iQOO Z3 Camera Review – Is it the best camera phone under 20000?

Today, we will be talking about the iQOO Z3 camera which is one of the best performing cameras under the Rs. 20,000 segment. We will be first discussing the camera specifications of the phone: 

Camera Specifications

iQOO Z3 comes with a triple rear camera setup with a 64MP primary camera, 8MP ultra wide angle lens and a 2MP macro lens. In the front camera section, it has a 16MP Samsung selfie camera. However, these are just numbers and let us have a look at how these cameras perform in real life. 

Daylight shots 

Let us have a look at some daylight camera samples captured on both GCam and Stock Camera. Looking at the street shot, the texture of the street and the walls on the right and left side of the street look quite amazing in the GCam picture. However, the colour of trees comes out as dull in the GCam shot.

In the stock camera shot, the saturation is a bit higher but greener trees look great. If we zoom into the picture, the leaves appear as merged. When the pole is zoomed in, the box looks bright in the stock camera shot whereas the same orange colour box looks a bit dark in the GCam shot. The sky looks clear in both the pictures. When we look at a guard room shot, the GCam shot brings out almost the original blue colour.

On the other hand, the stock camera shot again tried to increase the saturation of blue and green tones. Looking at one more shot captured in broad daylight, the stock camera shows the brown gate in its natural form whereas the GCam darkens the brown colour of the gate and the red bricks are also toned down by the GCam. 

Ultra Wide angle shots

An ultra wide angle shot of the same gate looked great only from a distance. When the picture was zoomed in, almost all the details and sharpness were lost. The white marble wall as well as the trees alongside appear blurry with no details at all. We can conclude that the ultra wide angle camera has nothing great about it. The GCam version 8.1 does not support 0.6X zoom. 

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Zoom feature in daylight shots

Even though you do not get an Optical Zoom option, we have tried up to 10X zoom. The normal as well as 2X zoom shots are decent with no complaints at all. As soon as we switch at 5X zoom the image sharpness is lost already. In the 10X Zoom shot, the handle of the gate is recognizable but detailing and sharpness is totally missing in the picture. In the zoom shots, the GCam picture was less blurry but the contrast of brown and green colour was completely different in both the pictures.

Human Portraits in daylight shots

The stock camera adds a little more background blur to the picture whereas the Bokeh effect is minimal in the GCam picture. When we look at edge detection, the human object’s hair as well as spectacles merge with the background in both the shots. While we talk about the shirt, the stock camera gives out a good tone whereas the colour of trees is real in the background of the GCam shot. The skin tone was more natural and crisp in the GCam shot as compared to the stock camera shot. However, stock camera brightens the skin tone which would be liked by many people. 

Daylight Selfies

The 16MP selfie camera is great but the GCam adds to the beauty of this camera. The details and sharpness are excellently visible in the GCam shot. The GCam picture enhances the human object’s facial hair well. On the other hand, the stock camera includes a lot of green and yellow colour in the selfie eventually spoiling it. Even the background colour came out better in the GCam shot rather than the stock camera picture. 

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Portrait Selfies

Even in this area, GCam worked really well while the portrait selfie of the stock camera was a bit weird. The stock camera blurs the background sometimes and fails to do it otherwise whereas the Bokeh effect on the GCam is great. The facial details come out great in the GCam shot. 

Testing Yellow, Blue and Red colour shots

Both the cameras completely spoil the red colour. The GCam does no justice to the red colour at all giving it a pale red and pink touch. On the other hand, the stock camera increases the contrast making the red colour look excessively red. Moving to the yellow colour, we can see similar results with yellow colour as well. The GCam faded the yellow colour a bit making it look dull whereas the stock camera made it look bright and oversaturated. However, a blue car looked amazing in the stock camera shot with detailing being fairly visible whereas the GCam shot remains a bit dull. 

Close-up Shots

Now, let us walk you through the close-up shots. iQOO Z3 made the close-up shots look amazing giving out results that were better than our expectations. The stock camera makes a close-up flower shot look more appealing while the GCam isn’t far behind as well. People who love raw colours would love the GCam shot more. If we look at the 2MP macro shot which we captured on the GCam with 2X zoom feature. The GCam picture turned out better than the stock camera one. 

Video Stablisation

A video which was recorded with 1080p 60fps settings came out very well in the stock camera. The video clarity is better in GCam but the stabilisation and smoothness comes out better in the stock camera video. When you shift to 4K 60fps, the EIS is disabled automatically. 

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Indoor lighting shots

In artificial lighting conditions, both the shots were similar with no such visible difference at all. The clarity as well as colour came out similar in the indoor lighting setup. When we talk about selfies in indoor lighting, the GCam shot was better because the stock camera gives a reddish tone to the skin colour.

Low-light shots

It was very dark on the street when we clicked a picture and the stock camera results were very good. Roads, vehicles and even billboards were visible in the low-light shot clicked on the stock camera. When we tested the camera in indoor low-light, sharpness was lost in both the pictures. However, the colours came out better in the stock camera picture. The same picture was clicked with Night mode on and the picture turned out to be very bright and detailed on the stock camera.

On the other hand, the picture came out bright on the GCam but the details were still missing. Pictures clicked on both cameras with zero lighting were very weird. On the other hand, the same shot with flash light on in zero lighting came out really well from both the cameras. The people who love warmer tones, would love the stock camera picture in these lighting conditions. 

Low-light Selfies

When low-light selfies were clicked with fill light feature turned on in stock camera and selfie illumination turned on in GCam, the GCam shot gave out brilliant detailing whereas the fill light feature added over brightness to the face. 

Final Verdict

This brings us to the conclusion of iQOO Z3 Camera Review where we tried and tested the phone’s camera in multiple lighting conditions. Now, we can claim the iQOO Z3 is an overall package where the stock camera pictures come out great even leaving behind the GCam at times. The camera shots come out really brilliant under this price segment. However, there were some points where there could be considerable improvements like the zoom and the macro shots but the price to camera performance ratio is great. In the under Rs. 20,000 segment, the iQOO Z3 camera performance is really good and it can also beat a lot of phones in this segment. 

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