Pixel 4 XL vs iPhone 11 - Ultimate Camera Comparison! By Blunty

What a glorious frigging morning in Sydney we have today picture-perfect it's glorious. You just gotta watch out for the little plumber down there, there's it'll buy this kink. It'll need a bit cranky depending on what time of year. It is just to that little dude, don't sweep me enjoying the view good morning. People I am blonde tea and today, of course, we are comparing the pixel for Excel Google's, new flagship, Android phones against Apple's new is has couple weeks old. Is it new anymore, 11 Pro, max I'm gonna, put the cameras head-to-head because, well frankly, cameras is one of my areas of expertise, particularly with mobile cameras, are shooting a lot my iPhone, and have done for many years now and, of course, by the way, just before we do head off and do the proper video I will be looking at the new night mode stuff and the macrophotography stuff, and it made me made noises first couple shots, and it was I was like we in fact, I think I've got a shot of it.

Let me show you what I'm talking about absolute barbarity. Let's imagine genuinely black magic. That's science emo, but I feel like it's active to assume. You all know this, but just in case the pixel 4 and pixel for Excel are the new flagship, Android versus from Google themselves to come, but pure untucked, with Android and amongst the marketing push for the launch is a strong focus on the camera. Smartphone photography and video sharing being an ever-growing part of our online and social lives and the pixel 3 having a very powerful reputation for having one of, if not the best technical performance for camera hardware on a smartphone amongst its peers, Google claimed the pixel for can give you studio like photos without the studio which, frankly, is complete bollocks, because one of the things that sets studio photography apart is you know full and discreet, control over the environment, especially a complete suite of specialist lighting.

That is the definition of a studio, and you can't get studio quality photos without a studio, because you need the studio stuff to get the effects without a studio setup. Not even a $16,000 Hasselblad will take studio, light photos' studio like photos are not the result of the camera. The result of the studio setup what Google are trying to get across with this stupid lie of a marketing line, is just to try and get you to associate high quality images, clean, crisp, sharp, colorful and honest to real life. With the cameras on this phone of particular note in the pixel threes camera rave reviews was it superb low light mode and Google have doubled down on that with its successor, claiming it can capture rich detail and color in near complete darkness and well it bloody well. Does this shot here of these old stairs a meter? I couldn't even see them with my own eyes.

It was so dark, and I'm, not exaggerating. They were only a few meters away, and I literally couldn't see them. I put the camera on a tripod, I, set it to its night shot mode and the pixel for automatically recognized what ludicrous buffoonery I was up to and dropped into its new macrophotography mode, which is an even more powerful low light mode that it only goes into. When it knows it's nice and steady on a tripod, then I made a three-minute-long exposure, except it wasn't really a three-minute-long exposure. This is computational low-light photography, it's not exactly like when you said a normal camera into long exposure or bulb modes.

It's not one continuous exposure, weather just kind of stacks up against the sensor, additively its exposure stacking. It's calculating how to mix the light. Furthermore, it's gathering into a photo that looks like it was better lit, it's keeping the sharpness and detail intact. Furthermore, it's figuring out, color, it's mixing and matching exposure values, and it's doing some very clever noise reduction. Furthermore, it's all math and algorithms, math and algorithms occur in some math.

You idiot whatever the iPhone 11 Pro Max meanwhile, has its own low light mode and it ? does it with computational assistance, but it doesn't quite differently in this case event me max out to a mere 30-second exposure time, and it's secret. Mathematic magic is clearly very different to Google's. It's a little hard to see the difference in this shot of concrete and grass, and they still night air. But if I show you what each camera does to a scene like this, it becomes a little easier to see. What's going on, while the pixel Falls result is cleaner, brighter mantilla and much cooler in the color temperature, it tried to maintain as much detail as possible, but at the expense of the emotion of the shot it's cold.

It's sterile little clinical while the iPhones long exposure mode of this same scene as more accurately simulated. What a true long exposure from a normal camera might do. The water and clouds are softened and blurred by their natural movement throughout the long exposure time, Apple avoids overly brightening the shadows or artificially boosting color too much, and the result is something much closer to one. An experienced photographer might expect from a long exposure. Nighttime photo of a scene like this from a regular camera.

I, don't think one approach is inherently the better approach. They each have their pros and cons, but there is a clear and vast difference to the computational trickery at play in each device to make these camera phones do what only a year or two back was so improbable. It's hilarious. These are phones taking these pictures. It's insanity, I didn't get a chance to get away from the heavy light pollution of Sydney to really put the pixel force macrophotography to the test.

