Weaving the Big Picture

Nilofer Khan reviews the much-awaited XPan mode, an interesting update to the OnePlus 9 series camera systems.

- Nilofer Khan

OnePlus XPan Mode

Back in 1998, Hasselblad had partnered with Fujifilm for the XPan cameras that could take photographs in the 24 x 36 mm format, along with a 24 x 65mm format, all on the same film, resulting in cinematic panoramas. Last month, OnePlus and Hasselblad rolled out a recreated version of this feature for its 9 and 9 Pro phones— the XPan mode.

A Blend of Retro and Digital

This mode is a software-base feature rather than a hardware one. It means that once you update your phone, you will see the XPan mode in your swipe-up menu. It offers an aspect ratio of 65:24, the same as the original Hasselblad XPan camera.

So how does it work? The mode employs the 48MP main camera and 50MP ultrawide camera instead of the default 12MP camera. It then automatically crops your frame to give you a panorama. The final photograph has a resolution of over 20MP. With 30mm, it produces 7552 × 2798 resolution, whereas the 45mm images are 7872 × 2916.