Huawei tries to pass off DSLR image as a Huawei P9 photo

It’s imperative for smartphone brands to build hype around their devices. Aside from building an innovative product, a little excitement around the launch is needed to help smartphone manufacturers not drown in other similar launches. But there are some times when hype goes horribly, horribly wrong.

Huawei recently posted the above photo to its Google+ page, purportedly shot from the company’s new Honor P9 with Leica certified rear camera. The caption read “We managed to catch a beautiful sunrise with Deliciously Ella. The #HuaweiP9’s dual Leica cameras makes taking photos in low light conditions like this a pleasure. Reinvent smartphone photography and share your sunrise pictures with us. #OO.”

Unfortunately for Huawei, as Android Police pointed out, images posted on Google+ retain their EXIF data, ie data that tells you what kind of camera was used and what settings it was configured to. Not only that, the EXIF data is available right there next to the photo. And the numbers for this particular photo read that it was actually clicked from a Canon EOS 5D Mark III, using a EF70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM lens.

To put that discrepancy into perspective, just the body of the DSLR is available for Rs 1,74,255 on Amazon India, while the lens is priced at Rs 1,42,995. The Huawei P9, however, starts at about Rs 40,000.

Since being outed, Huawei has apologised to its fans saying, “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.”