I Went Hands-On With the OnePlus 15’s Camera and You Need to See the Results

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November 1, 2025

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By Aritro Sarker

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D OnePlus 15 This is the next premium handset from the Chinese phone maker, and I just got my hands on it. To give its cameras a whirl, I took it for a quick spin through a hip corner of Los Angeles.

Table of Contents

OnePlus 15’s Camera

The big advantage of the OnePlus 15 is that it is one of the first to run Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5Qualcomm’s next generation chip High-end phoneswhich was launched in September. The system-on-a-chip has a big impact on how photos come out, processing every image captured through the rear camera.

The OnePlus 15 has three 50-megapixel rear cameras, along with a front-facing selfie shooter, and I used them to take photos of flora and fauna around me. A certain level of polish is expected though Premium phone cameraThere’s something new about this phone: It’s the first major OnePlus handset released since the company’s partnership with Hasselblad ended. Over the years, OnePlus has incorporated the iconic Swedish camera maker’s color science and image calibration into its cameras.

With Hasselblad gone, the OnePlus 15 features the debut of the DetailMax Engine, a highly-titled computational processing system that aims to “truly render scenes without excessive beauty or distortion,” according to the company. Official blog post explained

OnePlus 15’s Camera

This means a new page for taking photos on a OnePlus phone, which makes me want to know what the OnePlus 15 is capable of. Join me on a casual tour of a vibrant Los Angeles neighborhood, capturing the kind of snapshots that make up most of everyone’s camera roll. I need to spend more time with the device to give a comprehensive review.

An outdoor scene of tables and sidewalks outside a restaurant, showing a large tree and heat lamps for outdoor tables. — Silver Lake House, a Thai restaurant in Los Angeles, is a mix of shapes and textures.
OnePlus 15’s Camera
David Lumb/CNET

Our first shot is outside Silver Lake House, a neighborhood Thai restaurant. While I obviously can’t resist the slight Dutch angle here, the color mix looks distinct and not overly saturated — a win for true-to-life processing. I love the way the OnePlus 15 captures light and shadows filtering through the trees, and the camera handles lens flare well without overexposing that area. Also, notice the reflection of the chrome on the heat lamp.

Tchochkes adorn a window, while the window overlooks the interior of the restaurant. — Elephant and cactus vases to hold small plants adorn the window sills of the Silver Lake House.
OnePlus 15’s Camera
David Lumb/CNET

Close-up of knick-knack plant vases on window sills overlooking restaurant interior tables. The lighting is really balanced, bright in the front of the restaurant outside and dim inside — but the colors and details are still visible inside. You can pick out some detail in the reflection of the street window behind me.

An old car with smooth lines and a coating of dirt stands on the side of a narrow neighborhood road. — A 1960s Ford Thunderbird sits on a curb in Los Angeles.
OnePlus 15’s Camera
David Lumb/CNET

An old car with smooth lines and a coating of dirt stands on the side of a narrow neighborhood street. — A 1960s Ford Thunderbird sits on a curb in Los Angeles.
OnePlus 15’s Camera
David Lumb/CNET

I couldn’t resist spotting this 1960s Ford Thunderbird sitting idly in the street, a cruising car from the past resting in a hipper corner of LA. Note the texture of the dirt streaks on the paint against the shiny chromed metal surrounding the taillights. More importantly, despite the camera’s focus being on the foreground, the OnePlus 15 still manages to capture the blue sky in the background, complete with cloud detail.

View of a park with grass, a sandy fenced dog park and buildings on a tree-lined hill above. — The Silver Lake Reservoir Dog Park is not very active on the afternoon of Halloween 2025.
David Lumb/CNET

I took this photo of a nearby dog park with an ultrawide lens, which preserves the humdrum detail in the brown dirt among the sprouting grass below.

A close-up shot of a dog park shows a bone-shaped bench placed in the sand — A zoomed-in shot of the Silver Lake Reservoir Dog Park.
**OnePlus 15’s Camera**
David Lumb/CNET

Here’s a photo of the same dog park I took zoomed in at 7x magnification. It has a lot of detail and color. But we can go further!

The end of a bench seen through a chain-linked fence. — Computer, improve! A zoom-in shot at the extreme end of the OnePlus 15’s telephoto and crop zoom capabilities.
**OnePlus 15’s Camera**
David Lumb/CNET

Here’s a photo of the dog park at 120x magnification, as far as this phone can zoom. The image looked grainy on the phone screen when I shot it, but the post-processing in that DetailMax engine did relative wonders, making it semi-acceptable–despite a lot of blur. Link To be sure, it’s not a great image — it’s almost painterly — but the fact that it can zoom in so far and still deliver a photo with something recognizable is amazing.

A selfie of a man with a beard and glasses standing in front of a wide, shallow reservoir sitting in a concrete basin. — A selfie at South Lake Reservoir in Los Angeles.
**OnePlus 15’s Camera**
David Lumb/CNET

Here’s a real selfie of you. I think this photo has good detail and shadows, but what impresses me the most are the mountains in the distance, which can be seen somewhat with the smog (sea level, not smoke) of Los Angeles obscuring the air, not the OnePlus selfie camera.

A man in a black sweatshirt takes a selfie in a residential area. — Night selfie on the streets of Los Angeles.
**OnePlus 15’s Camera**
David Lumb/CNET

For comparison, here’s a selfie I took at night. Color is fine, with decent details in the foreground, though they start to blur behind me — note the bricks in the lower right, the light pole posters in the middle-left, and especially the buildings over my shoulder.

A street in Los Angeles at night, simple white light patterns against bright neon lights. — A night shot on the streets of Los Angeles shows off the OnePlus 15’s ability to capture detail in low light and various colors.
**OnePlus 15’s Camera**
David Lumb/CNET

Here’s the obligatory night shot of a Los Angeles street. While the city will never be dark enough to test the phone’s ability to capture constellations in the night sky, it does show the contrast between warm streetlights and bright neon. The details of the stucco pockmarks on the bowling alley walls are clear, even from across the street. Look closely at the texture of the road pavement. It is a grainy mixture of gray with white spots. All the trash in the city saved by OnePlus 15’s brilliant new camera.