Smartphone brand Huawei was recently busted yet again for allegedly passing of images shot on a DSLR as camera samples. The company apparently used the image while promoting a photography contest with a video. The video, meant to encourage users to take part on the competition, featured a bunch of impressive photographs that were “taken with Huawei smartphones”. However, it was later revealed that not all the images used in the footage were taken on a phone.
As per the report by Abacus News, the controversial pictures were spotted by Weibo user Jaimie-hua, also known as Huapeng Zhao. Zhao is known for winning second place in the 2018 iPhone Photography Awards with a photograph taken on an iPhone 6. While watching the video, Zhao thought he had seen some of the pictures before and started to look for them. He then found out two of the photos were actually shot with a Nikon D850 DSLR camera valued at $3,000, a lot more than the price of the brand’s smartphones.
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The two photos were also shot by photographer Su Tie. Tie had previously worked for Huawei as well. A similar controversy erupted over a year ago in January 2019, when the company released more sample shots by Su Tie. The images were passed off as pictures taken by the Huawei Mate 20X. However, some of those pictures too were discovered to be taken by a Nikon DSLR Camera.
Another incident was when Huawei used DSLR camera samples to promote the Huawei P9 in July 2016. The photo shared on Google Plus by Huawei was said to be captured by the Huawei P9’s dual rear cameras. However, the details seemed to be too crisp for a smartphone picture at the time. It later turned out that the pictures were actually taken on a Canon EOS 5D Mark III camera worth $4,500.
Huawei apologizes
The company has since apologized for the mistake on Weibo, stating that the photos were wrongly marked as a result of an editor’s mistake. The company mentioned that the images were intended to encourage people to share their works on Huawei’s online gallery. Huawei has now updated the video, removing the “taken by Huawei phones” line.
