14 DAY TRIAL // Huawei released the P9 smartphone earlier this year, and one of its main selling points was the dual camera featured on it. The company debuted the P9 and P9 Plus on the same day and announced that it partnered with Leica to create the camera setup. In a move to promote the P9, Huawei published an image that it claimed was taken with the handset’s rear camera.
Huawei P9 comes with a 12MP dual-camera setup on the back, together with an f/2.2 aperture, 27mm and Leica optics, phase detection and flash. The front camera has 8MP, with an f/2.4 aperture and the ability to record in 1080p.
Huawei took to its Google+ account to promote the P9, and it thus released an image that it suggested was taken with the said phone's rear camera. To be fair, the post didn’t actually state that the photo was shot with the P9, but it certainly implied so.
The image was actually taken with a $4,500 camera
Google+ allows users to see the EXIF data of any image uploaded on the platform, just like on other photo-sharing platforms such as Flickr. In this case, the EXIF data showed that the picture was actually taken with a Canon EOS 5D Mark III camera, which sells for about $4,500. The details reveal that the lens was EF70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM, focal point 135mm, exposure 1/800, while exposure bias reached -1 EV.
The level of detail in the image is quite stunning, and while some changes could have been made during editing sessions, it’s still too good a photo to be taken with a smartphone camera. The post on Google+ reads, “We managed to catch a beautiful sunrise with Deliciously Ella. The Huawei P9's dual Leica cameras makes taking photos in low light conditions like this a pleasure. Reinvent smartphone photography and share your sunrise pictures with us.”
Huawei seems to have taken the post down and should release a statement soon enough, considering that the message was truly misleading.
Update: Huawei reached out and released a statement about the post on Google+, which you can read below.
“ "It has recently been highlighted that an image posted to our social channels was not shot on the Huawei P9. The photo, which was professionally taken while filming a Huawei P9 advert, was shared to inspire our community. We recognise though that we should have been clearer with the captions for this image. It was never our intention to mislead. We apologise for this and we have removed the image." ”