iPhone 12 vs. Pixel 5 camera comparison By CNET

This is the iPhone 12, and this is the Google Pixel 5, and I have both of these phones for one reason to do a camera comparison. Let's take some pictures and video boom. Okay. First up, let's take a look at the natural bouquet on each of the phone's lenses. So this is not portrait mode. This is just the actual lenses natural blurry effect in the background.

So this first picture here is the pixel 5, and it's just a little like stem that didn't get trimmed like all the other ones kind of rising, above all, the other leaves looking down upon them and look at like the way um. The pixel 5 does the globe lights in the back here now, let's take a look at the iPhone first off uh much different exposure. Secondly, the colors are much more vibrant. To be honest, the color is actually probably closer to this than it was the pixel 5. So the way the iPhone 12 it's uh, it's kind of natural bouquet is a little crunchy.

Nothing wrong with that. The both on the pixel 5 is a little smoother kind of like it. Just got like one wash across it: let's take a look, let's zoom in here on that leaf, and I think that the pixel 5 did a better job at nailing the focus on the leaf. It looks like either I was hand holding this, so it could be my fault, probably just my fault right, not the phone, but the even though I tapped on the leaf on the screen. Perhaps it was just a hair off, looks just a tad soft on the iPhone all right.

The next photo I want to show you is of a brick building, it's a very pretty brick, building near where I'm staying and what's nice about it is. It has a lot of things going on. We got the sky, we got the texture of the bricks. We also have the dynamic range to talk about. So this is the iPhone 12 version of it, and here is the pixel 5 version.

Sorry that they're not perfectly framed and stuff again, you can see that the iPhone one before you even zoom in it just has a little more oomph to the dynamic range um. I also like the colors are just a little more. The pixel 5 has a little vignetting going on in the corners here, especially the sky, whereas the iPhone's not seeing it as much, maybe a little on the right side there, let's go side by side on these, the iPhones. Sometimes this guy gets like partially blue treatment. Sometimes it gets like a graduated blue and then there's the pixel 5, which I think tends to be.

The blues tend to yield a little more toward almost purple, I'm not in this photo necessarily, but it's interesting there. Also, the pixel in this photo, I think, does a better job with some shadows, let's zoom in and take a look at what I mean you can see that the iPhone is a little more contrast. The shadows are darker, though the if uh the pixel on the left. Here, let me just bring those back up for you. If the shadows are brighter, you can see a little more of what's going on in them, though.

That being said, it looks a little soft as well all right. Let's take a look at the bottom here and for the entryway. Obviously, the pixel here is exposing that you can actually even see the brick texture on the right side wall here that you really can't make out on the iPhone again. Both these photos are good. I just think it's a very different approach to the way each phone renders these scenes.

So both phones don't have a dedicated telephoto lens, so that means they entirely rely on digital zoom. To get you closer to your subject. So this is the iPhone 12 version at 1x, so we haven't zoomed in at all and here's the pixel 5 version, um notice, two things here. Let me bring these up side by side, so the pixel 5 is on the left and the iPhone 12 is on the right um, a couple of things uh. First, the pixel 5 the clouds just yeah.

They just look kind of like their airbrush. They look, it looks pretty, but it's lost kind of like the chunkiness that the clouds had, whereas the iPhone 12 finds that chunkiness better. Let's take a look at what both phones can do with three times: digital zoom on the left. I have the pixel 5 on the right. I have the iPhone 12.

Um. First, let's talk a little about why one looks more zoomed in the other. Most of that is basically just because they have different wide lenses on it so, and they also have different zoom ranges. The pixel 5 has a seven times digital zoom range, whereas the iPhone 12 has five times. Digital zoom yeah a lot of the things I remember there, but as we look at this, you can see that things start getting soft uh on both phones, um, probably the biggest difference between the two, and I want to just call this out.

The clouds were moving so on the left, pixel 3. We don't see the the tree being as hit by sunlight as we do on the iPhone. I think that's just the second or two. It took me to switch phones to take the photo um again. If we look at the steeple, we see come basically a flat color here on the iPhone, it's kind of lost a little of the three dimensions on the Google Pixel 5.

