14 DAY TRIAL // A few weeks before Huawei introduced its flagship smartphones, the P9 and P9 Plus, the Chinese company announced a partnership with Leica, a well-known German optics manufacturer.
At the time of the announcement, Huawei wasn’t very clear about the collaboration, but stated that the partnership will be beneficial for the smartphone cameras business.
Fast forward a few weeks and Huawei launches it P9 and P9 Plus, both said to include Leica-made lens, but aside from that not many details have been revealed by neither company.
Today, Huawei and Leica have decided to come forward with an official statement that should shed some light on the partnership between the two companies.
Unfortunately, the confusion remains as to what Leica’s contribution to the cameras included in the Huawei P9 and P9 Plus is.
According to Huawei, Leica’s contribution involved “collaborative development, evaluation and optimization of optical design (lens calculation) in compliance with Leica standards.”
Leica lends its expertise for the processing software inside Huawei phones
Moreover, the statement also mentions a collaborative development of the mechanical construction of the camera module with the purpose of reducing the stray light effects.
Huawei P9 and P9 Plus come with 12-megapixel dual-camera setup on the back, which, Huawei claims, should provide high image quality in both optimal and low-light conditions.
The collaboration between Huawei and Leica also involves „definition of imaging quality in terms of color rendition/color fidelity, white balance, stray light reduction (ghost & flare effects), exposure precision, dynamic range, sharpness and noise characteristics.”
Another aspect that Huawei mentions in the statement is the fact that its processing of image data is made with the aid of Leica “optical and signal processing expertise.”
Even if Huawei and Leica aren’t too clear about their partnership involving the P9 and P9 Plus cameras, the feedback they got after the launch of these flagships is definitely positive, so they must be on to something good.