iPhone 12 vs Pixel 5 Camera Comparison! By Sam Beckman

Welcome to the ultimate camera comparison between the iPhone 12 and the pixel 5, and if you've seen any of the other camera comparisons on my channel. Well we're trying out a slightly different approach for this one. So let me know your thoughts on this new style down in the comments below, but with that said, let's get started so kicking things off with video and for the first time the pixel 5 is the first pixel device from Google that allows us to record at 4k 60. The iPhone 12 is also recording at 4k60, but this is nothing new for iPhones. The loss, resolution and frame rate might be the same here. General image.

Quality, including dynamic range, is a different story altogether. Just take a look at how the pixel is doing here in comparison to the iPhone 12. , the darker areas of the image are darker and the really bright areas of the video can sometimes be blown out and overall, the videos just look a fair bit more contrast, whereas with the iPhone 12 details are retained really nicely in both the shadows and the highlights. Even in these really harsh conditions, and even when you switch out to the ultrawide, not only do we get a slightly wider field of view with the iPhone, but the dynamic range is almost just as good as it was with the main sensor, whereas on the pixel 5, it's definitely struggling just a little more and not only that, but we're forced to swap the recording format to 4k 30 in order to even use the ultra-wide for video. That's not the case at all, with the iPhone 12, which is still shooting at 4k 60.

, and it's even worse for the pixel 5 when we switch to the front-facing cameras. So what's the iPhone? 12 still maintains that 4k 60 recording formats, the pixel 5 steps all the way down to 1080p at a locked frame rate of 30 frames per second, and you can really tell whilst the colors are pretty decent, leaning towards cooler colors in comparison to the iPhone 12. The image just looks much softer in comparison now, the iPhone 12 selfie camera doesn't perform quite as well as its rear counterparts in regard to dynamic range. You can see it does struggle to retain both the really bright parts of the image at the same time as the darker parts, but overall the image looks a heck of a lot nicer compared to the pixel fives in terms of audio. Well, it is done the talking, as I use each of the different cameras on these phones, so the main sensors, the ultra wide and the selfie cameras to thank today's video sponsor compass.

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com Beckman or use the coupon code, Sam Beckman at checkout to get 70 off plus one month of compass premium for free. Now when it comes too low light video with the pixel 5, it's even worse. Admittedly, this is a really dark shooting environment. You probably won't find yourself recording many of these types of videos, but the pixel 5 is incredibly grainy, and it's not a nice quality of grain either. It's super mushy we've got a purple hue across the entire image and whilst the iPhone 12s video is definitely still grainy, it's just far superior compared to the pixel 5's video, but Google does have one little trick up its sleeve with video and that's in regard to stabilization.

So, whilst both phones have general optical image, stabilization, which you can see on screen right now, the pixel 5 also has three new stabilization modes: active, locked and cinematic pan now active stabilization is just a slightly more aggressive version of the default level of stabilization, but you can see that the video does crop in a bit, and it actually steps down to 1080p. So you do sacrifice a fair amount of image, sharpness and clarity when using this mode- and it's not worth it. In my personal opinion, cinematic pen is essentially like taking the raw 4k60 video and slowing it down to 50 in post, but it does it straight out of camera, which can be nice. It doesn't actually really add any extra layer of stabilization, though, but slow motion clips always look smoother than real-time motion clips. So in that sense it does look smoother, keep in mind.

The audio gets muted when you're using this mode with no way to bring it back. But then my favorite of the new stabilization modes is locked, so these clips were shot zooming in two times digitally and, as you can see, the pixel 5's video is rock solid, whilst the iPhone 12 has that normal handheld motion that we'd expect. But this locked mode on the pixel 5 is serious wizardry, and it's even more impressive. At a five times digital zoom. There is a slight amount of wiggle that is present when using this mode, but it's still crazy that we can get this level of stability.

At this field of view. I can see this being super useful for parents trying to record their kids performances that are super far away or really just recording anything that's static, but really far away. It's super impressive stuff, but aside from stabilization, which you could argue, is somewhat gimmicky for most use case scenarios. If just general image and audio quality is what you're looking for in regard to video capturing, then the iPhone 12 hands down takes the cake, but that's not really all that surprising. One thing that did surprise me, though, and frustrate me as well, is that whenever I was recording these longer video comparisons, the pixel 5 would notify me very regularly saying that it had overheated that I had to close out of the camera app, let it cool down before I could start using it again now.

