Gorgeous ‘Huawei P9’ image actually taken using R48k Canon DSLR

Huawei’s social media department is under fire today thanks to a rather beautiful photograph.

The image of a woman holding her hair in fading sunlight was part of a Huawei P9 pseudo-advertisement posted on Google+. The post 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

Note: Huawei has since removed the post from Google+.

With that purple prose, you’d think the camera used was the Huawei P9, right? Well, this wasn’t quite the case.

Thankfully for Google+ users, the website also records EXIF data — data used by photographers to record settings, the time the photo was taken and of course, the camera used. After looking through these details, the image was in fact taken using a Canon EOS 5D Mark III — a full-blown R48 000 professional DSLR — not the Huawei P9.

Whoops.

Huawei, after it was left a bit red-faced, responded to Android Police’s initial article.

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 recognise though that we should have been clearer with the captions for this image. It was never our intention to mislead. We apologise for this and we have removed the image.

The advert in question is available for viewing above.

So, what’s the real story here?

Although Huawei argues that it wasn’t intending to “mislead” its community, that’s precisely the problem here. Some users may not know how to find the EXIF data on Google+. Some users might explicitly attach the image to the Huawei P9. And why shouldn’t you? The post is all about the Huawei P9 and its camera capabilities.

Image: Android Police

Intentions aside, The fact that companies are willing to put blurred lines ahead of customer experience is the real issue at hand.

We’ve had our fair share of time with the Huawei P9 already, pitting it against other dual-camera phones likes the LG G5, and the camera is a stellar operator bound by the confines of a smartphone body. However, we were never quite able to get a shot quite as gorgeous as this.

Related: Huawei P9 vs LG G5 camera shootout: which mobile snapper is best?

While Huawei might be the latest smartphone giant in hot water, it definitely isn’t the first. Nokia faced similar backlash back in 2012 with its camera-rig filmed Lumia 920 video, purporting to laud the phone’s OIS system. Nokia later issued an apology, also suggesting that the video was “never the company’s intention to deceive anyone”.

Perhaps the real takeaway here is the moral for consumers: don’t be sucked into an advertisement — especially of a phone’s capabilities — without questioning everything about it.