It is specifically crafted to take photos of the night sky like no other smartphone can, but even a 10-minute stroll from the center of the city still deep within the well of light pollution. Furthermore, it's still kind of blew my mind. This phone can see stars I, can't with my feeble human photon sensory organ seriously, I'm in the middle of Sydney I, look at the night sky I see maybe a dozen stars look about these seas and this macrophotography mote is part of why it doesn't blur long exposure motion like the iPhone. Does the earth of course, constantly spins under the sky, making it look like the stars are always moving relative to our viewpoint, which is why, in Castro photography, you want very sensitive camera sensors to gather as much light as you can as quickly as you can. So you can get shorter, shutter speeds as possible because unless you're deliberately trying to create a photo with full arcing streaks of light called star trails, long exposure passed about 20 seconds or so will start smearing.

The Stars motion into lines, the iPhones night mode is restricted to no more than 30 seconds, largely avoiding this issue. While the max exposure I saw the pixel ask for was an entire three minutes, but, as we saw before during those 3 minutes, it doesn't blur the motion together and even with the more common one or two minute exposures always using for most of these shots. It kept the stars in sharp. It's really quite remarkable. The other difference between the night modes, I noticed as I looked through the embedded data in each image.

Afterwards, the iPhone ramps up ISO sensitivity to 3200, while the pixel keeps it much, much lower at 56 or up 286 I think was the biggest one. I saw both cameras use noise reduction. Of course, the pixels significantly longer exposures need it because the longer you gather light over an image sensor, the more noise that starts to creep in and the phone, because high ISO also creates more noise again, both cameras doing the same job or a similar job in very, very different ways. You've probably also noticed, there's a huge difference in the color temperature spat out, Apple leans towards the warmer side pretty aggressively, and the pixel is very, very cool. Neither was truly representative to my eyeball experience, but Apple was closer.

There's also a difference in shutter lag, which is an issue I thought we were well past on camera phones, the time between hitting the shutter and the picture being taken is much longer on the pixel in its night mode and in specific circumstances. This could mean missing what many photographers call the decisive moment. You want the camera to trigger when you want the camera to trigger not a few moments afterwards. This boring picture shows this result. The clearest, despite that forklift truck moving, barely more than walking pace.

It is in a very different spot in both of these shots and, as you may have assumed yes, I took this photo precisely simultaneously one phone and each hand and a thumb over each shutter button, the pixel for reacted so slowly. The forklift moved almost two full lengths of itself forward before the image was taken granted. This is a very specific situation, and it doesn't do this under regular lighting, of course, but if you're shooting like this, this street photography stuff or if you're, shooting wildlife in low lights, this really can mean the difference between getting a shot and having your intended composition completely worked, again, I thought we were well past. This kind of shutter lag on camera phones, it's its like from 10 years ago, this kind of behavior, it's really quite frustrating low-light video, historically, the absolute weakest part of any smart phones' camera. Well.

Both phones have made big strides with this year's models, but for me, it's a pretty clear victory to the pixel, for it's still a bit cold and very, very clinical out of the camera. I, don't really love the look of it, it doesn't feel very, doesn't feel very organic. Does it, but it's certainly cleaner and suffers less easily from noise in the shadows. So, with a bit of editing, you certainly can make it feel a bit nicer, and you've got a bit more wiggle room than you do with the low-light stuff coming out of the iPhone. The sacrifice, though, is a lot more motion blur as it just tanks, its shutter speed down to get these results and, although I'd, never user myself, the digital zoom in low-light is an easy win for Apple keeping in way more detail.

But what about in the lights, where most of us usually take most of our photos? Well, the differences are less stark, but equally distinct, and I'm, not so sure the pixel wins more than it loses this time around under the Sun in stills mode. It's kind of blow for blow there's a few slight differences in things like the amount of and a steady quality of the natural background. Blue you get from the lens when you're focusing on a closed subject and tonality and contrast is a bit different, but nothing so great is to draw a line between them in any real way. The Android device does, of course, have one very strong feature over the iPhone, something we've been asking for ages forever from iOS native raw file support why you can get RAW files from the phone using a few third-party apps, the pixel force default to camera. App does so just natively.

If you want it to so, every shot you take, you can spit out a nice little JPEG, ready to use and a raw file ready for more sophisticated editing. I, don't know that most people who shoot on smartphones really care that much about RAW files, even if they always dutifully shoot RAW on their big BOI cameras for serious work, but it is without question a great option to have in the back pocket and one I am still lamenting, isn't part of the default camera experience for iPhone so marking that down as a clear win for the pixel for aside from them frankly, I feel, like we've, reached a point where we can usually just take for granted that the stills' mode on a flagship camera phone in well, that circumstances will be anywhere between good and great but daytime video mode front and back. Ah, here's where things get less exciting or more exciting, or at least more interesting. Depending on your point of view. Okay, let's have a listen to the mics.

