Huawei is held in high regard for its smartphone cameras and, keen to build excitement before this month’s release of its newest flagship handset, the P30 Pro, the Chinese company has released a series of teaser images designed to show off some of its photographic capabilities. Unfortunately, at least some of these images weren’t shot with a Huawei phone, but with a DSLR camera.
The images, originally posted on Weibo, all focus on the camera’s ability to capture detail in far-off subjects, thanks to the P30 Pro’s periscopic camera which is claimed to offer at least 5x optical zoom.
Here, for example, the image featuring the duck can be found in its original form as shot by professional photographer Jake Olson in 2015. Likewise, Tom Pfeiffer’s volcano image has been licensed from Getty Images.
Thankfully, Huawei has come clean on the matter with an official statement shared with The Verge clarifying that the images are only meant to ‘hint’ at the P30 Pro’s camera features. Although no such disclaimer appears on the original photos, one seems to have been added subsequently, as spotted by Richard Lai of Engadget.
“We’ve been made aware that there might have been some misunderstanding regarding our recent HUAWEI P30 Series teaser posters. We would like to reiterate that those are, in fact, only teaser posters, and are only intended to hint at the unique new features that will come with the HUAWEI P30 Series. Huawei has acquired the licenses to the original images and the posters are artistic renditions of said features only. We’d like to take this opportunity to thank the media for their interest in our posters. We have much to announce in the coming weeks. Please stay tuned!” - Huawei, via The Verge
This is an unfortunate misstep for Huawei. While it’s obviously quicker and cheaper to use stock photography for purposes such as this rather than hiring a photographer to shoot bespoke images with a P30 Pro, the company’s failure to disclose the fact immediately is sure to be viewed as misleading especially as the company has been caught out previously making exactly the same faux pas.
Was this a deliberate attempt at fakery? Honestly, I don’t think so. Perhaps the saddest part of all this is that, given the performance of Huawei’s current smartphone cameras, it wouldn’t surprise me at all if photos shot with a P30 Pro turned out to be just as convincing as these hastily-sourced stock images - at least for the purposes of illustrating its zoom capabilities.
Ultimately, this little exposé will do little to hurt Huawei in the long run, save for a missed opportunity to really show off what the P30 Pro can do ahead of the launch on March 26. Let’s hope that, in future, Huawei will #RewriteTheRules of Photography rather than those of advertising.
