspective. I don't know why the 8 and 8T's quality have different white balance (could it be due to the 8T's monochrome sensor?), but it already makes me prefer the 8T considerably more. Besides that, contrast is slightly better on the 8T with relatively the same amount of sharpness, but I'd imagine the 8T would have better HDR capability due to the monochrome sensor (more on that later down below.) Also, I like how the 8T better captured the palm tree along with the sky because it had the amount of saturation that I thought was missing on the normal 8. Overall, the white balance and that alone makes me enjoy these 8T photos.
16 MP Ultrawide Camera with 123 Degree FOV
To start, the 8T's ultrawide camera isn't super better than the 8's, but the improvements it makes are pleasing. The saturation is slightly boosted on the 8T where I think it makes greens and the sky look more realistic because I thought the normal 8's where a little bit dull and neutral. Distortion is less present on the 8T, but it's not like the 8 had bad or distracting distortion. Dynamic range looks to be the same between the two, and quality overall is similar enough between them. The one aspect that shows the most improvement with the 8T is that it has a wider FOV at 123 degrees over the normal 8's 116 degrees. In hindsight, I can come to appreciate that the 8T has a wider FOV because it makes the phone more distinct than the normal 8 in the ultrawide camera specification aspect of it.
5 MP Macro
Summarized in one sentence, you were so close to greatness! To start, the 5 MP macro camera is a CLEAR step up from the 2 MP camera found on the normal 8. I said previously that the 8's 2 MP macro was premium over the macro cameras found on budget phones. That statement still remains, but after using the 8T's macro, it makes the 8's macro look mid-range tier (which it probably is moving forward). The 5 MP sensor is not only way sharper than the 8's, but it still benefits from that way better white balance. White balance on the 8's macro wasn't bad, it just looked a bit off especially when it made the plant shots look warm. I greatly prefer the 8T's more cold and neutral white balance which is more accurate in real life. It's a good macro camera. but if you look at the last photo of the cat, I'm disappointed on how it handled that scene. I'll talk about my thoughts on that photo more down below, but just know that the macro's camera greatest strength could also be it's biggest weakness...white balance!
2 MP Monochrome Sensor
I'm pretty mixed over the existence of the monochrome sensor on the 8T, let alone on any premium smartphone in the year 2020 and on-wards. The reason is because a 2 MP monochrome sensor contributes to the 8T the same way a depth or macro camera does on a budget device. It's only really added because more cameras on a phone makes it look more premium, and I think the 8T applies to this situation because of it. However, I would certainly justify it's existence on the phone if I could know exactly how much of that sensor helps out the main camera. Is the monochrome sensor the reason why white balance is way better on this phone than on the 8? I wish I knew that because if this was the case, then I'd advocate for more monochrome sensors on all sorts of smartphones big and small. All I know is that the monochrome sensor is capable of helping improve HDR because it picks up shades of grey, and that could be applied to capturing something like shadows better. And this means that monochrome sensors can help improve low-light performance since a dimly lit scene is filled with dark shadows and subjects. Here is a OnePlus Community Forums moderator's response to how the monochrome sensor can theoretically help the 8T. Other than that, these monochrome samples are quite good because they have really good dynamic range and contrast that other phones can't really emulate because they don't have capable dynamic range, in a way. Monochrome smartphone photography is really niche and I don't think monochrome fanatics would even consider a smartphone for B&W photography over native DSLR capability. It's just way more dramatic and captivating on DSLRs for monochrome photos. Other people may think otherwise, so here is an article about monochrome photography on the 8T in the perspective of a monochrome fan.
Portrait Mode
Portrait mode on this phone vs on the 8 can be explained the same way as why the 8T's main camera is different than the 8's. Only real differences are the white balance and the contrast. Depth estimation seems to be the same, and I don't think the monochrome sensor can contribute to depth estimation in any way.
Portrait mode video is still here on the 8T like it was on the 8, but it's the same thing. Same depth estimation and same skin softening filter. Still good.
