Huawei's "super-camera phone" brings dead war hero to life by Paul Lewis.
He was a general at the tender age of 24, known as the "boy general". He was dead by 27 – saluted in a poem by Lord Byron – and I would never have known he had existed had it not been for a new "super-camera phone".
He was General Marceau or General Francois-Severin Marceau-Desgraviers, to give him his full handle.
He is depicted on the north pillar of the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, one of the world's most recognisable icons on one of the world's most famous streets – the Avenue des Champs-Elysees.
And if you're wondering how a deceased 18th century general is relevant to a 21st century breakthrough like Huawei's P30 Pro and P30 mobile phones, it's like this: if it hadn't been for the P30 Pro's jaw-dropping zoom qualities, I would never have known of General Marceau.
In Paris for the launch of the phone, I wanted to explore the Arc – built in 1836 after 30 years' of construction and designed to honour those who fought and died in the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. It has the names of French victories and generals inscribed on inner and outer surfaces and is also the final resting place of the Unknown Solider from World War I.
But we had no time (we were on the way to the airport) and no chance of avoiding death if we'd taken on the thundering swirl of traffic disgorging from the 12 wide roads that feed into the Place de Charles de Gaulle, with the Arc as centrepiece. The only way to approach the Arc is by underground passage but we were too short of time.
So how to investigate the sculptures and historical inscriptions that give the Arc some context along with its imposing 50m-high shape?
Luckily, this job is tailor made for the P30 Pro and its remarkable new camera system. The P30 Pro and its slightly less able sibling, the P30, are being marketed as a "super-camera phone" with real, groundbreaking advances in zoom and low light photography – at a price ($1099 for the P30, $1499 for the P30 Pro) which hugely undercuts competitors' flagship devices.
Huawei have called it "re-writing the rules of photography". The big advance is in zoom, particularly for the top-of-the-range P30 Pro. Zoom has often been a weakness in mobile phone cameras, with most unable to magnify significantly without distortion. The P30 Pro has a 5x optical zoom, a 10x hybrid zoom and a 50x digital zoom, the most powerful yet seen.
Zoomed shots keep their edges sharp, retain their colours and don't blur out as regular smartphones do in similar circumstances.
As the visit to the Arc proves. The first shot in this series is from the top of the Champs-Elysees, taken with no magnification from about 50-70m away.
Arc de Triomphe, from 70m away. Photo / Paul Lewis.
I notice a scene sculpted high on the right of the Arc. So I zoom in on it with the P30 Pro with the 5x optical zoom.
Arc de Triomphe. Huawei P30 Pro, 5x optical zoom. Photo / Paul Lewis.
Then the 10x hybrid zoom.
Arc de Triomphe. Huawei P30 Pro, 10x hybrid zoom. Photo / Paul Lewis.
Then, with an almost casual flick of the finger, I sent the digital zoom up to 30x, still well short of its 50x maximum.
Arc de Triomphe. Huawei P30 Pro, 30x zoom. Photo / Paul Lewis.
The clarity and degree of detail is remarkable; a deathbed scene is easily discernible. But who is it? What does it mean? If I had managed to do a software update the Huawei P30 Pro's artificial intelligence (AI) might have been able to tell me – its travel assistant function means all you have to do is point your phone at an icon like the Arc and historical and other information appears on screen.
So who was General Marceau? He was a French revolutionary, one of those who stormed the Bastille in 1789 after which he joined the National Guard, rising quickly to captain. He was flamboyant and popular – designing a green Hussar's uniform himself and always wearing a miniature portrait of his fiancée in a chain around his neck.
He had fallen in love but the marriage was prevented by his military duties and the opposition of his fiancee's family.
In the 1790s, his military career took off and he became a general in the French army at 24, fighting in several wars until in 1796, when leading a gallant retreat against the Austrians, he was felled by a bullet at Altenkirchen. The scene on the north pillar of the Arc shows the well-liked young general being mourned, as he also later was by Lord Byron in a poem called Childe Harold's Pilgrimage.
The inscription on the wall behind the sculpture says Altenkirken (now spelled Altenkirchen), 1796. It's as clear as day and completes the link between a heroic death 223 years ago and the release of a new smartphone revolutionising mobile phone photography.
You might say, from one revolutionary to another.
*The P30 Pro has four cameras on the back, a first, enabling not only zoom but the phones other photographic features, including a remarkable low light capability is so boosted by the SuperSpectrum sensor that even night scenes become "crystal clear". The Leica Quad Camera system includes a 40 megapixel main camera with Huawei's powerful SuperSpectrum sensor, a 20MP ultra-wide angle camera, an 8MP telephoto camera, a Time-of-Flight (TOF) camera, along with a 32MP front camera which Huawei says ushers in a new level of selfies.
** Paul Lewis travelled to Paris courtesy of Huawei.
