Huawei shared this image to its various social media channels yesterday in an attempt to show off the quality of the camera on it’s latest flagship smartphone, the P9. There was just one problem – the image wasn’t taken on a P9. In fact, it wasn’t taken on a smartphone at all.

The folks over at Android Police pulled the EXIF data from the image that had been shared on Google+ and found that the image was taken with a Canon EOS 5D Mark III and an EF70-200mm f/2.8LIS II USM lens. Not only is the 5D Mark III decidedly not a smartphone, but it also costs a lot more than one. The Canon setup would cost approximately US$5,000, whereas the Huawei P9 retails for around US$650.

Huawei is claiming that the image caption was misleading but wasn’t technically a lie. Here’s the original post, with the caption.

Now, if that doesn’t stretch the definition of ‘misleading’, we’re not sure what does. Huawei has since issued a statement, clarifying that the image was, in fact, “not shot on the Huawei P9.”

“The photo, which was professionally taken while filming a Huawei P9 advert, was shared to inspire our community.”

The full statement reads as follows;

“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 recognize 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 P9 has already courted controversy when its marketing material somewhat stretched how involved Leica was in the manufacturing of the camera module. Huawei subsequently issued a statement on the details of Leica’s involvement in the process. However, we were quite impressed by the quality of the P9’s camera, even struggling to see the difference between it and the Leica Q in good conditions.

Huawei must now tread carefully, for fear of overstating the capabilities of a very solid smartphone camera.

Would you buy a Huawei P9? Let us know in the comments or on Facebook.