Friday, March 29, 2024

Picture perfect! How to get the best out of the Huawei P10’s amazing camera

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The dual-lens, Leica co-developed cameras on the back of the Huawei P10 and P10 Plus are prime reasons to go out and buy one of these great phones. They take beautiful shots, whether in color, monochrome, a portrait or a photo with a cool, blurred background. Most enticingly, the P10 boosts your confidence as a photographer, and its ability to produce wonderful pictures pushes you to go out and experiment.

If the P10 is in your hand right now, but you’re a newcomer to Huawei’s phones and software, it can be difficult to know where to start. We’ve put together a guide on how to make the most out of the P10’s excellent camera, and its intuitive user interface, that’s applicable to both the P10 and P10 Plus.

Getting started

how to use huawei p  camera screen

how to use huawei p  camera screen

Huawei’s main camera app, like the lenses on the phone, has been co-developed by Leica; mimicking its own user interface. It’s intuitive and attractively laid out, and goes a long way to making the P10 so usable. Open the app and you’re presented with the viewfinder, along with the shutter release below, and a menu above it.

Return to the main viewfinder screen by swiping to the left, then swipe to the left again to reveal another screen, this time filled with settings for the camera. Among features like a watermark, smile capture, and a timer, we do recommend using one of the Grid options. These help frame and compose your photos, and although there are some complex options available, the simple Grid is fine for most people.

Back on the main screen, below the viewfinder is a button to change between stills and video to the right of the shutter release, and a shortcut to the gallery on the left. From here, you can start snapping away, but to get the best from the P10, you’ll want to play around with some of the other modes.

Portrait, wide aperture, and more

Turning our attention to the menu above the viewfinder window, there are two buttons that you’ll end up using most. The first is the Portrait button, which looks like a person’s head and shoulders in a circular window, and the second is Wide Aperture mode, which looks like a camera lens.

Tap Portrait mode, and the camera sets itself up to take pictures of people. The P10 cleverly looks for faces, and, using some complex and detailed face scanning algorithms, tracks 190 points in 3D space, then adjusts the scene to suit the person — including artificial light sources, blurring out the background to give the picture a bokeh-style pop, and enhancing the color in the foreground.

Don’t think this only works with the color lens either. Swap to the monochrome lens — swipe left, and tap Monochrome — to get the same effect, only in striking black and white. It’s not only for use on the rear camera, so tap the button on the top right of the upper menu to swap to the selfie camera, and get the same great features. Huawei enhanced Portrait mode with a beauty effect, which can be adjusted along with the bokeh style, using two buttons overlaid on the viewfinder. The button with the number value tweaks the beauty mode, while the button below it activates the bokeh shot. Play with both to get the right look for your photo.

Wide aperture mode is for activating the bokeh mode, giving the blurred background effect that’s such a trend in mobile photography at the moment. When activated, the mode brings up another button for adjusting the camera lens aperture, and a slider lets you strengthen or lessen the blur. Don’t feel restricted by getting the blur right at the time of taking the picture, as it can be adjusted after the photo has been taken, too.

To do this, open the Gallery app — or tap on the preview image in the camera app — and look for the same camera lens icon used to activate the wide aperture mode initially. Tap this, and then choose the area in the photo you want in focus, or blurred out. A slider at the bottom of the screen widens the aperture, emphasizing the blur. There’s also a filter button to add different effects. Don’t pass these by, as they add really unusual looks to the picture. Try the monochrome filter to see what we mean!

Together, these two modes make the Huawei P10 one of the most versatile, creative, and competent camera phones out there.

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