There have been many attempts to improve smartphone image quality, and most have been fatally flawed in one way or another. Products like the Sony QX100 and the Olympus AIR A01 clumsily attach and add unwanted bulk to phones. Phones with innovative built-in cameras, like the Nokia Lumia 1020 and Samsung Galaxy S4 Zoom, are mixed bags in terms of image quality and autofocus speed. Motorola's magnetic Moto Mod system, which allows you to extend the functionality of its Moto Z line using changeable backs, now gives us the latest attempt at improving the smartphone camera—the $249.99 Hasselblad True Zoom Camera. It adds a 10x zoom lens to your Moto, as well as a real flash, but it's still not a perfect solution.
DesignThe True Zoom looks like the front half of a digital camera. It's larger than most point-and-shoots, at 2.9 by 6 by 0.6 inches (HWD) and 5.1 ounces, because it needs to match the size of the Moto Z series of phablets, including the Moto Z Play Droid that is launching beside it. It's finished in steel gray and black, with a textured handgrip, power button, zoom rocker, and two-stage shutter release finished in metallic orange that matches the shutter button on high-end Hasselblads like the H6D-50c.
The back is flat, with the magnetic and data connections required to connect to your phone and a recessed, foam-lined circle that protects the phone's built-in camera. The back also reminds us that Hasselblad is celebrating its 75th anniversary as a camera maker in 2016, and the True Zoom is just one of the innovative products that it has launched this year.
The camera uses a 12-megapixel 1/2.3-inch image sensor, the same size you'll find in most pocket-friendly point-and-shoot models. The sensor is slightly larger than the 1/3-inch chips used by the majority of smartphones, but it's not worlds better than the 1-inch chip used by the best smartphone camera we've tested, the Panasonic CM1.
The big advantage over the Moto Z's built-in camera is a 10x optical zoom design. The lens covers about a 25-250mm (full-frame equivalent) field of view, with a variable f/3.5-5.6 aperture. The real advantage here is the zoom, as the camera is actually going to suffer in low light at its widest angle. The f/3.5 lens captures about a quarter of the light as the f/2 lens used by Moto Z phones at the equivalent wide-angle field of view. If you're in dim light and need to shoot at ISO 400 with the Moto Z camera, the Hasselblad will need to be pushed to close to ISO 1600 to make the same exposure, given an identical shutter speed.
The True Zoom has a dedicated flash, about as powerful as you get with a standard point-and-shoot camera—in other words, brighter and with longer reach than the LED flashes used by smartphones.
AppI tested the camera with a Moto Z Play and a Moto Z Droid. The phone automatically loads some software the first time you snap the True Zoom onto the back. You can then launch the camera app from the home screen as normal, or use the True Zoom's power button to launch the app.
It's a pretty basic app. Controls for the image settings (designated by the Hasselblad H logo), the self-timer, and the flash run across the left side. The shooting mode can be changed by tapping the camera button at the upper right corner; automatic, video, panorama, and manual shooting modes are available. You can switch to the front camera by tapping the icon at the bottom right corner.
When in basic mode you can choose between color, black-and-white, or Raw+JPG image capture. You can also select from a number of preset Scene modes that optimize exposure settings for different situations. Switching to the manual mode provides access to exposure value (EV) compensation, ISO control, manual focus, white balance adjustment, and shutter speed control.
I'm happy to see manual shooting controls on a phone camera, though I wish that you could repurpose the volume up/down buttons on the Moto Z to adjust EV compensation. But there is a big problem with the app. Aside from flash suppression, none of the settings are stored when you close it. If you want to shoot Raw, you'll need to change the camera setting to Raw every time you launch the app. That's frustrating, to say the least, if you prefer to shoot in Raw or have ready access to manual controls whenever you start the app.
Performance and Image QualityThe app requires about 3.5 seconds to start, focus and fire. That's longer than the Moto Z Droid's built-in camera, which does the same in about 1.3 seconds. The Moto Z also focuses almost instantly on its own, but the True Zoom is slow. It requires about 0.7-second to lock focus and fire a shot. That amount of lag is unacceptable for a modern point-and-shoot camera, and is by far the weakest aspect of the True Zoom.
