Huawei P30 Pro: Should you shoot in RAW? Camera & Photo Discussion

I have a look at RAW photo files at the Huawei P30 Pro.
See yourself :)

[@simonskovajsa1834]

Finally a great video on this topic. Exactly what I was looking for. Thank you.

[@proximus323]

Please try this way, PRO mode, RAW recording enabled, 5x zoom, shutter set to 1/30, rest of AUTO parameters, then 1/40 snapshot, photos should have significant differences in exposures over 2 EV. And in RAW mode stabilisation in zoom not working

[@frenchfries8745]

I hope you start working on professional camera phones reviews series. Great job as always my friend ❤️

[@mathphotographer]

Thank you French Fries, when I have my holidays I will do more on Phase One, Nikon Z7, Leica and Lumix S1R.

[@dushikorsou905]

This is a very interesting comparison. With my dsrl I always shoot in raw, because without any doubt this gives the best results. Of course there is always postprocesing in LR and PS, depending of my own taste at that moment. Looking back at your study, I should say go for the jpg and do a little bit of postprocessing. I didn't expect so little advantage of the dng file. With my drone I always shoot in dng and aeb to get the best results. As soon as I have received my p30 pro, I'll try to find out myself what gives the best results. Please keep om with this kind of studies for I can always learn from a experienced photographer. Many thanks!

[@LeeCrampton]

Thank you so much for your channel. I have watched several of the Huawei P30 Pro ones because I have just bought one but not yet used it (really bad weather in the North of England the last few days). Your videos will really help with my first outing soon :)

[@Pitbullx2012]

Better for you go to shoot pics, with that reflection water on street 😉

[@avrahax7714]

Man,do you know that P30 pro can take pics even in the dark?!!!

[@panjak323]

Yeah shooting in RAW is amazing, but I hate that low quality Huawei lens, I dunno if you have noticed, but the vignetting is really bad... Brightness vignette is easy to fix, but here the colors are getting green and cold hue. Best way to fix this is to use radial inverted filter and set both temperature and hue to about +20 and exposure by + 1 stop and save as preset.

[@mathphotographer]

Interesting, did not pay attention to vignetting yet, need to check.

[@montherkanaan724]

Help me how to get best picture plz

[@wherezthebeef]

The Leica lenses are not low quality at all, on the contrary quite excellent glass for smartphones. Most smartphones suffer this to some degree, depending on which lense you are using at which magnification. Most have a 'sweet spot' where you have corner to corner sharpness. For the P30 Pro, test in Aperture Mode and you'll see what I mean.

[@panjak323]

@@wherezthebeef ye sure.. but why other non-leica smartphones with similar optics don't produce images with so much vignetting ? The P20 had like 30% of area in image completely unusable...

[@gromaler]

Sky in JPG has white "hole", DNG version has a good sky with a lot of details!

[@lisbethjohannsen6613]

A very nice video - thank you. When I shoot raw files with my Sony a6000 I get some vignetting. Have you experienced that at all with the Huawei raw?

[@johndavis3033]

The file size of the RAW file is a huge 75-80Mb as you say....this stretches my i5 powered laptop to its very limit. However, if you pass the file through the Adobe DNG converter, the size drops to c.20Mb....much more managable. If, and when, I use RAW, I find this extra step helps.

[@iulian2548]

Very useful material, thank you. For many I think, the biggest issue with the P30 (and P40 from what I've seen) is the way it processes skin textures. It is a bit frustrating to compare jpegs of people from the Huawei with the Pixel for example. Is there a way to have better pictures of people in auto mode? Is it worth it to edit RAW files with people in your experience? Are the results better than the auto jpeg?

[@mathphotographer]

Excellent question, I get a bit more out of RAWs but the difference is not as significant as on my DSLMs. For professional DSLMs it makes a big difference whether you edit RAW or stick to JPG out of the camera. On smartphones I do not find the difference that convincing yet. But RAW photography on smartphones will further develop and we will for sure also here see large improvements in the next couple of years.

