The Excellent ZenFone 3 Camera Captures Beautiful Boracay

I recently had the opportunity to use ZenFone 3 from ASUS on my visit to Philippines. It is time to share the pictures with you! ZenFone 3 has 16 MP rear camera and 8 MP front camera. Other highlights are World’s First 14nm Snapdragon processor with with 64-Bit Octa-Core CPU @2.0Ghz. For me the camera is the most important feature and that is what I am going to focus in this post. The phone is priced at 22K Indian Rupees.

I loved the Auto Mode

I lug a lot of gear on my trips. Still there are times when I wish to just take a quick picture in the auto mode with a cell phone. Below are some pictures clicked in the auto mode with ZenFone 3, I will leave the judgement to you!

I was in a hurry when I clicked this picture. I was getting late to go for the evening party at TBEX and here was a glorious view waiting to be clicked. That is when having a good cell phone which can click beautiful pictures in auto mode comes in handy.

The boats are known as Paraw and they are popular with tourists for sunset sails! I clickd this picture again in auto mode as our group was about to away from this spot in Boracay, Philippines.

I think I clicked this picture in auto mode because I was simply stunned with the beauty of the Puka Island in Boracay, Philippines. I didn’t think at all, I simply wanted to click!

I was in a hurry to take this picture so that I could get the two kites in the frame. Once again you know what happened, I used the auto mode! I was not thinking.

Boracay is so stunning that I was taking two pictures for every three steps I walked! No wonder I used the auto mode a lot!

Below is a more extensive selection of pictures clicked in Auto Mode on ZenFone 3.

Every hotel that was at the beach front would put out sand art every day! I was quite smitten by this one!

I stayed at Shangri-la Boracay for one night but they offered our group complimentary spa and their Filipino Hilot was divine!

I had a long layover at Changi while coming back to Delhi. I put it to good use by exploring all the terminals! The only editing I did on the ZenFone 3 pictures was increasing brightness or straightening the horizon. Most of the pictures in this post are straight from the camera.

The HDR Mode

My next most preferred mode was the HDR. As I love to click landscapes HDR is an obvious choice.

I feel the HDR pictures come out really well without looking completely unreal! I don’t like those HDR pictures much where everything looks completely overblown. The ZenFone 3 gives good HDR pictures at the click of a button.

Puka Island was a thing of beauty. I clicked this picture a little later on the island, so had the good sense to change the mode and try HDR!

On our last day at Boracay, Typhoon Haima was making a landfall. We were not in its path and yet the weather in Boracay also turned stormy. I used the HDR mode to capture the changing weather.

This was the same day as when the typhoon was making the landfall. Only a few of us were out that morning.

And even in that weather someone was out at the beach to do the art! I think they kept it simple because of the bad weather!

After the HDR it is time to showcase the pictures using the ‘effects’ mode.

The Effect Mode

The camera has an option of sitting to effect mode where we can choose from Hue, vintage, cartoon and many more modes.

This was the walkway at the Lind Hotel which led to the infinity pool! I used the ‘hue’ effect and I quite liked the result!

Once again it is the Lind Hotel, the view from my balcony with the ‘hue effect.’ I quite liked the end result in this case!

I was a fan of Shangri-La because they were not using plastic containers in the bathroom. Using reusable bottles is good for the environment. However, a normal picture looked quite boring. I liked my ‘vintage effect’ for the picture.

The Super Resolution

This is the result of using ‘super resolution’ mode on the ZenFone 3. As I as mostly shooting landscapes I did not get as much opportunity for using this mode. But I love the butterfly picture!

The Depth of Field Mode

Getting the bokeh effect with the depth of field is a lot of fun! That I can get the effect without taking out my DSLR makes it even more fun.

To sum up, I thoroughly enjoyed using the ZenFone 3 camera. I use the cell phone when I am in a hurry and I simply want to put the camera on and click. I loved it that ZenFone 3 takes beautiful pictures in the auto mode. But for someone who needs more features, ZenFone 3 gives you many options right from HDR to Depth of Field and much more in between.

PS. I was given the phone for review on a returnable basis. All the pictures clicked with the phone and the thoughts are mine!