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A near-total lunar eclipse occurred final week. I used to be on trip on the time, with no severe digital camera gear for just a few windy and soggy days tenting on the southwest-facing Wales shoreline within the UK. However, I had packed the Oppo Find X9 Ultra, along with its 300mm (13x) teleconverter lens.
The eclipse felt like an ideal check for the flagship telephone’s digital camera abilities. Where I used to be and Europe, the utmost 96.2% eclipse came about an hour earlier than moonset / dawn, which means the moon could be low within the sky, whereas in North and South America it was in the midst of the evening with the moon greater up.
Having set my alarm for a horribly early hour, I poked my head out of my tent at 4:15am to examine on the climate, and was greeted with an attractive view of the eclipse underway in its partial part, forward of its most.
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Excitedly, I threw on some garments, picked up the Oppo package and a tripod, and hiked right down to the seaside to get arrange forward of the eclipse’s most, which might happen about an hour later.
Clouds lined the moon earlier than I used to be capable of fireplace up the digital camera, however I patiently waited. And regardless of not having the ability to see a lot of the partial part of the eclipse, thankfully, a break within the clouds meant that I obtained to see the moon’s eclipse at its most — and I used to be capable of see what the Oppo package was able to.
(Image credit score: Tim Coleman)
Setting up for photographing the eclipse with a telephone
The Oppo Find X9 Ultra is the one present telephone with a 10x optical lens (the Galaxy S23 Ultra was Samsung’s only previous effort), with a 230mm effective focal length that works pretty well for moon photography by itself. However, for an even closer view, the teleconverter lens is a better bet.
The teleconverter is a proper add-on lens that’s designed to work with the phone’s better-quality 3x optical lens, providing a 300mm equivalent focal length. Oppo notes this as a 13x zoom in the dedicated ‘Hasselblad Teleconverter’ mode in the camera app, which can be increased to 30x (690mm) or 60x (1380mm) digitally.
You’ll need to use a tripod to stabilize the phone, and to capture sharp shots of distant subjects, especially in low light — I used a Heipi 3-in-1 tripod, which includes a dedicated phone clamp within its ballhead.
I like taking manual exposure control for astrophotography, but sadly the phone’s dedicated mode for the teleconverter is stripped back (I’ve previously tried it for sports photography and came away frustrated by the experience).
There are the three zoom settings, a ‘stage’ mode, ±2EV exposure compensation, and then a basic array of controls which includes Auto HDR, aspect ratio, timer and interval shooting modes. That’s about it.
I missed having the option to shoot in RAW format, exposure bracket (to get more detail from the light and dark parts of the moon), increase resolution from 12MP to 50MP and manually set white balance, shutter speed and ISO, which would otherwise be possible in the phone’s ‘Hasselblad Master’ mode (Oppo’s version of a Pro mode).
(Image credit: Tim Coleman)
My desire for manual control was magnified when the phone completely underexposed the moon when in photo mode (see above), which felt odd given that when I switched to video mode — where 4K up to 60fps with Dolby Vision, Ultra Steady stabilization and focus lock are available — the exposure was fine.
It’s actually possible to use the teleconverter lens in the Hasselblad Master mode with the 3x camera and gain those manual controls, instead of the simplified dedicated mode. However, the image is upside down (since the teleconverter’s optical construction comprises mirrors, to keep its size down), plus you lose the digital zoom capabilities — so composing the shot was highly impractical when working in reverse.
The teleconverter is a serious bit of gear, but the mode that’s designed to work with it would benefit from inheriting some of the serious controls the phone is capable of (which could be entirely possible with a firmware update).
Still, I found a workaround — with a quick response taking the photo immediately after switching from video recording to photo, I was able to snap shots of the moon before the exposure went too dark again. Not ideal, but it worked.
(Image credit: Tim Coleman)
How good are the images?
I wasn’t able to compose a shot with the moon framed by landmarks or a point of interest but, simply put, the tripod-mounted Oppo Find X9 Ultra with teleconverter lens delivered the best-quality eclipse photos I’ve got of the moon so far with a phone.
The 13x setting of the teleconverter is best, but the 30x digital zoom setting is usable too. Detail using the 60x setting was too soft for my liking. But the fact that I’ve been able to get such a close-up image of the moon during a near-total eclipse, with a phone and teleconverter lens, shows how far smartphone cameras have come.
I’d still opt for my mirrorless or DSLR camera with telephoto lens for the best-quality moon photography but, having previously written off phones for the task, I could happily pack light with just the X9 Ultra instead.
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