Oneplus 11 – Raw plus review – Johnson's Photography

I just got my Oneplus 11 last week. My pixel 3 which I have used for more than 10 years, finally give up on me.

This review will be only be touching raw plus feature since most blogs had touched on most topics except raw plus.

Is raw plus a gimmick? Let’s see and I will discuss on this.
What is the different? 12 bit raw with Hasselblad color calibration. Another similar model is Oppo Find x X5 which claim 20 bit raw with Hasselblad color calibaration. Never tried so no comment.
What does 12 bit raw give you in marketing? Better tonal
Why Oneplus 11? For similar Hasselblad color calibration, I want Oppo Find X6.. Since my phone is spoilt, I cannot wait until global unit is out. Anyway, at the point of the review, only Oneplus 11 is available with a newer sensor IMX890. Claim to be a better sensor compare to IMX766. There is claim that IMX890 can produce a sharper picture and can focus better in low light as claimed by some reviewer.

The above reason drove me to buy Oneplus 11 at that point of time. Did I regret? No, after I used the raw plus in my editing, it is just fantastic. In fact, I am impressed. It is not a gimmick. I am happy to report.

What do I benefit from the raw plus?

White balance – I noticed I did not tweak the WB for most of the time. It just look right.
Recovery – Highlight, shadow, white and black is impressive without very much noise penalty. Note: Some raw files do not let you recover as much highlight/white as you like. Once clipped, it is gone. Raw plus normally allowed you to recover most details, although look blown off. Recovering the shadow often do not end up muddy. Dynamic range is impressive. But I think i do not want to over do it as it may end up HDR.
Color – This one is a magic. I do not know what to say, it is often pleasing to my eyes. Most impressive is skin tone. It is the hardest part in editing. Here I have little worry, the skin tone just looks good. If it is not good, just play with white balance and everything will be fine.
Sharpness – Very good
Noise – Yet to test. ISO400 for now is not something I will object and the tonal smoothness and color detail preserved
Tonal – In my opinion, love the buttery smoothness.

What is no good?

I detected 2 pictures that have artifacts or should I say trailing edge artifacts. Maybe because it is doing stack. Anyway, easily corrected.
Most of the time, the black is crushed down. Luckily easily recoverable by post editing.

Below are some pictures shows JPEG pictures edited from raw plus. Some are high dynamic range and some are low light.