While we talk about something else that I found kind of well, the word I'm looking for it's disappointed really now with the pixel 4, we don't have the ultra-wide lens that we have on the iPhone 11 Pro and Pro Mac. You know it's sort of stuff which I love, I love to shoot wide I've, always carried around a little clip on lens to get extra wide when I wanted, but just having that built in doing you, iPhone is fantastic. I've been using it lots, it's not that useful in all conditions, because it's you know the sensor behind that ultra wide-angle lens is not as good as the main sensor so might submit down, carries me down and- and it doesn't autofocus- and you know it's fixed ropes and things like that, but when I want to use it, it's still fantastic fun and I get some great shots of it. I've been loving using it for over the past few weeks that I've had yep another Pro max. So we don't have that on the pixel.

What you're noticing now is also in video mode, it's less wide. This is both just we'll just wait for the cockatoos to screech fast little miniature dinosaurs are. They are lost, my train of thought right. Both these phones are sitting on exactly the same spot. There, on the same tripod on the same crossbar mounted exactly same distance and, as you can see, there is a significant crop in the video mode on the pixel, for this isn't present in photos, it's specific to videos.

So whether you care about that I'd, I'd know, but it's a big deal, I mean if you've ever found yourself doing this trying to get everything, then you have to care about a video crop because it does crop in significantly from what the native sensor and the native Allen sees in photo mode. So you're in photo mode. You get I'll get a snap to that. Almost reflexive video to shoot your video. No also do.

All your framing is different. It's a little frustrating into something that some cameras I've heard in the past, that to deal with the Panasonic gh4 had a cropping video mode. That was a pain in the ass. So when I switch to the GH 5, you know if I'm a workhorse real camera at my proper camera, it was wonderful not to have that crop. When you go into you know the 4k video mode anymore, verso rolling back to that kind of limitation.

They kind of hamstrung that kind of slight retardation in how you use the camera. Maybe you don't care about it. I. Do itbe a pain in the ass? Don't know why they did it. Don't nobody thought it was necessary, don't know why they needed to do it.

All I know is in video mode. The iPhone is easier to use when you're just running a gun and because you don't have to think about that extra crop that extra distance- you just you know the lens. You know the kind of field of view. You're going to get you know, sort of what it does to compression of distance, and things like that you know have to readjust between photo and video mode. If you care about that, let me know.

Meanwhile, you've been listening to the both microphones, and we've got what sounds like a diesel leaf blower off in the distance we had the birds pour there's a little of traffic noise over there, which one am I coming through clear on which one sounds more natural. Let me know, and then our below us, I haven't heard it yet because obviously I'm here to miss future blunting, which we present blunt equals and then pass one see from your perspective. You could have edited this I'm cross-eyed and all lesser imports, but still important is we also see that crop with the telephoto lens and with the telephoto lens you're already pushing in, so it might even be beneficial. You get a slightly longer reach a telephoto. That could be a good thing, but it's also a bad thing.

Because again you're dealing with a different field of view, depending on whether you're in stills mode or in video mode, and having to have that sort of framework in your head as you're shooting, especially if you're shooting, mixed-media shooting photos and videos you're. Switching between the two as I often do it's just an extra thing to layer on top of the head. When you think about how you're framing up where you're standing, where your angle needs to be I would rather not deal with a crop in video mode. Please Google engineers, no one wants that. Talk to any actual photographers have to deal with cropped, video crop sensors in video mode on various cameras.

We all hate it. We don't like working with it. It feels restrictive. It feels pointless, but yeah. This looks like the newly wider angle.

Front-Facing camera on the iPhone is another thing: I appreciated about doing what I do with the iPhone, and that is this arm's length, walkie-talkie stuff, which I need to do. Sometimes don't do it that often with the iPhone, but that was mainly because I found the letter, the lens just a little too tight. Did you just comfortably I, didn't like the tighter framing that the selfie camera gave me for the walk-and-talk video stuff and, as you can see, pics before? Is that tighter frame you stop? It's not so bad I could cope with it. It feels like it's a little wider than the previous models of iPhone, though you know, we've got, of course, the much more open framing on the front-facing camera phone. The wider angle is better, in my opinion, more useful, in my opinion, nicer framing for doing this mental squad, so cost of favor against me and as we move to a bit of backlighting here, yeah I was dealing better with that as well.

A lot of time I have been finding the picture for dealing with lighting a little better, and particularly in high contrast situations, and this is the motion to talk about the new default function. It's got in where you can actually adjust, live the shadows and highlights this is something you've been able to do in photo editing software and video editing stuff for quite some time, especially if you shoot raw or shoot flat in video mode. You've got a lot of control over your shadows and highlights, but you can do that live on the screen with the pixel 4 and the default camera app. It's really quite nice, instead of making sure you're not crushing out the shadows. When you don't want to be all crossing your shadow, and you do want to be again nothing you really can't do in post-production about getting it right in camera is always a bit of a time saver, so points for the picks up or on that one I.

