It’s difficult to recommend a Tecno phone to the iPhone and Samsung users of this world since the Chinese tech giant is mainly bought by budget cautious users. Their technical chops, however, it is slowly catching up. I did a deep dive into the Tecno Camon 16 Premier’s camera prowess on a technical level. Now it’s time to put this phone’s camera to test — and being a first-time Tecno user I came rather surprised by what I actually expected. I will leave a detailed review of the other aspects of the phone to my colleagues. So don’t expect anything related to the screen quality, performance, and battery life.
ALSO READ: Breaking down TECNO’s new Camon 16 Premier camera system
More recently, I’ve been testing the Tecno Camon 16 Premier, the higher-end version of the Camon Series in 2020. Buying recommendations aside, it’s worth taking a look at because of its truly unique camera. I have my reservations on some of the lens sensor choices made by Tecno just to increase the number of cameras on a phone for marketing reasons.
There are four camera sensors, the Camon 16 Premier is set to dazzle as I said before. The camera placement and design was inspired by the 2018 Huawei Mate 20 Pro (but TECNO has a larger camera module) with more sensors to fit in.
The biggest hardware change is a new 64 Megapixel sensor with f/1.9 focal length, 26mm (wide), 1/1.73″, 0.8µm, PDAF lens for the primary camera. Don’t expect this phone to “see” in the dark given the f/1.0 focal length — high-end phones tend to have this value at less than f/1.6 to allow more light for more impressive night shots. However, that’s a modest aperture increase compared to the Camon 15 48 Megapixel lens; On paper, it improves the lens’ light-gathering and which should enable slightly faster shutter speeds or less grainy ISO settings in low light but again –don’t expect an iPhone 11 level of low-light performance.
Before we look at the images from this camera it’s worth noting that the Camon 16 Premier’s wide-angle photography has been bumped up to 8 Megapixel giving for image information compared to the 2 Megapixel on the Camon 15. The last two sensors are what I would consider being gimmicks.
Lets start with the image below of a bicycle.
You obviously cannot be mistaken it to have been taken on a DSLR camera but it’s rather impressive with the details you get from the 64 Megapixel camera even when you Zoom in after the fact. It is also using the AI CAM a software-based algorithm giving the “white” exposure, I would prefer a more saturated image with deep colors. There is no doubt however that Tecno has also wrung a lot of detail out of the 64-megapixel sensor.
I was also curious about how the Camon 16 Premier’s two levels of High Dynamic Range (HDR) work. The new HDRA (A stands for Advanced) seems to make a difference in the main AI CAM software enhancement. What better way to illustrate this than using colorful vegetables.
The image on the left is Camon 16 Premier’s normal HDR and things take a 180 degree turn when you switch on the HDRA mode (which is on the right). Luckily enough you won’t need to switch it on since it’s always on by default, if not we highly recommend you switch it on. Colors pop in the HDRA mode with red and green colors of the tomatoes, red pepper, and green pepper being more exposed.
Next, I headed to the new independence monument in the heart of Kampala to check try out its other capabilities. The images below at the top shows a 1X (normal mode) standing about 100 meters away from the monument. The two images below show you both the 2X zoom (left) and wide-angle images are all taken from the same 100 meters distance away from the subject.
2X Zoom 
Wide Angle view
You may think all the images above were taken by three different phones and that is the problem that the Camon 16 Premier faces. In some cases, the images are grainy, and trees lose detail especially in the wide-angle view.
When the lights go off (and you don’t opt to use the flash-light) things are not so good for the Camon 16 Premier. I highlighted this mode because Tecno has something it calls Super Night mode and I was waiting to be blown away in pitch darkness. Well, don’t look forward to taking pictures in the dark with this phone if that’s is your thing.
Here’s Camon 16 Premier’s night mode shot is nothing to speak home about but when you use that Penta-LED flash you are out to be impressed with better shoots.
Tecno has a lot of work to make the Super Night mode worthwhile, I believe this comes down to the mid-range MediaTek processors used in Tecno phones that also affect the image quality. We believe Tecno will improve on this in the future.
Finally, there are two cameras that Tecno added to the Camon 16 Premier; a 2 Megapixel, f/2.4 dedicated video camera, and a 2 Megapixel f/2.4 depth or macro camera to help in those close-up shots and also improve the bokeh effect on images (images with blurry backgrounds). Truth be told, the main 64 MP camera could have been in a position to do the same job that these two cameras are trying to achieve with the right photography software.
I wish Tecno can replace 2 Megapixel, f/2.4 dedicated video camera with an actual telephoto lens capable of at least 3X or 5X zoom. But hey– the two gimmicky cameras were added to this phone and hopefully, there will be some users out there to make the most of them. I only played around with the 2 Megapixel f/2.4 depth or macro camera and was rather impressed with the details of the image from the Spring onion and soil as shown in the image below.
When we flip the phone at the front, things get interesting, are two selfie cameras, the main is a 48 Megapixel, f/2.2, 23mm (wide), 1/2.0″, 0.8µm lens, and when you have to add more people to your selfie it switches to the 8 Megapixel, f/2.2, 105˚ (ultrawide), 1/4.0″, 1.12µm lens but expects a huge image quality drop.
Selfie cameras have never been good even on some high-end phones and the Tecno Camon 16 Premier is no different. Don’t get me wrong the images are very impressive but personally I am not a fan of beauty modes on smartphones. They basically give you that Snapchat filter-look with close to flawless skin which most people would like but not me. Check out the comparison below– on the left is an indoor selfie with beauty mode turned off on the 48 MP shooter and the right with beauty mode on.
To sum things up, the Camon 16 Premier will give you impressive images during the day and you will not be disappointed with the image quality thanks to its 64 MP sensor. We however feel the AI feature needs more software enhancement for both the back and front cameras. At night, you may not be impressed with pitch-dark images but you can make use of the Penta-LED flash at the back or the dual-LED flash on the front.
But if you look at the Tecno smartphone photography landscape today, it’s hard to think of any other models that are as technically capable as the Camon 16 Premier.
