As part of our photographic tour of the United Kingdom following the Huawei Mate 20 Pro launch earlier this week, we’ve been testing out the new smartphone in different environments. We’ve already taken it for a bash up the Thames, and yesterday, we took it out to one of the UK’s oldest places – Stonehenge.
Let’s be honest; this was both an opportunity to tick something off my personal bucket list, as well as to take some amazing photographs with nothing more than a smartphone. No tripods, no DSLRs, no point-and-shoot prosumer cameras. A smartphone, my shaky hands, and a 4,500 year old stone structure.
I think you’ll agree – the results are beyond amazing.
First, we had to get there somehow, in a sky-blue Ford Focus (thanks, Avis) and with a traditional road-trip warmed chicken sandwich.
After a bit of a drive out of London (which, let me tell you, was fairly harrowing), we hit the open road and sped out west towards Salisbury, stopping at a local hamburger joint for lunch. It wasn’t long before we made it to Stonehenge, paid the admission, and made our way in.
I’d been warned, I guess, that Stonehenge was a bit of a non-event. Plonked beside a highway, that you couldn’t get up close to, I had been told to be disappointed. Fortunately, I ignored that advice, and we had a great time walking around this ancient site, capturing some great photos and learning some about how Stonehenge was built some 4,500 years ago.
It wasn’t until we’d almost walked around the entire site that I captured the photo of the series; perhaps unintentionally, I lined the sun up behind another stone, capturing Stonehenge with a beautiful backlighting and solar lens flare.
Artistic? Me? Not really, but this one I am especially proud of:
What do you think? Does the Mate 20 Pro take a decent photo?
Chris travelled to London with Huawei for the Mate 20 Pro launch, and took a few extra days (at his own cost) to explore some of the UK.
You have some nice crisp pics there mate , usually when i take some happy snaps , i usually have a few ….. or 5 or so 🙁 snaps that due to my sad camera skills end going to the delete bin , did you have many duds or did the AI in the mate 20 camera make them all hunky dory 🙂 , i guess what i`m asking is , are these new ai cameras fool proof or do you still get some dodgy pics in a session that might chuck out ???
Oh you definitely still get some duds. Most of the ones I’ve binned have either had exposure tripped up by bright sunlight, or have been out of focus due to fast moving subjects. Overall, though, the bin rate is pretty low.
“local hamburger joint” looks like a service station to me. Long way to drive for some photo’s though – good work.
It was a McDonald’s near the British army HQ .. safest burger joint in the UK.
Unless it’s after pub closing times with pissed up squaddies looking for some food and a fight.
The photos do look good, Stonehenge is a nice place to visit but can be a little underwhelming when you consider the hype around it.
Did you stop into Salisbury at all? I grew up there and it’s a pretty medieval town. The Cathedral particularly would be a great place to snap some pics for this feature, the interior is very interesting. If you had a chance the Cathedral Spire climb, while slightly terrifying at times, is really interesting and has some incredible views at the top.
We ran a little bit out of time, and has to make our accommodation for the night quite a bit further north. However, I’m looking forward to capturing some beautiful photos around the Cotswolds.
“Warmed chicken sandwich” at “a local burger joint”
AKA a fried chicken burger, at McDonalds :P.
The only pic i really like is the arty “fznor” one, the rest are…fine
There a couple with that tag. I agree though. The pictures look ok as expected in good light. HDR pulled shadow detail well.
Overall the photos look good. Looks like Huawei have toned down their ai landscape shots as well.
They’ve got a Jamaican chicken burger on promo here and it has sauce hotter than the sun’s surface.