HTC One Camera

So I had a bit of a chance to play with the camera on my new telephone this morning (after picking it up yesterday)...you can click them to zoom in...

This one I took (and to the naked eye it was practically pitch black - if you need proof, just look below the street light and you can clearly see the pool of orange light it was shedding on the ground - *invisible* in daylight) very early in the morning on the walk up through the woods over the hill...it's a bit spotty and blurry, but frankly I'm blown away...this is the sort of picture I would have expected from my Canon 600D in these extreme low light conditions - not a telephone.

Again, still *really* dark to the naked eye (just a hint of the sunrise to come in the clouds on the horizon) the HTC one manages to find every single spot of light (and an incredible amount of detail) - this would have been a blurry mess on the Galaxy...


In bright sunlight now, at serious risk of over exposure (especially with the light in the background), it seems to have managed to get *everything* in focus...really impressive and absolutely pin sharp.

Now, the "Zoe" feature...this is an interesting one, it takes a bit longer to take a picture (you watch a red thermometer bar for what feels like about 3 seconds) but the effect on the telephone is like something out of Harry Potter...suddenly browsing through the gallery, the pictures come alive!  Each one contains a few magical extra seconds of video on either side of the shutter (it's clearly pre-caching the "before" footage)...the effect (especially in the slideshow where it tinkles in some appropriate music) is like -well- magic!  Check out a demo video here to get a better idea, but here are a few where I managed to pull the video out and into flickr (not quite the same) -

- so this sort of shot would just magically jump into life like this -

- you'll have to manually do it here on the web, but I hope you get the idea, if not watch the demo, keep in mind that these are regular photos - just with about six seconds of video context around them to "bring them to life"...a completely new thing and astonishing to see in action...another example -

Static pic in the middle...and surrounding HD video -

Now imagine these examples as romantic "Perfect Family Day Out" shots, where the kids spring to life being charming (no nose-picking, hitting each other, loud shouts of "NO DADDY!" or falling over), Mummy laughing and swishing her hair (minus "POPPY - DON'T EAT THAT - ITS POISON!" and "THOMAS THAT'S A MAIN ROAD - STOP RIGHT NOW!!!") and my goodness...you may have something like the marketing piece! ;)

Overall, it's got to be one of the best cameras I've ever had the pleasure of using, combine that with the 1080p display on the handset and...just - WOW!  Not even touched on the proper video mode, or the HDR capability!  More on that later! ;)