On the Find X9 Ultra, the main camera has a 200-megapixel 1/1.28-inch sensor. With a low aperture of f/1.5, this is an incredibly versatile camera, designed to capture light and perform well even in difficult shooting conditions. There are also a couple of telephoto cameras. The former has a 200MP sensor and can zoom up to 3x (70mm equivalent) for portrait photography and general-purpose shots, while the spectacular is an “ultra” telephoto lens, capable of 10x zoom at 50MP.
It’s rare, but we’ve seen 10x zoom on smartphones, including, briefly, Samsung’s Galaxy S23 Ultra. However, they were not paired with such high-resolution sensors. This offers more detail in your shots, as well as the ability to digitally crop to get even closer to your subject, although you won’t need to do this as often. The Find X9 Ultra also has a 50MP ultra-wide camera and a 3.2MP multispectral sensor to strengthen white balance and color accuracy.
However, Oppo’s innovative 10x telephoto lens is the most exciting part of the phone’s penta-camera setup. The 10x optical zoom also opens up the possibility of 20x lossless zoom, all before you start attaching Oppo’s teleconverter lens. It also has sensor shift stabilization to improve clarity and reduce the chances of blur. (Vivo has its own solution, which we’ll get to in a minute.)
The 3x telephoto camera is a convenient middle ground between the main camera and its huge sensor and the incredible reach of the 10x telephoto lens. However, Oppo is too keen on pushing computational photography here and I often get shots with ghostly outlines, especially of human subjects. Overly aggressive digital sharpening also made some images look unnatural.
Within the camera app (and possibly too many shooting modes), Oppo’s collaboration with Hasselblad offers shooters a master mode that happily eliminates the tricks and augmentations of computational AI. This means that while you won’t get that AI touch in telephoto shots, you also won’t get low-res nightmarish faces or jumbled alien letters. Overall, I preferred it, although I occasionally missed the better low-light performance of the basic AI-enhanced photo mode.
Mat Smith for Xataka
The Vivo Its aperture can reach up to f/1.85, losing again to its rival Oppo.
The X300 Ultra ultra-wide camera, however, performs well above the Find X9 Ultra version. Unlike most ultra-wide smartphone cameras, which I cynically consider a lazy effort by companies to add another camera to their smartphones, Vivo went to town. For starters, Vivo added optical image stabilization (OIS), something unusual for this focal length. This, combined with a 50MP sensor, means images look sharper and more detailed than rival devices, which typically use lower resolution sensors.
It must be admitted that its ultra-wide camera is not bad. The Find X9 Ultra also has a 50MP camera sensor and a lower f/2.0 lens. However, the sensor isn’t that large (the X300 Ultra’s 1/1.28-inch sensor is almost twice the physical size of the Find X9 Ultra’s 1/1.95-inch sensor) and it lacks built-in OIS. There’s also much less lens flare from light sources with the Vivo phone, likely due to Zeiss’ anti-reflective lens treatment.
Mat Smith for Xataka
The telephoto lens on the Fortunately, for those looking to go further, Vivo has you covered.
