When asked about the best phone for concerts, the answer is often a premium flagship phone like the Galaxy S24 Ultra and iPhone 15 Pro Max. Some may suggest older flagship phones with a telephoto and periscope camera, and there’s a small number of mid-range phones that have good telephoto cameras. realme started this trend with the 12 Pro+ and its 3x periscope camera, and the 13 Pro+ gets a better periscope camera that makes it suitable for concerts.
While we acknowledged in our review that the realme 13 Pro+ is on the pricey side, I argue that its pricing can be justified with what the Periscope camera is capable of. To get my point across, I used the realme 13 Pro+ for three concerts: two as part of the audience and one as part of the media. Each concert has a different scenario, allowing me to explore the full potential of the realme 13 Pro+.
Concert 1: Coke Studio with NewJeans
I was seated in Lower Box at MOA Arena for the Coke Studio Concert with NewJeans. I was given a good one, as I was seated at the edge of the right side of the extended stage, which is a good opportunity to see how good is the realme 13 Pro+ with its 6x hybrid zoom.
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For the resulting footage, I noticed microjitters especially when shooting video at 6x zoom. It is less apparent at 3x zoom, which shows that the OIS on the periscope camera has its limitations in keeping footage stable while shooting handheld. It was expected for a midrange device, but a good performance for the realme 13 Pro+ nonetheless.
Comparing it to my experience with the realme 12 Pro+ when I brought it to Singapore for Taylor Swift’s concert, focusing and exposure to the realme 13 Pro+ have significantly improved. Autoexposure was accurate, saving me time from manually adjusting exposure on the fly. The colors are close enough to what my eyes see from the Lower Box area of MOA Arena–which is also a big improvement over the realme 12 Pro+.
Concert 2: Red Velvet FanCon
For this concert, I was at VIP standing, just a few rows in front of the extended stage. This meant that I had a closer view of the members of Red Velvet, allowing me to take “fancam” shots of them performing up close.
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While I was much closer to the stage compared to when I watched the Coke Studio concert, it was more challenging because I was standing up for the entire concert, and I had to stretch my arms up high since fellow concertgoers were doing the same thing.
Those factors gave me a challenge in keeping my footage stable–especially when shooting at 6x zoom. Microjitters were more apparent in this scenario, so it boiled down to how stable my hands were to take stable footage.
Save for the stability challenge, the realme 13 Pro+ performed very well for a midrange phone, and this is the scenario where I was able to push the phone to its limits. As for photos, I was very impressed–my shots of the members were well-detailed with the colors being accurate. Again, getting such results on a midrange phone is by itself already impressive–but of course, there’s still room for improvement.
Concert 3: Globe GFest with BINI
Unlike previous concerts, I attended this one as part of the media. This made me think of mounting the realme 13 Pro+ on top of my mirrorless camera so that I can record video on the phone while shooting stills with my camera. I was using a 85mm lens on my mirrorless camera, which is close to the equivalent focal length of the realme 13 Pro+’s periscope camera, making the latter a good guide for me to frame my shots–all while shooting stills.
How did it fare? I noticed that the realme 13 Pro+ has less stabilization problems at 6x zoom ( Pantropiko performance), and the native 3x zoom (Karera performance) looks more stable. This shows that mounting the realme 13 Pro+ on a stabilizer (in this case, my mirrorless camera) makes the video footage more stable.
As for photos, I was able to get better shots since the realme 13 Pro+ is more stable with the setup I was using during the concert. The setup also helped me frame my shots better as well, saving me time from needing to straighten photos.
Final Thoughts
As one of the few brands brave enough to put a periscope camera on a midrange phone, realme did a great job with the 13 Pro+, addressing most of the shortcomings I saw with its predecessor. Using it for three concerts shows that while it still has room for improvement–especially with video stabilization–the realme 13 Pro’s camera performance shows that we’ve come a long way when it comes to midrange phones. It’s nice to see more midrange phones ditching filler cameras for more useful telephoto shooters.
We’re looking forward to midrange phones being more competitive in the camera segment by equipping more useful telephoto (or periscope) cameras–and we hope that we see more of these midrange phones have a more competitive price to give users more options for taking photos in concerts and in their travels.