Lowlight with Main and Ultrawide
Although daylight photography is very similar on the main camera between both phones, lowlight performance is considerably better on the 8T, possibly due to the monochrome sensor picking up shades or gray. The first three photos are from the main camera going from normal to nightscape to tripod mode. The normal photo is very good on its own with shadows being fairly lit up and having ok levels of contrast. Sharpness could be better, but at least its not soft and noisy like on the normal 8. The nightscape photo however is disappointing because although it's a bit brighter, the white balance is too warm for whatever reason. It's confusing because the normal night photo had good white balance, and then that was thrown out the window for nightscape. The tripod photo is very good because not only does it have very good white balance, but it's also fairly sharp and quite saturated. Next three photos are from the ultrawide with the first being normal then nightscape then tripod. The normal and nightscape photo are very similar for whatever weird reason because they have similar amounts of brightness and noise, but the nightscape has slightly corrected white balance with the house on the right side being slightly lit up. This is just one example and I'm sure nightscape on the ultrawide just failed in this scenario. Still disappointing. The ultrawide tripod photo is good as it is very realistic to what I saw in real life. I'm glad that at least the harsh shadows of the house are visible, but there's always room for improvement.
Order goes from normal wide then nightscape wide then normal ultrawide. Night video on the main camera doesn't look all that different than the quality on the OnePlus 8, but this is significantly improved in nightscape video where it's brighter on the 8T than what the 8 could achieve. The one downside to this is that the 8T still suffers from a lot of noise in nightscape video mode. The ultrawide footage looks similar to the 8, so yeah. Still can't see anything unfortunately.
Video on Main and Ultrawide
First is the main camera then the ultrawide. I think both cameras are pretty similar to the normal 8, yet the main camera has better contrast than the normal 8. Everything seems to check out here, but the ultrawide could generally benefit from having better exposure control and dynamic range because contrast is a little lacking.
Super Stable Video Mode
First is with it off then on. This will be short. It's practically the same stabilization as with the normal 8. Both phones have OIS on the main camera.
Zoom and High Megapixel Mode
Zoom on the OnePlus 8T is still capped at 10x digital zoom, and sharpness seems to be the same as on the normal 8, but similar amounts of noise remain.
Onto high megapixel with the left being the default 12 MP and right is 48 MP, this has an interesting outcome. One the OnePlus 8, the 48 MP photo has a similar white balance to the 12 MP 8T photo which is weird because the OnePlus 8 had better white balance on 48 MP mode than it was on the 12 MP mode. This trend still occurs where the 8T 48 MP photo has better white balance than the 12 MP one. Although both photos are pretty good with the left being a little bit warm and the right being more cool, I think both photos are good overall. the normal 8 had different deepness on shadows between both modes, but the 8T has the same amount of shadows depth in both cases.
Comparison of 8 and 8T Capturing the Sky
First is the 8, then 8T. Originally, I wanted to test out how saturated the sky would be between both phones because I preferred how the 8T made the sky more saturated than the blue. In a weird turn of event, the saturation characteristics looks swapped because now the 8 is more saturated than the 8T, though white balance is better on the 8T. This is just one sample and not scientific enough, but I would be interested in seeing exactly how the 8T saturates the sky vs the normal 8 in different scenarios. I'd need a beach day to make that happen. Plus a walk in the park and more.
Comparison of 8 and 8T's Macro Sensor
Top photos are from the 8T and bottom are the 8. Right off the bat, 8T's photos are better because they have better white balance, sharpness, contrast, and way less distortion. This makes sense because the 8T has a more premium 5 MP sensor (which is also probably bigger) than the 2 MP sensor on the 8. The one thing I'm disappointed from the 5 MP macro is that it's cool white balance (which I thoroughly enjoy) is too aggressive because of how it took the picture of the cat. The white balance is completely off since it's very warm, but the normal 8 didn't have this white balance issue. I think I explained it best in my video, but the 8T's macro is biased on wanting to be cold while the 8 is biased in wanting to be warm. Then when given the picture of the cat, the 8T failed because the cold blue sky threw it off while the warm bias found on the normal 8 was assisted by the cold sky.
I had the idea to just shoot the sky with the macro camera to test out white balance on both macros, and the normal 8 did a good job at properly capturing the sky, but the 8T completely failed because of it's cold bias. This outcome is so weird to me because although it makes sense for the normal 8 to succeed and the 8T to fail, it shouldn't be this way to begin with. OnePlus isn't a camera focused smartphone company, but something like this should serve as a statement to them that there are improvements to be mad. That's maybe why they partnered with Hasselblad to work on their camera software, because in the modern age of smartphones, you can't be a premium phone that's lacking in camera capability in my opinion.
Bravo Verizon
Did you know Verizon's website says that the 5 MP macro camera is "perfect for portrait mode"? Here's what happens when you actually try to take a photo of yourself with the macro sensor. And no, there's no option to use the macro camera while in portrait mode. Bravo Verizon.
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