Alright, Let’s Talk Camera 📸
I’ve Been Out Shooting With The Nothing Phone (3a) Pro For The Past 3 Weeks — Testing It In Real-World Conditions.
Curious About How It Actually Performs 👀? This One’s For You 👇( Looong Post )
Camera Specs 🚀:
50 MP Main f/1.88 aperture | 24mm |(OIS) | Samsung GNJ Sensor.
50 MP Sony Lytia 600 | f/2.55 aperture| 70mm [3x] PERISCOPE | OIS.
8 MP UW | 15mm | f/2.2 aperture | EIS | Sony IMX 366 Sensor.
50 MP Selfie | 22 mm |Samsung JN5 | f/2.2 aperture | EIS.
1.📸 Main Camera (1x):
In daylight, the colours, saturation levels, and dynamic range are the best aspects of the main camera. It doesn’t boost the colours much, keeping the overall tone natural. The shadow and highlight control is really good, details and information in both are well preserved. The Exposure is well balanced, the photos are sharp, eye pleasing, and don’t require any editing. In human shots, skin tones look very natural. The overall image quality is impressive.
Even in low light, it captures good details with minimal noise and handles artificial lighting well👇🏽.
2.📸 Periscope Telephoto Camera(3x):
The dynamic range, details and sharpness from this sensor are once again impressive. Human subjects look good, with faces appearing natural and not over-processed. The white balance and temperature control are also well handled. Occasionally, it captures a warmer tone compared to the main sensor, but for the most part, the colours remain close to natural. On non-human subjects also the textures and details are well maintained.
Even at 6x, you can capture great-looking photos with impressive details. The output from this sensor is comparable to some flagship phones. I’ve also managed to get very good results even at 10x and 15x zoom.
In low light, it performs well, and considering the price, the results are quite satisfying. Artificial light control is good, images retain good amount of detail, and noise levels are also low. Even in indoor lighting conditions, human shots show great detail.
3.📸 UltraWide Camera (8MP):
Nothing has downgraded the ultra-wide camera from 50MP to 8MP this time. But thanks to Nothing’s image processing algorithm in daylight, it captures vibrant and saturated images, with good dynamic range and decent control over highlights and shadows. However, the edges of the photos are inconsistent — sometimes sharp, but often soft and lack details. When zooming in, the images can appear overly sharpened and 50% of the times, the sky can look unnaturally saturated.
In low light, image quality drops noticeably. Photos often appear dark and soft, with limited detail in shadow areas and crushed blacks. The camera struggles to balance artificial lighting and tends to produce lot of noise. Overall, the image quality from this sensor is below average and feels disappointing considering the price point.
4.📸 Portrait Mode:
One of the best features is that the phone uses both the main and periscope cameras in portrait mode. You can shoot portraits at 24mm, 50mm, 70mm (3x), and 100mm (4x). The 70mm and 100mm focal lengths, powered by the periscope lens, deliver great subject separation and natural background blur, making portraits look truly professional. Edge detection is great about 90% of the time — the subject appears to pop out from the background. However, edge detection can occasionally struggle, especially around complex areas like hair.
The facial details in human subjects are impressive in all lighting conditions, whether it’s daylight or low light. Artificial light control is brilliant even in indoor settings, human portraits retain great detail.
Skin tones generally look natural, but they can be inconsistent—especially in backlit scenarios. The camera sometimes artificially smooths and brightens faces, and when taking multiple portrait shots in such conditions, results can vary. In some images, highlights are well controlled, while in others, they appear blown out. These issues could likely be improved with future software updates.
5.📸 Macro Mode 🔍:
Nothing has added a dedicated macro mode to the camera app, which captures photos at 3x and 6x optical zoom with a minimum focusing distance of 15 cm. You can take some great, close-to-professional-looking macro shots, and I’m genuinely impressed by the output. Even at 6x, the colours, sharpness, and details are impressive. The photos have a natural background blur, and the overall processing is really well done.
6.📸 Selfie camera 🤳🏽:
In daylight, the images have natural skin tones and textures, with well-maintained details. However, in low light, the images appear dark, contain noticeable noise, look soft, and lack detail.
Now Stepping Into The Video Department. 🎥📷
After Testing The Photos, It’s Time To See How The Nothing Phone (3a) Pro Handles Real-World Video Shooting 👀👇🏽.
1.🎥📷Main Camera (1x):
Shoots up to 4K at 30fps (no 60fps). Daylight videos have good dynamic range, punchy colours, and strong stabilization, though contrast is a bit high, exposure and colour temperature can shift. Low-light performance is impressive, with well-managed light, minimal noise, and good shadow detail.
2.🎥📷Ultra-Wide Camera (8MP):
Limited to 1080p at 30fps, which is a drawback. In daylight, it delivers good dynamic range, but lacks details making the overall footage look soft and washed out. Sometimes it also suffers from over-sharpening issue. However Stabilization is good. In low light, the footage is dark, noisy, and lacks detail, making it mostly unusable.
3.🎥📷Periscope Telephoto Camera (3x):
Supports 4K at 30fps. In daylight, it performs very well with strong dynamic range, highlight control, and colour accuracy. However, stabilization is average, with noticeable jerks while moving which needs to be fixed with future updates. In low light and indoor light conditions, videos are usable, though some noise is present.
4.🤳🏽🎥Selfie video(50MP):
4k30fps resolution is supported in the front camera.Stabilization is good,the overall dynamic range is decent and colours are bit saturated. In low light the videos look well lighted but have some visible noise in dark areas.
Final Thoughts on the Camera 📸:
As someone who’s been using the Nothing Phone (1) for a while, I can honestly say that Nothing has seriously stepped up with the Phone (3a) Pro. The camera app, processing, and color science have all noticeably improved 👀.
Of course, it’s not perfect, there are still some inconsistencies in image processing, the ultra-wide lens needs work, and a few things in the video department needs to be fixed. But I’m hopeful Nothing will surely fix these with future updates 🙌🏼.
That said, the Nothing Phone (3a) Pro feels like a well-rounded camera phone, especially at this price point. Whether you’re shooting photos or videos, it holds up well. And that 3x periscope lens really surprised me, it delivers some 🔥 shots!
I’ve put a lot of time and effort into this detailed review, so if you found it helpful, show some love🤧🤍.
@Deepanshu_Saini_ @hrry @Rob ⚡️ @RohitPakalapati @Akis @Carl @adbo @Rahul @ramdasphotography
