The OnePlus 7 Pro represents OnePlus' biggest ever leap in camera hardware. It has the 48MP Sony IMX 586 as its main rear camera alongside an 8MP 3X zoom telephoto camera and a 16MP 117° ultra wide-angle camera. In our review, we noted how much more versatility these extra cameras afford, but the camera quality at launch was average at best. Through post-launch updates, OnePlus has improved the image quality, and we've also learned that they plan on adding new features in further updates. With the Android Q DP3 update, the OnePlus Camera received a version bump to 3.8.1, adding a new "tripod long exposure" setting and laying the groundwork for a new "Focus Tracking" feature.
An APK teardown can often predict features that may arrive in a future update of an application, but it is possible that any of the features we mention here may not make it in a future release. This is because these features are currently unimplemented in the live build and may be pulled at any time by OnePlus in a future build.
OnePlus Camera 3.8.1 Changes
So far, we've noted several changes to OxygenOS with the Android Q DP3 build. For instance, ambient display has been updated with "smart display" options, a new Customization settings page has been added, the built-in screen recorder has received new recording quality settings, a new gesture and Doze mode option were added, and an app dedicated to managing your games was included. There's also an updated Gallery app, and of course, an updated Camera app.
Users who downloaded the Camera app extracted from Android Q DP3 noticed that a new "Tripod long exposure" setting has been added. When enabled, this setting allows Nightscape mode to take 8-30s long exposure shots. This is only possible when the phone is held exceptionally steady or on a tripod, though.
Another new setting that I discovered is called "Focus Tracking." When this feature is enabled, the camera app will keep "moving people, cats and dogs always in focus." According to the code, Focus Tracking was also developed to track the movement of teddy bears, which don't make sense to track in the real-world but make sense as test subjects for development. Focus Tracking works in both Photo and Video modes.
Left: OnePlus Camera 3.8.1 with new Tripod long exposure setting. Right: Same camera version, but with the Focus Tracking feature we manually activated. Screenshots by Max Weinbach//XDA.
Although we managed to activate the feature on the OnePlus 7 Pro running Android Q DP3, we don't know which OnePlus devices will support the feature once it officially launches. Here's a screen recording by Max Weinbach. He's running the Android Q beta rooted with Magisk on his OnePlus 7 Pro.
If you're interested in getting the new Tripod long exposure feature, you can download the latest version of the OnePlus Camera app from APKMirror. Since the Focus Tracking feature is buggy, we won't be showing how to activate it just yet.
Thanks to PNF Software for providing us a license to use JEB Decompiler, a professional-grade reverse engineering tool for Android applications.