“Dual” Camera System
Season 2 of the Oppo A58 4G just got greenlit! Should we say “seasons”, or should we say “episodes”? Either way, this is part 2 and here, we’ll see whether the camera here has improved over the A57. Now it’s a 50MP Samsung S5 sensor, as opposed to a 13MP one. Still, higher resolutions do not necessarily mean better image quality.
CAMERAS:
The Oppo A58 features “two” cameras. There is your 50MP primary and a 2MP depth sensor. There is also an 8MP selfie camera provided, not that it produces decent pictures and you’ll see later. The Ultrawide camera is missing. Although, camera components are getting more expensive as time passes and excluding an Ultrawide camera is one way to keep costs down.
CAMERA INTERFACE:
The camera interface is similar to other Oppo phones. The carousel at the bottom features the modes. There’s not a lot to be seen in the “MORE” section than the Pro, Timelapse, Sticker, and Panorama modes. It definitely does have way fewer features than the Reno 10 Pro Plus but slightly more than the A57. The main difference is the ability to shoot in 50MP. Which honestly, took us a bit of time to find since the phone does not feature a “Hi-Res” mode unlike the Reno series. This feature is strangely hidden at the grey, transparent bar. This is where the timer and frame size are also located. We think these features should be more visible. If we haven’t discovered or tinkered around, we may not have gotten a 50MP shot for this review.
The top features the camera enhancements like flash, HDR, and filters. A gear icon is present as well so you can adjust your composition, video resolution, geotagging, and much more. There are three types of grids to choose from: a 3×3 grid, diagonal grid, and the golden spiral. The latter is useful for shots that make objects look smaller.
50MP CAMERA SAMPLES:
Just like with the Oppo A57, photos on the Oppo A58 are too sharp, with visible grains when zoomed in. Colour reproduction is about the same as that phone and dynamic range is also uneven. The image with SM City Marilao has darker shades on the left than it is on the right, also the sky looks blown out. Indoor shots, like the food court also produced soft colours and lacks detail.
We also tried using HDR mode. This boosted the colour reproduction although it isn’t noticeable on first glance. You can only tell the difference when you observe each image carefully. When it happens, it does improve the dynamic range appropriately, where needed. The left side features the image with HDR off and the right side is with HDR active.
The Oppo A58 can zoom in digitally up to 5x… and that’s about it. You cannot zoom in any farther. The images above are zoomed 1x, 2x, and 5x respectively. The 5x shot remains sharp and detailed, where it the most appropriate to be… sharp and detailed. Though we noticed that the colour reproduction suddenly look muted when this is only a digital method.
50MP SHOTS:
The 50MP mode costs our site some storage space. They are heavy, indeed. Hence why we don’t see it being used on a normal basis. We believe it’s best that the feature is left hidden, as if that’s not the thing Oppo is trying to present to its audience. Even our review guide mentions of a “Hi-Res” mode but the feature is not available directly on the A58. Each image has a resolution of 8160×6144 or about 50.1MP.
The 50MP shots don’t feel too different from the regular 12MP ones. However, it did improve dynamic range significantly so it has that going for it. Each shot still feels too sharp for our tastes. You cannot digitally zoom while using 50MP mode so it’s stuck at a 4:3 aspect ratio and 1x zoom.
NIGHT MODE:
The phone features a “Night” Mode like the A57. Although, they don’t produce a good output. There are far better phones at a similar price point that can do better, such as the TCL 10 5G which we reviewed last year. Here, the night mode feels cheap. There is visible noise, dynamic range is lacking, and colours are washed out.
It takes 3 seconds to take a Night Mode shot. 1 second for actually shooting the shot and 2 seconds for the phone to apply the necessary post-processing effects. This is why some areas look blurry.
We also shot night images using the regular photo mode both in 12MP and 50MP. Taking a look first at the 12MP shots, you can tell nothing much differed as if shot using Night Mode, maybe a bit of tone boost? That’s really about it. It’s probably worse since now there is far less saturation.
Above is a comparison between a 12MP shot at night vs a 50MP shot. We didn’t see a significant change in quality while using either mode. The 50MP mode cannot be used as “Night Mode”
8MP SELFIE CAMERA:
The 8MP camera is slow, lacks colour reproduction even during the day, and is overall not that great as a selfie sensor. Oppo probably used the oldest and cheapest 8MP sensor available to save costs. We don’t recommend the Oppo A58 for selfies. The quality feels like it came out of a VGA camera and that’s just embarassing.
VIDEOS:
The Oppo A58 can shoot at 1080p or 720p resolution but both are locked to 30fps, even though the MediaTek Helio G85 can encode 1080p@60fps. At least have that option available.
As you can see throughout the videos, both in 1080p and 720p, they are shakey. Mainly because the phone does not feature any type of stabilization. With EIS, you can make a video subtly steady. OIS makes videos truly steady and smooth. Now we can tell the difference for phones with EIS enabled and those which don’t.
The 1080p videos has a lot of grain and looks oversaturated. Audio is also pretty shallow as if my voice was recorded in an echoey studio (like ours haha). You can tell by using headphones. If you listen with speakers, the sound is actually okayish.
Using a Metadata viewer online, we could see that the 1080p video has an average bitrate of 16.9Mbps which is higher than the average needed for YouTube at Standard Dynamic Range which is 8Mbps. So we’re a little confused of the intense sharpness of the video. It’s probably a post-processing thing than it actually is about the data.
The 720p video is even worse. Now, the video is even MORE crispy and lacks any sort of detail. The Oppo A58 isn’t really designed for videos, is it? Not only does it lack quality but it’s also really shakey and I’m walking at a normal pace here. Audio quality is the same. Shallow and echoey, which isn’t a good sign.
There are not a lot of cameras present on the Oppo A58. Only two of them are usable. The 50MP primary and the 8MP selfie. Ah well, that concludes season/episode 2. See you soon, fellow techies, on the next one! Episode 3 will talk about performance and benchmarks. We’re welcoming the Helio G85 once again.