We still have uh that contrast of the edges, so it does look a little more three-dimensional there uh. This is with both of the phones zoomed in at five times, digital zoom. This is where the iPhone tops out on the iPhone 12 at 5x. You can see that things are getting very soft, very painterly again. Actually it's interesting because the steeple it does get a little more three-dimensional, but everything just looks painted.

It just looks so watercolor to me the pixel 5 at 5x, zoom um. It's doing pretty good, I would say it's probably close to what the iPhone 12 was at three times zoom. That being said, the picture of the iPhone at five times. Zoom is much more zoomed in than it is on the seven times zoom, which is the top of the limit here for the pixel five um. So it is not necessarily a very equal comparison.

In this sense, I would say, though, that the Apple iPhone 12 f5x yeah, that's just kind of like I feel like it's more of a safety I wouldn't be taking photos of that. I feel like 3x, is kind of a good place to kind of draw that line for me unless you really just have to like to get it to save the day. The seven times on the pixel 5 looks pretty good, but again, I'm still pretty far away. Look how much closer the iPhone can get. Let's take a look, a couple more photos here, real quick, so this is of a brick and window building.

I like the way the sun made the colors of the bricks. Look. I also like the texture of everything going on, and here is the one from the pixel 5. Sorry about the miss framing. I was trying to get them the same.

It's not quite as warm here. It's almost a little a more little cooler a little the way it handles the highlights. Let's go side by side on these again, I think they both look good, some bad framing. On my part, let's zoom in and take a look here: let's see bam one more time there we go hey you could. Probably you could see me in the window, so there's that um what's interesting here are the flowers under the window on the iPhone still have a lot of detail in them um when I zoom in, whereas the flowers on the pixel 5 do not also it's interesting to see.

Just how like, if you look at the stone on the bottom here, just how blue that looks versus how warm it is in the iphone looks truer to life. In this scenario, let's move on from the main camera and go to ultra-wide, which oh boy, I love ultrawide cameras, even ones that aren't great, are so much fun. Just because of that perspective, now both phones have some unique things, they're doing with them. First thing we're gonna notice is on the iPhone. The iPhone's ultra-wide camera is a little wider than that on the pixel 5.

The other thing is both of them are doing some sort of lens correction. You can see that on the pixel 5, definitely but the iPhone 12, if you compare it to last year's iPhone 11 you'll notice that the software correction they're making for the lens is a dramatic improvement. So let's take a look at some photos with each of the phones all right to start out. I have a picture of a tree that I basically took the camera, held it against the trunk of the tree and was shooting up, and it gave a really cool perspective. The way kind of bent the tree outwards.

Also, you can kind of see some tops of the buildings surrounding it. Uh, let's go to the iPhone 12 version and the first thing you're going to notice is again how much wider it is. I get a streetlight in there. Now I get more of the building, so the other things I would say between the two is the colors are very accurate. The iPhone tends to give a little more texture in its ultra-wide, whereas the Google Pixel 5 it tends to boost the shadows a little.

Let's take a look at some more ultra-wide photos here: here's the iPhone 12 another ultrawide photo uh. I just really thought it was funny that this statue was just sitting there in front of this courthouse now. Here is the pixel 5 version of that again, you can see it's a little closer stay in the exact same place, just because it's not as wide but notice how it handles, like the texture of the brick a little differently, and here are the two photos side by side. Yeah- and I mean you just get so much more seen in the iPhone's ultrawide camera. It looks a little more dramatic.

I think the pixel 5 one is fine, but I prefer the one from the iPhone in this case. That is enough of our ultrawide. Let's talk about portrait mode, and we'll start with portrait mode selfies. Here's a portrait mode selfie on the iPhone- and I have to say I apologize- you can see my face a ton. I also apologize that it wasn't a good skin day for me, but hey it happens to all of us.

Am I right that being said? Uh yeah: this is the portrait mode selfie from that, and here is the one from the pixel 5. You can see that the iPhone one rendered my skin a little warmer, a little more flattering, which is nice. The pixel went a little more true to life. It's a little cooler, also notice the background blur. This is not from the lens like we looked at before.

