What you need to know
- Huawei claim to have accidentally passed off DSLR photos as "captured on Huawei" shots.
- The mistake was discovered when a user on social media traced the photo back to a Nikon D850 via its EXIF data on 500px.
- Huawei has apologized and says it was a mistake.
Huawei has been dinged for misleading users by passing off photos shared by a DSLR as shot on its own smartphones. The images were spotted on a video shared by the firm to Weibo showing off pictures shot on Huawei smartphones.
The problem? Not all of those pictures were shot on Huawei smartphones, or even on any smartphone in general. One user decided to investigate after spotting a picture that looked familiar, eventually discovering it on 500px and learning via its EXIF data that it was captured by a $3,000 Nikon D850.
As per the South China Morning Post:
Huawei has since apologized on Weibo, saying that the photos were "wrongly marked" due to "an oversight by the editor." It said the images were intended to encourage people to share their works on Huawei's online gallery.
Well, that's all then. It's all a big misunderstanding, nothing to see here.
If this sounds familiar, it's because Huawei had a similar mishap with the P9 a couple of years back. The company told Android Police then that:
It has recently been highlighted that an image posted to our social channels was not shot on the Huawei P9. The photo, which was professionally taken while filming a Huawei P9 advert, was shared to inspire our community. We recognize though that we should have been clearer with the captions for this image. It was never our intention to mislead. We apologize for this and we have removed the image.
And Huawei also had a similar whoopsie with its P30 camera last year, sharing DSLR photos in a manner that appeared to pass them off as P30 shots.
When called out, the firm told Android Authority then:
We would like to reiterate that those are, in fact, only teaser posters, and are only intended to hint at the unique new features that will come with the Huawei P30 series. Huawei has acquired the licenses to the original images and the posters are artistic renditions of said features only. We'd like to take this opportunity to thank the media for their interest in our posters.
As a smartphone company that makes really good cameras, it doesn't make sense for Huawei to pass keep persistently undermining themselves at a time where trust in them is perilously low. On the other hand, maybe the dog just really likes their homework.
