LG Optimus G Pro preview: First look

13 megapixel camera with HDR stills and video

The camera on the LG Optimus G Pro is a 13MP unit and can snap photos with a maximum resolution of 4208 x 3120. It can record FullHD videos too.

The interface is refreshed from the previous interface of the Optimus G, but still retains the same button layout. You get a column on the right with the still/video toggle, a virtual shutter key and gallery shortcut on the right and a column with five shortcuts on the left.

You can edit the top four of these shortcuts so you can have one-tap access to the features you use most. By default, the top shortcut toggles between the front and back cameras, the second activates the "cheese shutter" (which lets you snap a photo by saying "Cheese!", "LG" or a few other words), the Time catch shot (we'll get to it in a moment), shooting mode and the settings shortcut.

You can pick between one of four shooting modes - Normal, HDR, Panorama and Continuous shot.

The Time catch shot feature (also called Time machine camera) does something pretty unique - it snaps a photo, but also records several photos of what happened before you hit the shutter key. You can save any of the photos on that list that you like. This way, even if you missed the moment, the LG Optimus G will have captured it.

Anyway, here are several camera samples we shot with the 13MP camera on the LG Optimus G.Pro.

LG Optimus G Pro camera samples

If the lighting conditions are not perfect, you can try the HDR mode, here's how it performs:

HDR off • HDR on

The video camera can record 1080p videos at 30fps. Live effects let you do real-time effects (that is, ones that are visible in the viewfinder as you shoot the video, not ones applied during post-processing).

You can either use funny face effects (with automatic face detection) or do a sort-of green-screen effect by replacing the static background of the video with something more exciting (this works best with a tripod as shaking the camera causes the whole image to change).

Check out this FullHD video sample from the Optimus G Pro.

Additionally, the Optimus G Pro features HDR video recording as well. It's well capable of recording them at full HD resolution, and we shot an HDR sample as well. Check it out below.

Interestingly, the phone supports dual-video recording, which means you are able to capture video with both cameras simultaneously. The result is a single 1080p recording, which looks quite like a video call screen. The feed from the primary camera takes up the whole screen, while the feed from the secondary one appears in a small box in the bottom left corner. And the good thing is that you can actually swap which camera is primary, and which secondary.