Lenovo Vibe Shot Camera Review

This year not enough camera dedicated smartphones were launched in the market, unlike the last two years, when we saw the Samsung Galaxy Camera, Galaxy K Zoom, Panasonic Lumix and couple more. But this year, we didn’t that much, except the fact that flagship smartphones these days are sporting camera modules with around 20-megapixel resolution and insane capabilities.

Lenovo Vibe Shot was the only (and Asus Zenfone Zoom, which is yet to be available in any region) worthy camera phone when it comes to form factor of a Camera. But it isn’t exactly like Galaxy camera or for a fact sporting an adjustable lens. Company has been majorly focusing on the budget smartphones this year and we thought this is the gem that needs a showcasing. So, here we are with the camera review of the device.

The Vibe shot is designed in a similar manner to make it look like a point and shoot camera. You notice that when you see the rear side of the device. Being given the dedicated camera shutter on the right edge, the back is protected by the Corning Gorilla Glass 3, as well as the front. The design offers a feel of a point and shoot camera, but with an ease of a super fast processor in hand.

Natural Light Captures – Gallery

The 16-megapixel camera sensor is the USP of the phone, which houses six-piece module lens camera. The 16:9 BSI (Backside illuminated) sensor allows the captures to have the large aspect ratio, which is generally not the case with many 16MP cameras. It allowed the device to capture 5328 X 2997 resolution images.

The camera module comes with an Optical Image Stabilization support and a tricolor flash along with it. While the tricolor flash would be helpful in maintaining the color luminosity of the object, the optical image stabilization reduces the blur happened during shakes. It keeps photos sharp in low light.

The shooting outdoor is incredible on the Vibe Shot, you get great details on the captures, color reproduction is impressive as well. The camera app comes with plethora of features, such as you can either choose to shoot at Auto or Mode. While the auto mode would automatically detect the environment and would offer to change the composition, so you get optimized settings in Auto mode. Talking about the Pro mode, it has more to offer if you’re into smartphone photography. Getting this device is recommended for all people and not just camera enthusiasts.

Artificial Light Captures – Gallery

The smart composition optimizes the distance or level for a better portrait, landscape and gourmet photo, whereas the Pro mode offers granular settings for focal length, shutter speed, white balance, ISO and aperture.

The artistic HDR mode in the Pro mode is not for every object and lighting conditions, its mostly helpful if the pictures are taken in artificial light on colorful object. Because if you don’t do that, the captures would look oversaturated in colors. There are certain other creative modes available such as Art Nightscape, Panorama, Blur Background and Golden Years that would make your photography needs tinkering. The Nightscape takes time to capture as it takes long exposure shots while the Panorama is good way to capture everything around you in one photo. The Blur Background is the bokeh or defocus effect, as name suggests it allows you to blur the background. It works like a charm.

The problem with modes are that in Pro mode you can’t shoot videos, and switch to photo mode quickly. It takes time, which would led to miss the moment as it happened to me a lot of time. Though, you should get use to switching, but these days if a app is not intuitive then what it is. Talking about the shortcomings of Vibe Shot, it only let you choose shutter speeds between 1 second and 1/15th of second.

Low Light Captures – Gallery

The camera is quite impressive under low light conditions; it turns out the OIS really helps in sharpening the camera outputs, but sometimes they turn out to be grainier than you think. There are tons of shooting modes available for photos while no video recording modes other than normal. The maximum resolution of shoot you can record is of 1080p.

The front facing camera is of 8-megapixels and it is one of the brightest of all as the white balance isn’t correct on it. But most of the time it shouldn’t bother. The beautification makes the saturation even worse and makes you look like wearing overdone makeup. And when you switch to Pro mode from physical button, you also get an option for wide angle selfie.

Verdict

Both the cameras on the device are pretty great, but when the pricing quotient comes, the overall device isn’t worth it. Since, this is a camera review; I wouldn’t judge it by the overall specifications. The times have changed; the dedicated camera smartphones are getting affordable every year. This year we saw tons of flagship smartphones with great camera setup. But if you’re on a tight budget of around 20-25K, then Vibe Shot isn’t really a good choice.

Though, it is better than many smartphone cameras in the price range such as OnePlus 2 and Meizu MX5 while beating all of them is the camera on Honor 7. Even if you were to go with Vibe Shot just to have that feature full camera app and incredible design manner, I wouldn’t blame you, it’s just too tempting.