A few days with the Vivo X300 Ultra from a beauty/commercial photographer perspective
I had the chance to test the Vivo X300 Ultra for a few days because I worked as the still photographer for the X300 FE campaign in Spain a few weeks ago.
A bit of context first: I mainly work in advertising and beauty portrait photography, so it goes without saying that this phone cannot (and won’t) replace my main camera setup (Sony a7RV + lenses). But, for general content creation, or for someone running a small business who needs good product photos for ecommerce or even more elaborate still life setups, this thing is more than capable.
That said, good lighting still matters. A lot. The phone captures the image, but we still "build" the photo ourselves.
In my specific case, I honestly think it could replace that “always with me” second camera I used to carry around for good quality without taking much space in my pocket. For the last year and a half, that was the Ricoh GR IIIx. It's not the same and won't be but, for me, it could possibly work.
Another important thing: the first thing I did when I received the phone was disable all the AI enhancement features and similar processing when taking photos. For me, this is essential. If you leave all that stuff enabled and start zooming in, you’ll notice weird artifacts and that watercolor-like pixel effect that I personally really dislike. In the case of people, sometimes it can even invent faces in the background.
About the cameras themselves: the main optics are very well thought out and the image quality is honestly impressive. You can shoot up to 200MP with two of the lenses (35mm and 85mm), and 50MP with the ultra wide. Why megapixels matter differently in smartphones than in dedicated cameras is another discussion entirely, so I’ll leave that one for you to research yourselves.
I haven’t had time yet to properly test it in an actual beauty portrait session (which is what I mostly do), although I wanted to out of pure curiosity. But I did make some quick tests in my studio the day the phone arrived, using simple setups but real lighting situations: a beer shot, a small still life setup with acrylic sheets, shadows and gradients, and some macro shots of bubbles and textures just for fun.
I’m posting those photos here straight out of camera in JPG format, with zero retouching, plus a 100% crop from one of the 200MP shots taken with the 85mm lens.
The macro mode is incredible. Probably one of the things I liked the most. You can get extremely close, and combined with the optics and zoom capabilities, the results get pretty crazy. I didn’t have the external telephoto lens attachment some people are using online, so everything here was shot with just the phone itself. Detail is very sharp and stabilization works surprisingly well for this kind of shooting.
The second thing that surprised me was both the color and the dynamic range. Much better than I expected. I used the Zeiss Natural profile for all the photos. One thing I would love, though, is the ability to embed or convert different output color profiles afterwards, since the files come out in P3.
The perspective correction in landscape mode is also really good, although I’d love to have the option to adjust perspective afterwards using the phone’s own editing tools.
And finally: the RAW (.DNG) files are actually very solid. At the end of the day, if we want results closer to dedicated cameras, we still need the same workflow — bringing the files into Capture One or Lightroom for editing. I used Capture One for my tests but, again, these images are JPGs straight out of the phone.
The RAW files recover highlights and shadows in a nice way, and the amount of detail you get from a phone is honestly impressive.
I’m leaving some of the photos I shot these days, plus a few from the Vivo launch event photowalk.
If you have any questions, I’m happy to anwser. I’ll still have the phone for a few more days and I’ll try to do that portrait / beauty test if I find the time.
Edit: Link to the 200mpx beer photo that is not showing up: https://mita.fromsmash.com/vivox300ultracerveza
Edit2: Here are some RAW files from different situations and lenses. The link will expire in 30 days.
https://mita.fromsmash.com/Vivox300Ultra-samples
One important thing: the 50MP RAW files only work when the ISO is set to 500 or below and in PRO mode. It took me a while to figure out why they weren’t showing up consistently.
You’ll also find:
- some SRAW files
- some standard RAW files
- a few JPGs so you can compare and see the kind of processing the phone applies
- and since I was already exporting things, a couple of LOG video clips in 1080p
There’s no artistic intention behind these examples, but I think they can help you get a better idea of what the camera is capable of.
Just keep in mind that this is still a phone, so it’s important not to forget the starting point when looking at the results.
Edit 3: I added more examples with sun light here: https://mita.fromsmash.com/x300ultra-moreexamples to In these examples you can notice the “watercolor-like” pixel thing. If you go beyond 100% you can see it, but to be honest I don't see the point of going further than that, and the processing is still usable and impressive.
Edit4: More SRAW as u/Delicious_One_2825 asked for them: https://mita.fromsmash.com/SRAW-x300u