[@iulian2548]

@@mathphotographer Funny thing with Huawei cameras. Though I consider they have good performance, in real life on auto mode they disappointed me compared with the Pixels. Many inaccurate shots, mostly unrealistic skin tones in all modes, poor handling of moving subjects, extreme noise reduction by smoothing (noise is ok for many people), shutter lag is always a surprise, poor video white balance (red faces), extreme jpeg compression, poor white balance for night photos. Their focus seems to be on extreme zoom and ultra low light photos, which we rarely use. But I am glad that at least they work for advanced users like yourself. Cheers!

[@mansaha9288]

@@iulian2548 probably because of RYYB

[@sorrowvibes7757]

Hey man ! What would you suggest for someone who's planning to shoot 4k videos with a tripad (I don't use stabilization) in lowlight environment ? Main criteria is clarity. I want to be able to crop in post-prod up to 400% and still have details and minimal noise. Thinking about the P30 Pro, do you think there's a better android choice ? Cheers !

[@clementphotographe4776]

There's many noise when i shoot on raw mode at night :(

[@rafzibi4825]

Amazing video. Many thanks. Liked Subscribed

[@teolh88]

Could you please explain about the 'mirror reflection' features. What does 'Front camera only' mean? Thank you.

[@Maliq993]

I don't know... It's a touch choice. Dealing with the extra file size is gonna be really exhausting as a everyday thing, but to use it from time to time is just fine.. For average bloke and everyday use auto mode is enough...

[@sullenday]

So let's call him " auto" Joe 😂

[@RichardMoore1947]

Why don't you try the same/similar setting on the .jpeg file in Lightroom? I do this with my P10 if I inadvertently shoot in .jpeg and you can rescue the .jpeg as well.

[@AN-yn4fx]

I'm finding the jpg's a bit washed out in the Huawei P30 Pro, its no black areas where its suppose to be black. It a sort of grey/greenish… You can get alot more out of the rawfiles, but its a bit more work on the files compare to what I'm used to. I have a couple of old phones (Nokia 1520 And Microsoft 950 XL) and the files from these phones is much easier to work on. I think i get the same out of the Huawei, but in daytime I think the old W-Phones is better, both in raw and jpg... If you see the rawfiles the magenta/green slider its allmost 95% on the magenta side. I guess this is because the RYYG sensor. Its a nice phone with ok cameras, but I'm keeping my Nikon kameras and the windows phones...

[@mathphotographer]

With my professional cameras I almost exclusively shoot in RAW, on smartphones I am not as "diligent" as you are, thanks for hint. On sensor RYYG I think you are right.

[@BsRm-PH]

My Instagram, @brastven.shots, is full of pictures I have took in Raw with the Huawei Mate 20 Pro cámera, both 40 mp and 10 mp, Raw files are definitely better than jpg files, edit jpg files adds a lot of noise to the image and its quality decreases drastically when you want to lift up the shadows for example

[@sidersproductions941]

I think you're losing a lot of real quality when you upload to Instagram though. I find it more a take it as it appears platform.

[@BsRm-PH]

@@sidersproductions941 yeah Instagram is well known to downscale the quality, but anyway, what I mean is that I really see a difference when I edit a Raw file than a poor jpg

[@sidersproductions941]

@@BsRm-PH oh yeah I agree. The RAW files always have so much more flexibility in editing.

[@mathphotographer]

Will have a look, thanks.

[@BsRm-PH]

@@mathphotographer thank you :)

[@ZhengZL69]

The blurry thing happens with lots of phones. I thought my Pocophone F1 gcam did not support raw pics, but yes it did. So yeah, and I think 80mb it's worth it if you edit it, export it and delete original file :P

[@mehmetekicitekno]

why blury raw in phone you know because phone cant open raw file try to open lightroom mobile for best preview and best edit best dynamic range and best color raw is best imagine

[@chippyyyy]

i would say raw file shooting is only useful if you are the type of person that really edits and modifies photos on photoshop and lightroom, i use it a lot and it i can get way more details out of it but for the normal inexperienced user i would use raw shooting and would instead save the space, for the average consumer jpg edit is more than enough if you are not a professional social media influencer

[@latentheat3956]

I expect more than you did. Pls take more photos with p30 pro at different conditions. And review them orderly.

