When Google announced the Nexus 6P yesterday, Dave Burke, the company’s vice-president of engineering, used a lot of superlatives to describe the smartphone camera he and his colleagues were about to ship.
“[This is] the best camera we’ve ever put into a Nexus device,” he said at one point early in the keynote, before adding, “the 6P can produce stunning images even in the toughest of lighting conditions.”
It turns out it doesn’t look like he was exaggerating.
After the presentation, Burke took to Twitter to share several photos and videos captured with the Nexus 6P. He showed some of these during the keynote, but viewing them through Google Photos now (as opposed to the artifact-heavy affair that was Google’s YouTube livestream), it’s obvious the presentation didn’t do the 6P’s camera’s justice.
The photos shared by Burke — and featured throughout this post — are rich in detail, showing beautifully captured images.
Responding to questions from other Twitter users, Romain Guy, the Google employee who took the photos, said he made minimal touch ups to the shots he took. In many cases, he limited himself to adding a filter or adjusting the brightness of a photo. He also noted that he shot the photos at full-auto, allowing Marshmallow’s new camera software handle details like exposure length.
However, perhaps more stunning is the slow motion video Burke subsequently shared. Captured at 240 frames per second, the video shows a hummingbird making its way toward a bird feeder. With so many frames to work with, it’s possible to see all the subtle movements the Hummingbird makes while in flight. The effect, to say the least, is stunning.
Though you don’t even need to take Burke’s word on it. DxOMark, one of the foremost online authorities on camera sensors and lenses, gave the 6P’s rear-facing camera a score of 84, a score second only to the S6 edge’s exceptional camera. In fact, the website called the 6P a “serious contender for mobile photographer.”
We’ll have to wait until we get our own hands on Google’s latest flagship phone to render a final judgement, but it looks like the days of Nexus smartphones shipping with substandard cameras are long past.
Related link: Google’s new Nexus camera app features slow motion video and Smart Burst
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