Shot-to-shot time varies based on file format. There's no setting for continuous drive, but when you're shooting JPGs you can just hold the physical shutter button down and the TrueZoom will fire off shots at about 1.1 frames per second. You'll need to fire the shutter manually to keep going when shooting in Raw+JPG format; at best I was able to take a photo once every 3 seconds. And it's worth mentioning that shooting in high volume with the True Zoom can cause the Moto Z to get quite hot, to the point where I wouldn't feel comfortable putting it to my ear.
I used Imatest to check the sharpness of the True Zoom's lens. At its widest angle it scores 1,815 lines per picture height on our center-weighted sharpness test, better than the 1,800 lines we want to see; that's a solid result for a 12MP image. As with most point-and-shoot zoom designs, edges are on the soft side when zoomed out. Sharpness holds up when zoomed in; at the 5x setting (125mm) the lens manages 1,854 lines.
If you're a JPG shooter you won't have to worry about distortion. But if you shoot in Raw format you'll notice that there's severe barrel distortion—about 13 percent—at the widest angle. That gives images a near fish-eye look. The distortion goes away as the lens zooms toward its telephoto extreme. It's gone at the the 125mm setting.
Imatest also checks photos for noise. At lower ISO settings it's a nonissue, but noise adds grain and detracts from detail at higher settings. The True Zoom keeps noise under 1.5 percent through ISO 1600. Details are a bit blurry if you push the camera that far, but you'll find that you get solid image quality through ISO 800. Try to avoid shooting at ISO 1600 and 3200 when working in JPG format. The photo below is a JPG shot at ISO 1000.
In Raw (DNG) format the camera doesn't apply noise reduction to images, but it also doesn't apply any sharpening. We use Lightroom to evaluate Raw files, with default settings enabled. That knocks out some color noise and applies a bit of sharpening, but as you can see if you click through the ISO test images in the slideshow that accompanies this review, photos could stand to take some additional sharpening. Still, you can expect strong image quality (for a camera sensor of this size and resolution) through ISO 1600 when shooting in Raw format. You should avoid ISO 3200, even when shooting Raw.
You'll also have room to work with images shot in Raw. You can adjust color balance and exposure, save details from highlights, and pull out information from the shadows. The shot above, captured at dusk, is a good example of what shooting in Raw can do for you. I was able to process the photo in Lightroom so that the colors of the sky pop and details in the shadowy train platform are visible.
Video is recorded at 1080p quality at 30fps in MP4 format. Footage is crisp, but there are some issues. The True Zoom has a stereo mic, but audio is on the quiet side, even when standing right next to the camera. More of an issue is the sound of the lens zooming in and out—it's loud and grating, so you should avoid zooming while recording if at all possible. The video mode does not take advantage of optical image stabilization system that steadies stills, so handheld footage has a bit of a jitter to it. You can enable electronic image stabilization, which reduces the jitter, but also crops the footage, limiting the field of view at the widest angle. Of course, if you are just looking to capture wide footage, you can use the Moto Z's camera to record video in 4K, something you can't do with the True Zoom.
ConclusionsIf you're looking at the Hasselblad True Zoom as a solution to offer significant image quality improvements over the built-in camera in your Moto Z, you're going to be disappointed. The 1/2.3-inch image sensor isn't significantly larger than a smartphone sensor, and while it certainly has an advantage in high ISO shooting, that's negated by the smaller aperture offered by the True Zoom's lens. Its real benefit is the zoom lens. A digital zoom, offered by many smartphones, typically degrades image quality, while the Hasselblad's optical zoom design keeps images crisp, even when shooting distant subjects.
If you find a long zoom desirable and don't want to carry a camera in addition to your smartphone, the True Zoom is an elegant solution. But it's one that's not without flaws. Slow autofocus is a big downside, especially since modern smartphones and digital cameras alike tend to offer very quick focus. If you prefer to take manual control over exposure, or simply like to shoot in Raw format, the app is another issue—it's a pain to have to change the settings to suit your preferences every single time you start the app. But if you're willing to put up with these drawbacks, and yearn for the versatility that a long zoom lens in a smartphone, the True Zoom is worth a look.
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Source: Hasselblad True Zoom Camera for Moto Z
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