It’s a beautiful grey monsoon morning in Mumbai. The city blinks to life with dreamy eyes, the streets are wet with temporary puddles. And I have made it my mission to make my person as light as I can, as I set out to capture the untamed ferocity of the formidable Lamborghini Huracan Evo RWD. Nothing but expansive tarmac can make this Rs 4 cr beast feel at home, which is why I chose the landmark corners and stretches of Ballard Estate in South Mumbai for my shutter-bugging. Referencing back to my aforementioned need to go light, I stashed my SLR away in lieu of the OnePlus 8.
With its larger siblings dominating the higher tier of smartphones, the OnePlus 8 may be perceived as an underwhelming option, which is not the truth by any stretch. It is powered by the Snapdragon 865 processor and showcases your captures on a 90 Hz display. While the design and screen take the cake here, it’s the camera that made the phone my weapon of choice for the day. The phone has a camera array with vertically arranged lenses, 3 in all. Below the three cameras sits the flash. It’s great for macro photography, a feature that you wouldn’t be too acclimatized with if you’re a OnePlus loyal. The 48-megapixel camera uses the Sony IMX586 sensor and captures ultra-wide-angle shots brilliantly. With an f/2.2 aperture and 116-degree field of view, the wide shots had dashes of the spectacular. The kind that would give my SLR something to chew on.
With the Huracan Evo as my muse, I could capture both wider canvases and Instagram-worthy vertical shots with ease. When it comes to the quality of the shorts, everything I captured with the main camera seemed flawless, well color-graded, and sharp. Wide-angle images seem to lack a small amount of depth, something I could observe after holding both results beside one another. HDR captures are moderate and satisfactory, with the shadows coming to life in most pictures.
The digital zoom was a bit of a let-down like you would expect, but I didn’t need to go over 2x zoom to shoot the Evo, which worked for me. I shot in perfect natural lighting conditions, so the exposure seemed to work perfectly well, to my full satisfaction. The object image stabilization of OnePlus phones is often critiqued. Which was all the incentive I needed to test the feature out, which, much to my satisfaction, seemed to do a decent job. Between my review of the opulently wondrous Lamborghini Huracan Evo and the comparatively reserved OnePlus 8, I’d say there were a few biases created. But what mattered is that at the end of the gig, I had myself a gallery I’d be proud of.
Throughout the day we had an overcast sky and unlike a clear blue sky, the light constantly changes, and when you have a shiny subject with chiseled sharp lines getting the perfect shot becomes a challenge in itself. But the One Plus 8’s camera did a fantastic job of reproducing the light, colors, and most importantly highlighting and showcasing the Lamborghini as I wanted.
At the end of my shoot as I unpacked and dusted off stray droplets on my windcheater I pondered – did I miss my SLR on this shoot? It would be unfair to say ‘yes’.
A special thanks to Lamborghini India and Lamborghini Mumbai for graciously lending the Huracan EVO RWD.
Note – None of the images have been edited or processed in any way. They are uploaded as it is and have just been resized for faster loading. The phone was provided by OnePlus but all the opinions expressed herewith are my own.
