I hated this OnePlus camera mode, but now I see how wrong I was about it
I didn’t understand the XPan mode on a OnePlus phone when I tried it for the first time. In fact, I didn’t like it at all and passed it off as a silly stunt to promote OnePlus’ partnership with Hasselblad, which at the time did not live up to expectations.
I have recently been using the OnePlus 13and I think it has one of the best cameras on any OnePlus phone so far, so I challenged myself to give XPan another chance. I soon discovered that I had been completely wrong.
It’s not a history lesson
The XPan camera from Hasselblad and Fujifilm was first introduced in 1998, when it was the first dual-format 35mm camera you could buy, allowing you to take panoramic photographs in a full 65:24 aspect ratio, plus of photographs in standard format. Hasselblad promoted the XPan camera with the slogan “For a less square world” and you can read more about its history and impact. on your website.
OnePlus entered a partnership with Hasselblad in 2022 and the OnePlus 9 It was the first phone to showcase the couple’s efforts. He XPan mode has arrived on it in a software update shortly after launch, and it’s hidden in the More menu in the Camera app to this day, if you want to find it yourself. After that, you can drag it down to the main camera options bar if you’re really interested. Yo it was not interested, but I tried.
XPan has changed a bit for the OnePlus 13. You can take 15mm equivalent ultra-wide-angle photos, 23mm wide photos, or 73mm zoom photos. It seems to move away from the “pure” XPan experience, but in doing so it has made the mode more accessible. The interface is also unique, with a custom overlay to give it that unique XPan camera look, plus the screen flashes negative when you touch the shutter button, as if you were taking a “real” photo.
Am I sure it’s not a trick?
I don’t take panoramic photos very often and I couldn’t figure out how to use XPan mode to begin with. Am not the only oneand the more I read, observed and learned The more I get to know the XPan camera, the more I discovered not only how difficult it is to get familiar with the format, but also how rewarding it can be to experiment with it and how spectacular the photographs taken with it can look.
I was getting caught up. I love this quote by photographer Matthias Jambon-Puillet in an article about XPan cameras, “Damned for wanting one, damned for going broke buying one, damned for realizing you have no use for it in real life.” It is very true. The potential of XPan is exciting, but there’s no really obvious use case for XPan mode on the OnePlus 13, as most people will simply use the wide-angle camera in the app instead. But XPan was calling to me, and since I didn’t have to shell out for a real XPan camera to try it out, I went out to take photos.
I took a lot of XPan photos with the OnePlus 13 and enjoyed every moment. . I know I’ve changed as a photographer since then, and as I mature, maybe I’ll see more opportunities in these less common . methods, I get more excited to look at the world through a camera differently and I’m more willing to be “wrong.” Or maybe the OnePlus 13’s camera is much more capable and makes photos look better. There’s also a chance that Hasselblad has deepened its relationship with OnePlus, and the mode itself is simply better than when I first tried it.
It all means that I’m very glad I made the effort. However, here is a hurdle that has plagued XPan mode from the beginning. The photos are sized at 7872 x 2912 pixels, which makes them look terrible on anything other than the OnePlus 13’s screen, TV or monitor. Forget about sharing them on Instagram or another social network, they just look weird. XPan photos are big and wide, and seeing them in a small box on a social network doesn’t do them justice.
Should this stop you from trying XPan? At all. Take photos for your own enjoyment and to post on social media. Still, not everyone will “get” XPan. I’m the first to admit that I didn’t understand it at all, but I’m very happy to also say that I’ve seen the error of my ways. It’s another reason to buy the OnePlus 13, a phone that continues to impress me after more than two months of using it every