Yes, I filmed a lot of these shots in quite warm conditions where the sun was just beaming directly down on me, but the iPhone 12 never had an issue it never overheated. It was always good to go, so this was actually a somewhat frustrating experience with the pixel 5. , but let's now try and level out the playing field a little more and compare still photography, which is where pixel phones are known to do their best work. We start by looking at a range of daytime photos, and the first thing to note is that pixel images tend to look slightly cooler, whereas iPhone images tend to lean towards the warmer tones. The pixel 5's images also tend to provide much more balanced photos in terms of dynamic range.

As we look at these photos, you can see with the iPhone 12 images. The shadows are quite dark and contrast. Compare that to the pixel 5's images and the shadows have been lifted. Quite a bit, you could argue. The same is also true for the brighter parts of the images, but it's definitely not quite as noticeable.

The iPhone 12 still does do a great job of retaining the really bright parts of your images alongside the pixel 5. , but whilst dynamic range might be a similar story when punching out to the ultrawide lenses. As you can see here, I would actually argue that, because the iPhone 12 shoots at a much wider field of view and that it's much sharper overall, then you're actually getting results that are more satisfying when shooting, with the iPhone 12s ultra-wide, compared to the ultra-wide. On the pixel 5. , and neither of these phones have telephoto lenses, but if we punch into a two times digital zoom side by side, both phones do a pretty decent job, though I'd argue that the pixel 5's image does look slightly sharper thanks to some post-processing sharpening that's been added, but then, when we punch into a seven times digital zoom image.

This is where the pixel slightly jumps ahead. It's got less of that digitally over sharpened. Watercolor, look compared to the mushier image taken on the iPhone 12. Now, looking at portrait photos for a moment. The first and most obvious difference between these two phones is that, whilst the pixel 5 crops in a bit to emulate that field of view that you get when traditionally shooting portrait photos with a DSLR camera, the iPhone doesn't and as a result, I personally find the portrait photos from the iPhone 12 to look a little.

Unnatural selfie portraits are much more comparable between the two phones, though. But again you can see with these photos that the pixel 5's images are much flatter and tinted towards cooler tones, whereas the iPhone looks more contrast and warmer, though, with slightly worse dynamic range. Now regarding nighttime photography, pixel phones used to blow this category right out of the water, but a lot of manufacturers apple included, have since made leaps and bounds forward, and they're hot on Google's tail again. You'll see those cooler tones in the night sight, images captured on the pixel 5 warmer tones on the iPhone 12, but the big difference between Google's night sight feature and apple's night mode is that much like the daytime images? Google prefers giving you images with a much more even exposure. This means the darker parts of the image are brighter compared to the darker parts of the images taken on the iPhone 12.

Now the downside to this is that it can result in slightly noisier images in low light scenarios, and I will say that the images taken using apple's night mode feature do look sharper, particularly those taken using the ultrawide lenses. But the downside to apple's night mode feature is that you have no control over its functionality. It's either on or off, and you can't manually switch it on or off yourself, and that means in some scenarios you just can't capture enough detail, whereas with the pixel 5, whilst it does become enabled automatically, you can also override it and turn it on yourself. Should that be something that you want to? Do you also get Castro photography mode with the pixel lineup, which is where, if the phone detects that it's locked off and on a tripod like this setup or something similar, then it will actually proceed to take long exposure images usually of around four minutes in duration? The biggest benefit of this feature is when using the ultra-wide lenses- and you can see here that, whilst the image taken on the iPhone 12 looks like straight garbage, the one taken on the pixel 5 looks fantastic. The pixel 5 also now lets you capture portrait photos using night sight, which significantly improves images.

That would otherwise be completely dark, as you can see, with the images taken on the regular iPhone 12. So, where does that leave us? Well, on the one hand, if you're someone who prioritizes video quality when choosing a phone, then it's an easy decision hands down the winner is the iPhone 12. It's seriously next level. Photography, though, is a little more back and forth. The ultrawide lens is far better on the iPhone 12, but you get better dynamic range with the images taken on the pixel 5.

I would also say that images of people, particularly when using portrait mode they look better captured on the pixel 5. And, to be honest, that's more often than not what I'm using my phone to take images of. But that said, I would say that you get more consistent results across all the different lenses and cameras on the iPhone 12 than you do with the pixel 5. , but that's it if you enjoyed the video it has been absolutely brutal to put together. So a sub would be incredible.

But aside from that, thank you all very much for watching. Thank you compass for supporting the channel, and I will catch you later. You.

Source : Sam Beckman