The purist in me hates in-camera filters, but not Vivo

My heart lives in two worlds. As a smartphone reviewer, pursuing objective authenticity is key when testing the latest smartphones. However, as a photography enthusiast, I love the flavor that lens imperfections, aged film, and even analog can give to a photo.

My camera device of choice tends to be a Sony A7iii paired with a Pixel or iPhone. I’ve also dabbled in the iPhone photography style. As great as they are, they don’t quite help me recreate the Fuji-esque aesthetic I’ve always gravitated towards.

I have the hottest camera smartphones around, but the one I’ve been using the most lately is the vivo X100 Pro. Over the past four months, I’ve traveled around the world, shot over 4,000 photos with the X100 Pro, and captured some of my all-time favorite photos. It’s by far my favorite smartphone for taking pictures, and that’s mainly due to one reason – built-in filters and lens simulation.

I’ll let the photos speak for themselves. For simplicity, I divided the images by scene. Day, low light, night, etc.

Today, no high-end smartphone can handle outdoor shooting. Often, the final result depends on interpretation and color science. The vivo X100 Pro’s straight-out lens shooting effect is very stable. In fact, the overly warm and saturated look here is very real. However, creating photographs often involves more than just realism.

In this case I wanted to recreate a late night feeling on a frozen lake with a touch of old world nostalgia. This can be easily accomplished by quickly switching to one of the filters. Additionally, because these filters work at the ISP level (for data output directly from the camera), there is no loss in image quality.

Again, I made full use of vivo’s extensive range of filters here. In some cases, such as the image of the sidewalk or cityscape in the lower right corner, I use filters that enhance the blue tint to emphasize the futurism or blending of past and future. For more traditional architecture, I turn to a filter that uses warmer tones and red accents to create a nostalgic, cozy feel.

I also tried the phone’s built-in Landscape and Architecture modes, which do perspective correction in real time, and as you can see, it did an excellent job of helping me construct straight lines. The circular windows, on the other hand, inspired me to strip the image of color and depict the close-up crops as portholes of possibility. Maybe pretentious, but really interesting.

My photography preferences oscillate between desolate landscapes, architecture and street style. When I’m out and about with a mirrorless camera, my workflow consists of taking RAW photos, dumping them into Lightroom, and then tweaking them for a few hours.

Predictably, tools like onboard filters can speed up this process tremendously. Whether it’s highlighting the saturated tones of a lively afternoon brunch, people in motion, or the futuristic pipes in a bakery—access to effective preconfigured, adjustable LUTs means you can focus more on your photography and know exactly what your situation instead of worrying about replicating the look in your head.

Likewise, I found vivo’s built-in camera filters helpful when shooting in less than ideal lighting. Default camera adjustments tend to boost contrast too much and can hide detail in the shadows. It’s by no means a bad camera. In fact, the light-gathering capabilities here are staggering. Also, unlike the Pixel, the vivo can process it on the fly, meaning blurry photos are almost non-existent.

Depending on the filter chosen, I can show extra details in the image, such as elephants or bars in Hong Kong. I also used filters to emphasize the contrast between the red background of the Milan metro station and the woman sitting on the bench. For the cocktail photos, I chose to use vivo’s food mode filter – one of my favorite filters. This mode selects a beautiful focal length and adjusts color science to make food or cocktails pop.

Of course, a filter or lens is just a tool, and not every photo requires it. For example, sunset photos were taken exclusively using the standard camera app and using vivo’s sunset-oriented computing algorithms. Trust me, the results are better than what I could achieve using mirrorless without stacking multiple photos.

Yes, I know the photo on the left is more realistic and authentic. However, we live in a social media world. Popular images attract more attention. While Food Mode on the X100 Pro is designed specifically for food, I found it equally capable of adding subtle but noticeable enhancements to other subjects. For the intended use case, it’s an invaluable tool for making good images even better.

Remember when I mentioned that I no longer carry around mirrorless lenses? The versatility of camera phones is obvious, but the X100 Pro’s filters help me be more creative and find more exciting perspectives. Color filters on smartphones are by no means new, but color filters done right… are rare.

Of course, filters are not a one-stop solution. Like the image above, I find that shooting vertically is the best method for late night photography. As cameras have pushed the limits of capturing light and detail to create sharp images, I have observed that most filters tend to result in a reduction of detail and reduce the richness of a shot.

Let me repeat this in the preface – camera smartphones are no strangers to filters. They’ve always been around, but often very basic and sometimes downright rubbish. Furthermore, while it’s impossible to avoid computational photography, the purist in me prefers to take matters into my own hands with simple exposure controls or a full-fledged manual mode. so…. What has changed?

For one, the camera setup of the vivo X100 Pro is excellent right out of the box. The smartphone takes detailed photos with excellent white balance and colors. In fact, as I mentioned, many of the photos above were taken directly from the camera, with minor adjustments to exposure and brightness. But having a solid foundation allows you to do so much more. I was initially skeptical about using vivo’s filters and lens simulations, but I decided to take the plunge and my whole life changed.

My mindset shifted from saying filters were bad to using every tool at my disposal. This is in stark contrast to my experience with mirrorless photography, where I look for the flattest image possible. The ability to effectively realize your creative vision by looking close to the image you want has revolutionized the way I shoot. No, it won’t replace my mirrorless every time. However, I find myself picking up a camera more carefully, keeping in mind whether the actual benefits outweigh carrying around a bulky camera body and lens.