Closeups comparison
Shifting from far to near, all three phones have close-focusing telephotos that allow them to capture macro-style photos with good magnification. The Oppo’s combination of a 70mm lens and 9cm minimum focusing distance means it will get you the largest magnification and it just might have a sharpness advantage over the others at close range – like it did with distant subjects, for that matter.
Closeups, telephoto cameras: Honor Magic8 Pro (3.7x) • Oppo Find X9 Pro (3x) • vivo X300 Pro (3.5x)
The Oppo is also that little bit better when it comes to closeups at twice the nominal zoom level of its telephoto.
Closeups, telephoto cameras: Honor Magic8 Pro (7.4x) • Oppo Find X9 Pro (6x) • vivo X300 Pro (7x)
Portraits comparison
From pencils and pocket watches to people, here’s a round of portraits shot on the three phones at three zoom levels – 1x and 2x on the main cameras (so roughly 24mm and 50mm), as well as the telephotos at their native focal length.
We’d expect people to have more of a personal preference here in terms of skin tone rendition and tonal subtleties than they would with non-human subjects. While there are, indeed, minor differences, the reality is that shots look relatively similar from phone to phone, at 1x in particular.
Portraits, main cameras, 1x: Honor Magic8 Pro • Oppo Find X9 Pro • vivo X300 Pro
At 2x, which is more of a sensible zoom level for a head-and-shoulders type of framing, the vivo ends up trailing in terms of sharpness. The Oppo and the Magic are about on par (or is the Oppo a little better?).
Portraits, main cameras, 2x: Honor Magic8 Pro • Oppo Find X9 Pro • vivo X300 Pro
Sizing up the telephotos, we’d once again be leaning towards the Find if absolute detail is a top priority. Depending on how strongly you feel about your focal lengths, its 70mm may be too short for you, though. None of them is prone to blunders with the color rendition, which is great, though you may find specific things to obsess about with each phone’s take on the subjects.
Portraits, telephoto cameras: Honor Magic8 Pro (3.7x) • Oppo Find X9 Pro (3x) • vivo X300 Pro (3.5x)
Selfies comparison
When it comes to selfies, despite all the similarities (50MP resolution, 20-21mm focal length), we can reasonably confidently name a clear winner. The Magic8 Pro is missing autofocus and is suffering from random spots of softness leaving the vivo and the Find to battle it out between the two of them. And then, the Oppo tends to be a little bit sharper in general and with a slightly more natural detail rendition. A minor conflict here is that the vivo’s skin tones are looking better, but we’d still prefer the Find’s results as a whole.
Selfies: Honor Magic8 Pro • Oppo Find X9 Pro • vivo X300 Pro