Hasselblad Cameras on a Smartphone, but Is It Any Good?

Smartphones are improving at a rate of knots, there's no denying it. However, the new phone by OPPO is made in collaboration with Hasselblad, and it's more than just the glass.

Mobile photography is a touchy subject for a lot of photographers, but you have little choice other than to embrace it at this point. There is still a lot that can't be done on a phone, but what they can do, they can do very well indeed. In fact, we're getting to the point where many images will be indistinguishable from a standalone camera.

The new OPPO Find N3 is a singular phone, not least because of its enormous folding screen. In fact, that folding screen turns into a quasi-tripod too! However, what will catch many photographers' eyes is the name "Hasselblad". One of the old guard of photography, known for their quality and the corresponding price tag! I'm a big fan of Hasselblad and seeing that their involvement in the OPPO Find N3 is more than just providing the tiny lenses has piqued my interest further. I would love to put the Hasselblad portrait mode side by side with the latest iPhone's portrait mode!

What do you think of this phone? Would you use one?

Robert K Baggs is a professional portrait and commercial photographer, educator, and consultant from England. Robert has a First-Class degree in Philosophy and a Master's by Research. In 2015 Robert's work on plagiarism in photography was published as part of several universities' photography degree syllabuses.

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3 Comments

Well like any phone, you walk around holding it out in front of you and stabbing at settings on a touch screen you can hardly see in bright sun. It's aggravating, and you look like a total tool. But no one seems to care about ergonomics anymore.

I don't take calls or text messages on my Z8, and I don't take videos or take stills with my phone!

Well, at last I have hopes for phone photography, especially if they continue to improve sensor size.

I'm pretty ancient, grew up with B&W film, then colour, then slide, then reversal film, 35mm onto 120 film, DSLRs and finally (so far) mirrorless APS-C, FF and digital medium format GFX 100s. So I am pretty well steeped in photography. I have never seen a smartphone shot that I thought came close to a "real" camera shot. I hate the process of holding out a screen to take a pic, although I'm slightly more familiar with it due to tilt/swivel screens now.

However, I have pre-ordered a Oneplus Open as I wanted to try a foldable, which is the same as the Oppo reviewed here but rebranded for EU and USA. If the RAW files (all I ever shoot) are as good as the ones in this review I'll be using the phone a lot as a carry around camera instead of my XT5. I'm STILL considering getting an RX100 VII (have been for a long time) but the RAWs in this review look pretty spectacular so I might hold off and see how it works out despite the smaller sensor.