It is now turning into a yearly ritual that Huawei would be busted each year trying to promote its smartphone’s camera prowess with images shot on DSLR cameras. The Chinese tech giant recently promoted a photography contest with a video featuring impressive pictures that Huawei claimed were “taken with Huawei smartphones.” However, some of the pictures weren’t actually captured by a Huawei phone camera but were shot on a DSLR camera.

The controversial images were among image featured in a promotional video for Huawei’s photography contest in China. However, Weibo user Jamie-hua, aka Huapeng Zhao who won second place in the 2018 iPhone Photography Awards with a photo taken with an iPhone 6 thought some of the photos looked like what he had seen before and decided to fact check. He then discovered that two of the photos were shot by a Nikon D850 DSLR camera valued at $3,000.

Credit for the two contentious photos was given to photographer Su Tie. The photographer has worked in partnership with Huawei in the past. We recall a similar controversy in January 2019 when the company released some samples shot in the artic by Su Tie that was purportedly from the Mate 20X’s shutter. Some of the pictures were later discovered to have been shot by a Nikon DSLR camera.

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Huawei has since apologized on Weibo, saying that the photos were “wrongly marked” due to “an oversight by the editor.” It said the images were intended to encourage people to share their works on Huawei’s online gallery. The company has now updated the original video to remove the line that says the photos came from Huawei phones. It still says they were drawn from Huawei’s Next-Image community, though. When asked, a Huawei representative referred us to the contest rules in Chinese, which state that “you can publish photos taken with any equipment in the Next-Image community.

However, this incident brings to memory, Huawei’s infamous DSLR deceitful camera sample used in promoting the Huawei P9. Sometime around July 2016 when Huawei was promoting its P9 flagship, the company shared a photo on its Google+ page which was purportedly captured by the P9’s dual rear shutters. The photo was indeed stunning just like these ones, with crisp clear details downright impressive for a smartphone camera. Unfortunately, it turned out the shot wasn’t taken by a smartphone camera but was actually from a $4,500 Canon EOS 5D Mark III shutter. Huawei may not have any phone camera on the same level with a DSLR camera, but the company is edging closer to that standard employing an innovative camera and AI technology. The company’s new P40 Pro flagship ranks as the best phone in terms of camera, according to DXOMark.

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Sometime around July 2016 when Huawei was promoting its P9 flagship, the company shared a photo on its Google+ page which was purportedly captured by the P9’s dual rear shutters. The photo was indeed stunning, with crisp clear details downright impressive for a smartphone camera. Unfortunately, it turned out the shot wasn’t taken by a smartphone camera but was actually from the all-powerful Canon EOS 5D Mark III shutter. The DSLR camera was worth $4500 back then. Well, it seems Huawei took that embarrassing incident as a challenge to develop a smartphone camera with DSLR-like quality as the company has hinted that they are working on it.

Huawei’s CEO Yu Chengdong (Richard Yu) made this known in an interview with Android Authority at the just concluded CES 2018. The CEO hinted during the interview that camera tech and AI integration were the next big battlegrounds and opportunities for all smartphone manufacturers. He specifically stated that the innovative company wants to bring DSLR like focal lengths and zoom to the mobile ecosystem. Of course, Huawei has made tremendous progress with AI integration, launching its latest Kirin 970 chip and EMUI 8.0 ROM with AI capabilities.

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Huawei won’t be the first to launch a smartphone with a camera with DSLR-like experience, though. That has already been seen on Panasonic’s CM1 and Nokia’s Lumia 1020 but in modern times, we can’t say if the feature will become a trend. We’ll wait to see how that plays out. The feature could be on the next Huawei P20 flagship which is expected to be launched soon.

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Decades ago, memories were saved using products from American photography company, Kodak. The company’s tagline ”Kodak moment” even made into common lexicon to refer to personal events like the birth of a child or weddings that needed to be recorded for future reference. The company later filed for bankruptcy protection after years of struggling in the photography business due in part to their late entry into digital photography. Now out of bankruptcy, the company has launched a smartphone called Ektra which coincides with the 75th anniversary of the Ektra brand.

The Ektra is a camera first before a phone. Sporting a 21MP f/2.0 main shooter with Kodak non-reflective coating, optical image stabilisation, 4K recording, PDAF, and HDR. The Ektra does pack a punch.

The phone’s viewfinder is even designed like a DSLR and features a bunch of familiar presets like portrait mode, smart auto, manual mode, sports, macro, landscape, and  Bokeh. Kodak says the DSLR dial even has haptic feedback. The camera’s manual mode allows the user adjust shutter speed and ISO rating. Up front, there is a 13MP shooter for selfies.

Kodak also bundles the phone with a couple of photography apps like Google’s Snapseed for editing your pictures.

Now to what makes it a phone. The Ektra is fitted with a 5” FHD display with Gorilla Glass protection, runs Android 6.0 Marshmallow, has a Helio X20 processor clocked at 2.3GHz, 3GB of RAM, 32GB of storage which is expandable via a micro SD card slot because you need all the space you can get to put all those awesome photos. There is a 3000mAh battery under the hood and a USB type-C port.

The phone looks well made. There is gorilla glass on the steel-rimmed lens as well and the back is covered with leather with the Kodak logo engraved on it, that curves up to the lower part of the front. It also appears to have a dedicated camera button sitting on the right side of the phone along the silver frame that runs around it.

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Kodak has announced a bunch of real leather cases for the phone that are designed like old camera bags. The Ektra will be available by December starting in Europe and will sport a £450/€500/$550/3713 Yuan.

Below are some shots taken with the Ektra.

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