The Oppo Find X8 Ultra on New Zealand's North Island

Out of Camera #6

Welcome back to Multicore.

It’s good to get back in the saddle after Japan’s holiday season, which I mostly spent in New Zealand with my wife. It was the first time in the country for both of us; we landed in Wellington and made our way up to Auckland, taking in various sights along the way. Great trip — I miss the meat pies already. We’ll have to check out the South Island sometime soon.

My camera on these travels was the new Oppo Find X8 Ultra. If you remember my review of the Find X8 Pro, I said it was a great phone that nevertheless left an obvious gap in the lineup for something more… ultra. Well, here it is.

The Find X8 Ultra turns out to have a completely different design to the Pro; it’s actually much more like the base-model Find X8, aiming for a sleeker frame to most Ultra phones. I’ll have a full review later on — for now, let’s focus on the camera system.

Here’s what you get with the Oppo Find X8 Ultra:

• 23mm-equivalent lens with 50-megapixel 1" sensor and f/1.8 aperture

• 70mm 3x periscope floating telephoto lens with 50-megapixel 1/1.56” sensor, f/2.1 aperture and telemacro close-focus

• 135mm 6x periscope telephoto lens with 50-megapixel 1/1.95” sensor and f/3.1 aperture

• 120-degree ultrawide lens with 50-megapixel 1/2.75” sensor and f/2 aperture

Hardware-wise, this is one of the most versatile setups around. The 1” main sensor speaks for itself, the 3x lens keeps the same large sensor as the awesome X7 Ultra but gets a faster aperture, and the 6x camera improves on both aperture and sensor. The ultrawide, however, is unfortunately the the same downgraded module as the X8 Pro.

As with all recent Oppo flagships, the most important thing to know about the camera is the Hasselblad-branded Master mode, which gives you completely different results to the default Auto mode. Personally, I much prefer it — like Xiaomi’s Leica Authentic mode, it gives much more natural colours without the aggressive sharpening and flattened dynamic range that you get from most smartphones.

Almost all the shots in this photo essay were taken in Master mode. No edits, as ever.

My wife’s Lord of the Rings-themed nails. Telemacro came through here.

Here's an example of the difference between the default and Master modes. Auto might be more social media-ready, but it's oversharpened and much less natural. Master mode looks more like what I'd want to get out of a dedicated camera, preserving dynamic contrast and letting the exposure speak for itself.

Glowworm caves are pretty solid camera stress tests.

We did see some kiwi at the National Kiwi Hatchery, but since they're nocturnal you can only see them in dark rooms under red light, where phones are understandably banned. They did have this taxidermy bird behind glass, though — check out Oppo's AI-powered reflection removal feature.

Ultrawide (right) and main camera comparison

I am incredibly impressed with the Find X8 Ultra. It trades blows with the Xiaomi 15 Ultra at pretty much every turn; the hardware setup is very similar, with Xiaomi having the edge at longer telephoto focal lengths and Oppo pulling ahead in the more versatile (at least for me) 3-4x range.

Broadly, I think Oppo has the best image processing around right now. Its default mode is by far the most consistent and attractive take on what most people expect from phone photos, while Master mode gets you very close to well-edited output from a “real” camera. I often do prefer Xiaomi’s Leica Authentic mode, especially since it’s always right there in the default shooting mode, but it’s more heavy-handed with the vignetting and muted colours.

I am somewhat disappointed in the ultrawide. Oppo used to be a leader here — the Find X6 Pro had a relatively gigantic 1/1.56” sensor — but its last two flagship phones have each taken steps back. While the colour rendering is still very good, the photos don’t have the same dynamic range or depth that you get from the main camera or the telephotos, even if you can’t expect much focus control from an ultrawide.

One point in Xiaomi’s favour is the overall shooting experience with its photography kit, which gives you a real grip and shutter button. Oppo gets part of the way there with its built-in “Quick Button”, a simpler and more effective take on Apple’s Camera Control, but while it’s a welcome addition it doesn’t really hit the same spot for camera enthusiasts. Between that and the way I often found myself launching the camera app and needing to manually swap back to Master mode, I think Oppo has some work to do on enabling a more pro-friendly shooting style.

Still, if you’re just taking the phone on its own terms, the Find X8 Ultra is one of the best cameras I’ve ever tested. I imagine it will be getting a lot of use throughout 2025.