I'm in London for the launch of the Huawei Mate 20 Pro and the stars magically aligned. I had a review unit ahead of the phone being announced. High on Fire and Enslaved - two of my favourite extreme metal bands - were playing the night before the launch event. You know how the rest goes.
As a black blooded metalhead, I will literally never pass up the opportunity to see either of the aforementioned, but I also love testing out smartphone cameras at gigs. The combination of a dark environment with lots of movement and unpredictable lighting is a good way to see just what a phone is capable of. And get a bit nervous about dropping it the mosh.
So I did what any sludge metal loving gadget nerd would do and took my unreleased phone to the gig. All of the photos below were taken on auto, and most are the from the Mate 20 Pro's primary lens. If you're after camera samples of things that aren't sweaty men, read our full Mate 20 Pro hands on here.
The above is pretty damn sharp for three dudes frantically rocking out. There's also a nice amount of contrast in dark areas. The bassist's pants clearly stand out form the amp, the stage, and the hair in front of him, which isn't necessarily a given.
This is a 100% crop of the previous image. Look at that hair!
Again, pretty sharp. And you can still read the text on the amp and keyboard.
This photo came from the Mate 20 Pro's three times optical zoom. The optical zoom lens seems a bit too slow to be useful, and most shots were a lot blurrier than the above. This one isn't exactly clear either - cameras hate blue - but would definitely look better with a bit of post processing.
Here's one from back in the crowd. Results from further back were less consistent, and more prone to motion blur - especially when it came to the musicians. Burst mode helps a lot with these photos.
Getting clear shots with just one musician in them was a lot easier.
Even two musicians are easier than a whole group, but I ruined this shot by getting my finger in the bottom left hand corner. At least it kinda looks like a lens flare.
Here's a 100% crop of the previous image.
Even though Matt Pike's hand is a little blurry, I just really like this photo.
I'm pretty happy with most of the above photos, but getting gig good gig photos isn't a sure thing. The Mate 20 Pro can flub its fair share of photos too. So for the sake of balance, here's some that didn't quite turn out. In every case, the problem is varying degrees of blurry.
WhistleOut travelled to London for the launch of the Mate 20 and Mate 20 Pro as a guest of Huawei.
Alex Choros
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