This is actually made by the phones they're just making this up here, um the iPhone one I like how soft it is. It's got. It still has some dimension like back and forth to it. The pixel one seems more of a flat like the whole thing's blurred the same way um as far as cutout stuff. Let's take a look boom.

It's going to take a second here and there we go yeah. Let's take a look at my head, oh boy, it actually does a perfect job of cutting. My both do a good job, just a little artifact in the iPhone here, that's kind of weird but yeah. I feel it does a great job, especially around the shoulders. The pixel 5 on the right here has a more of a strong line, as it cuts me out versus the iPhone it just has a little of a softer like blur to that edge here.

Also, um, I'm now seeing it not to make you look at my face more the uh. The detail in my facial hair on the iPhone looks much better than on the pixel 5. Um wow. Actually, that's incredible! So that's all the photos. I wanted to show you in detail right now, but let me show you a bunch of other photos I took with both phones.

Take it away now. Let's move on to video I've shot a lot of video with both phones, um. The iPhone has been known for having outstanding video. I think google video kind of gets sold short a little, but I don't know we'll take a look at it. You might see some prizes here all right, so this first clip is the iPhone 12.

I'm just tilting down on a building here notice. Again the highlights the shadows, especially the shadows of the fountain here, how it handles that and the highlights of like the kind of the uh, the molding and stuff in the building. In the background, here's the pixel 5 version of that same move, the bricks kind of look like almost like little dots. It's its kind of interesting how it renders that and let's see how it does. Uh looks like it is so for the shadow here it actually shows more of the fountain.

It's not as shadowy as the iPhone was iPhone 12 fountain again, you can see that the pixel has boosted the shadows a bit and actually, I think the pixel at the end of the shot looks a little better, whereas I think the iPhone coming down looks better in the tilt. So here is the iPhone shooting that this is all 4k 30 frames per second on each phone. By the way you can see how like the braising of his nose, I don't know why water's pouring out of his mouth so many questions about the statue um. Maybe I should read the plaque and here's the pixel 5 version of it again it looks a little cooler um. So one of the features that the Google Pixel 5 has on their phone is called cinematic pan.

In fact, when you open the app I kind of like the new tools that google has implemented in its camera menus, there's a separate one for stabilization and there's four kinds of stabilization, which is pretty crazy. Cinematic pan does a couple of things one. It doesn't record the audio, and it only works when you're connected to the internet. So if you're in airplane mode or don't have um internet access, you can't actually use it and what it does. Is it smooths it out? The iPhone 12 is this first one here also backlit scene is hard notice.

The corner where the camera on the right is too again a little cooler way. It renders the highlights here on the pixel, actually kind of looks nice and a lot more noise in the pixel version here, but a very smooth, buttery, smooth, uh pan. I don't know if it's cropping in to do that, I'm not sure exactly so. This is the iPhone 12. I'm I'm just walking, I'm not trying to I'm actually shooting the both phones at the same time looks pretty smooth you kind of see sometimes you'll see like a bigger, separate bump and here's the pixel 5.

It feels a little more herky-jerky. I can't tell if it's is it's like punching in a little too, is that what it's doing- and let me show you this last video- it's the slow motion comparison here is the iPhone 12 at 120 frames per second, and this is full HD. It doesn't neither one shoot 4k and here's the here's the same moment from the pixel, and this is the iPhone- can also shoot 240 frames per second slow motion in full HD, which is kind of insane that a phone can do that and that this allows you to again slow things down, just ever so much more, all right so to wrap up the pixel 5, the iPhone 12, which one's better well, that depends, I think, photo wise, they're, pretty even keel. They just have different philosophies about how they render scenes. Sometimes in details and colors, the pixel seems to boost shadows a little more than the iPhone.

The iPhone goes for more of a punchy. Warm look, I think both are pretty great. As far as video the pixel 5 is the best pixel for video period. That said, I still think the iPhone has a bit of an edge when it comes to dynamic range and the way it does textures and things in um in the image itself. So what do you think, though? What do you think of both of these phones? Is there one you'd pick up for photos or for video over the other? Are you planning on getting one of these phones to shoot video and photos, throw your thoughts in the comments.

Source : CNET