Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “Top 5 Smartphone Cameras: The Blind Test!”.
Hey, what is up guys, i’m kbhd here, and i’ve done some smartphone roundups, some camera comparisons in the past. I’Ve done these very objective, very numerical evaluations of how good the camera performance was and what these things are capable of, but that was back in 2014. Now that it’s 2017 smartphone cameras have gotten so good that the difference between the top five best smartphone cameras, meaning the ones that you buy, because you take a lot of photos and videos. The difference is so small.
It’S gotten so small that the difference is way less about like objective differences in performance like better or less dynamic range or more or less megapixels, and it’s more just about personal preference, which one you think looks a little bit better. Maybe one has some software features. You like, or maybe one has a little bit of a different hue. It just looks a little better in the colors, so to prove that i have the top five best smartphone cameras out here and i’ve taken identical photos with all of them, a bunch of them from the exact same angles. And you decide the winner and you’re supposed to be honest with yourself. So don’t skip to the end of the video start right here and we’re going to go through a b c d and e.
And you can see if you can pick one of them that you like better than the others. You can look at what you like about sharpness and detail or dynamic range or just colors, or maybe just just look at it and pick the one you like. That looks better, so pro tip go ahead and watch this in as high resolution as you can go ahead and click down here in the bottom corner and if you can watch it in 1440p do that if you can watch it in 4k, do that that’ll give You the best look at these photos. Let’S take a look all right, so this first one is a backpack and it’s outdoors on a bench and the biggest thing you’re going to notice between these is actually the color temperature and contrast. So, just looking at that black pocket that center square is supposed to be black, but you cannotice in each of the pictures.
There’S a little bit of a different color cast bit of a different hue and the sharpness and the detail levels are about the same in and out of focus, and the background is about the same, but you’ll notice. The color temperature is the biggest differentiator. So here’s your side by side in case that helps pause it if you need to look at it and moving on. So this is another outdoor picture and there’s a little bit less colors, but the same effect you’ll see a little bit more. This is a gray car, but, as you can see in each of the individual shots, the car and the ground, which is the asphalt, varies again with the color. The yellow lines get a little bit warmer or cooler on each shot, but for the most part, the exposure and the sharpness are about the same again.
The plants on the front, the colors on the back, you better judge, here’s a side by side again for those who want to see it pause it if you need it and moving on now. This is a portrait, so a lot of people when you’re looking at portraits, you can look at again colors and things like skin tones. My skin tones are different in every single one of these, so you can check that out and i’m also wearing a pretty vibrant shirt. So you can see how the cameras and the image processing helps with that.
But for the most part it’s an in focus foreground. A slightly out of focus background and just a little bit of a focus on the colors for the portrait a little bit softer and some a little bit sharper in others. Here’S the side by side for those who want it pause it if you need it and moving on now, this one’s a pretty distinct foreground and background shot. So i’m taking a portrait here, so you guys can see how blurred out the backgrounds get and smartphones these days have really wide apertures. F. 1.9.
1.8. 1.7. Even so, a lot of these are doing a really good job. You can see to the extent and the degree that they blow out the background and, of course, you get a sense of white balance as well with the different colors and shades of the white of the table. So again, you can take a look at this side by side pause it if you need it, and next now here’s another portrait and we’re outdoors and it’s a little bit contrastier, but again the bigger difference.
If you notice here is the difference in color on the white wall, the black asphalt and then just the color of the jacket, it kind of changes with coolness or warmness based on the color temperature again, but yeah overall, a pretty similar shot in each one. As far as sharpness goes because again everything’s in focus, but you cannotice the differences in image processing just based on the way, the colors look so again, here’s your side by side of each single one pause it if you need it moving on now. This is a bit of a lower light photo, and this is where the best smartphone cameras or cameras in general can actually excel and separate themselves from the lower end. So for this one you’re looking at the tones in groot’s little face, and if you want to look at noise reduction, you can look at his eyes and the black shelf that he’s sitting on the rest of it is a little bit of the cast in the Hues and there’s a backlight behind him on a white wall, but you can see to the extent that they blow up groot’s face or don’t, and also, if you want the side by side here is that again you can see the tone, differences and moving on now. This one’s a landscape uh to the extent that i could do a landscape on such a dreary day like this, but you can see the empire state building there in the background and for landscapes.
You really want to focus on just detail. So if you’re counting windows on the empire state building, you have a pretty good idea that this one gets sharpness. Well, but again, the color differences is what i notice as the biggest difference here as well. So look at the colors of the cement on each one and then we’ll get this side by side and moving on. So last but not least, i think this is the the tell-all or the most revealing photo.
You want to keep an eye on two things on this one: the top tones of the steering wheel, it’s an all-black interior and over on the left in the rear view, mirror the amount that you can see that american flag in the mirror. In some. It’S a little bit overexposed in others, it’s perfectly visible, so you can see which ones have the most dynamic range or which ones have the most pleasing image.
But again here is the side by side of the center point, which was the steering wheel, which is the part that i tapped to focus on when i took the photo, and that is it so now that you’ve seen all the comparisons you’ve made. Your pick by now, which one is your top choice, maybe leave it in the comments section below. Was it a b c d or e, and this is the phone you picked, that is your top choice for a smartphone camera. So does your winner surprise, you at all, probably not because these are among the best smartphone cameras. The reason why they were chosen was because they have good cameras and they’re all very similar in that regard, but a lot of times people just have a little bit of a bias. They don’t want to pick one and they end up picking it.
I think what happens when we go into a lot of these head-to-head comparisons. Is we go in knowing which one we want to win? So we see a side by side of phone a and phone b, and we know we like phone a and we want to justify it being better in our hearts. So every little difference that looks better about phone a’s picture than phone b’s. We will say to ourselves: okay, that makes it better and we just ignore everything. That’S good about phone b, it’s a basic confirmation bias and we just kind of assume the new one is better. Even if we don’t know that for sure we might actually like a different phone than we thought, we did a lot of people go into it saying: oh, i hate the iphone.
I’D, never pick it. I bet a lot of you pick the iphone. So hopefully, this sheds a little bit of light on the fact that they’re all really damn good and there’s other things that of course go into picking a smartphone, even just for the camera. I’Ve gone over them in the past, just autofocus, speed, uh software features. Time lapse, features stabilization. All these things when taking a video, even the selfie camera, is important.
All i went over in this one is just raw back facing camera performance. Anyway, let me know what you think: thank you for watching and i’ll talk to you guys. The next one peace you .