[@vladmartinez2335]

Hi there ... is there a test or a video where you test video recording at night with huawei p30 ? I'm looking for a new cell to record and wondered if huawei woul be a good fit .. txs

[@mathphotographer]

Will consider, thanks for input.

[@xe1zlgg]

Excellent post process....

[@mathphotographer]

Thank you :)

[@dennisrkb]

you tapping on the phone adds a significant amount of blur

[@ansin9399]

Are u from germany ?

[@johnduncan7574]

Please try and shoot items that are red in color such as a red car, I hear many people trying to photograph in raw and take photo of a red car and it is so bad due to the RYYB Sensor, please make a video titled, Huawei P30 Pro Red Raw Problem" and post it to Huawei in China via Twitter and other social media platforms.

[@mehmetekicitekno]

thats nothing for Discussion here. so raw file always better qualty better imagine full croma full color full information and best white blance. so first you must leanr about what is mean raw photo and how to edit raw best dynamic range in raw you cant compare jpeg to raw. and in mobile raw preview blurury you said its photo wiever cant open raw file its normal so you can try to open lightroom mobile or snapseed.

[@bennylloyd-willner9667]

I am not a photo professional or even a good amateur photographer but isn't the discussion about the difference between the phones built-in postprocessing compared to manual on a computer. The jpg in the phone also comes from a raw image but is processed within the phone so what he compared was, in essence, two jpgs after postprocessing, where (not surprisingly) his processing gave a better result. The interesting part is IMO is the question: for an "interested average user", did all the work (that requires good knowledge) and the filesize outweigh letting the phone do the work? Or am I just thinking wrong? I am interested in enhancing some of my photos so I will have the RAW setting enabled and just delete them regularly if I don't feel like working on them on my computer. BTW @mathphotographer, I like your videos. For me, it is the perfect "techyness level" since I am an IT engineer with photography interest.

[@mehmetekicitekno]

try it freedcam camera app its really best adnroid app best camera app try it

[@mehmetekicitekno]

@Dubz 2020 l have xiomi mi6 is all very good work maybe some phone not support for all Manuel control

[@zarirdaruwalla7187]

I dont think if the file size is that large there is no real advantage of shooting in raw

[@mathphotographer]

With my professional cameras I shoot almost exclusively in raw uncompressed for best headroom in post processing.

[@alazthor13]

Photography is all about that RAW file. It's how those great photographers create their masterpieces

[@delpinsky]

For example I've seen a video about Nokia 9 Pureview and the pictures in raw can give a whole new world of details and colors, lost in the "jpeg" file. I've just worked on a couple of dng files taken from here: www.photographyblog.com/previews/nokia_9_pureview_photos and the quality you can achieve using camera raw and saving back the picture to jpg, is way better and with a smaller filesize (4MB vs 11MB), than the jpg out of the box. Probably on P30 Pro the jpg files out of the box are better... but yet, raw can help a lot to get more details.

[@NeZKyMaN]

Sorry but jpg photo beat you anyway xD at least to my taste.

[@NicholasColdingDK]

I really can´t reconise that as a f.1.6... It looks more like a f. 5.6.

[@mathphotographer]

Look here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/n5_Giqp_jqx6p68 Here I explain that f/1.6 on P30 sensor corresponds to f/8 on full frame sensor. So you observed well.

[@avrahax7714]

Nicholas Coldin ,Try similar scene and settings with a F/5.6 lens and lets compare!!!

[@wilfredor]

Maybe too much noise réduction and the ISO was différent

[@tbroughal]

First :) go me

[@loogan7440]

its bullshit. no sense to use raw on this crap. it gives you nothing. on the laptop it seems like nice. but after equal editing it becomes bullshit. jpg after editing became 5 mb size. on the other side - raw file - 8 mb. and the point is, jpg file looks better. but jpg file is 4 mb at the beginning, compared with 80 mb raw files. its totally pointless

[@wherezthebeef]

In general I agree with your bullshit assessment :-) but there are some niche uses for RAW, i.e., Astro, taking multiple images of the same scene of a tripod and stacking .. for some awesome results, but for 99% of cases, RAW is not useful.