Think. Alright, let me give you a little of a live demo, trying to show you what I'm talking about here with us hastily setup crappy-looking that very demonstrable shot. So we got super high contrast here. What I want to get is I'm going to get the details and the shadows down here now this sort of lovely dose, 12, sprinkler soaked, pretended to do it's more romantic. If it's do versus the Sun, we've got coming through the tree branches there.

So I've set up my shot here. Both cameras so on the iPhone I, don't have much choice, I mean I could use an app to shoot raw or shoot flatten and do it in post. But I can focus here on the little plant I can fiddle with the exposure a bit of whoops I've accidentally zoomed, that's fine! It's your! There we go, so it could bring the exposure down, so I get that little wobbly, Sun, flare, or I can push it up and get those Sun the shadows, but that's all I've got which is not bad. You can take a pretty decent photo. We can fill it with that in first and maybe get a black and white get some tones out of it.

That's kind of crap actually, but over here on the pixel phone. What we can do is we can tap up focus some of these sort of controls on the bottom here. So you can actually give me those back. Give me those back. Thank you this! You can fiddle with your shadows, not sure how well that's coming across and camera right now, but you can boost the shadows up, but you can also bring the highlights back down again, so you can make that Sun flare, exaggerated, or you can bring it right down.

So you get a little pinpoint Sun flare, but still bring up those shadows a little more all the way up there we go, and we'll snap that and that well that's a little more useful. Unfortunately, we do not have the same control in video mode. We do have exposure control here in video mode, but that works exactly the same way as the exposure control. On the other hand, we just sort of touch and hold your focus, and you can slide up and down drag your expose, your up and down kind of like how Google do what they're, giving you a separate little control down the bottom here, that's a little more convenient than the way Apple. Do itbe a little faster to get to a little more intuitive because it just pops the control up soon, as you try to tap focus on something but yeah yeah, you know what, while we're here, let's have a look at the zoom stuff.

Now this is a pretty good example. What I thought about with the crop? Just coming back to that, for a second, it's exaggerated, the closer you get the subject of course, so you got a fairly big crop on the end right here and a nice wide shot on the iPhone I. Think I, like the framing on the Android, but point is the crop, is significantly different when you get up close. So, let's start playing with the zoom. Let's go straight to the two times zoom on the phone, we'll do the same on the Android one there so yeah, as you can see a different series in there that that said, some like that backlighting.

It's not doing any favors for us here. So let's zoom right into the next and see what happens so yeah, here's something you can't do on the pixel for sure wide-angle lens I mean I, don't know if this is the best shot to show it off with, let's just rage, suppose there that's skies very intense, let's bring that all the way back down. Let's do the same on the pixel over here, smooth the readjustment donut ooh, ooh. We get into trouble when we try and knocking that right down. So he goes to be Oh purple hello, I've, never seen a camera do that before yeah.

Let me try and bring it right down on the iPhone well-behaved all right. Let's get back to the regular field of you see. If we can yeah, we can get right down right down all right, Google, what's going on here! What's all this thanks for that? That's goofy! Don't do that! Tell you what there would you like to know something the pixel for front-facing camera can do that the iPhone just can't just won't ever that is actually really useful and I. Think a lot of iPhones out is they're going to be extremely envious of their pixel for toting friends, you see, while Apple's solution for low-light photography and computational low-light. Photography in particular relies on the stabilizer, the optical stabilizer, on the lens, which means it's only available on the telephoto and regular wide-angle, the ultra wide-angle, and not the front-facing camera Google's solution, Google's math for doing slightly wizard things with robot photography and stacking exposures and denoting and all sort of stuff.

They can do that on any of the cameras, including the front-facing camera, which means you can get some really nice. Well, if you got a better face in mine, that's a really nice low-light self-portrait stuff and is a slightly more challenging and more practical, frankly, use for that being able to control your shadows and your highlights if it's going a little portrait because in the background there I mean we're exposing show you what's supposed to be back there, oh hello, in video mode, where we don't have the separate control over shadows and highlights the iPhone front-facing camera is still dealing a lot better. With these huge contrast, differences and the pixel just not so much. Let's get my face back. How are you doing focus on my face again: let's try and do that manually in the game, and it can bring the sky down a little, but I complete these face stuff at the iPhone.

That's a focus on my face and will drag that exposure down. Yeah, doing it manually, you lose out a bit, but if you leave the iPhone to its own devices, sort of automatically just for it. Oh, it's gonna, stills mode and see if we can be better on the pixel, because I think we might be able to I. Don't think this is gonna work out, so obviously getting a fair amount of sun glare. I can't really show you what I'm doing on the screen, but I showed you just a moment ago.

The portraits just if you leave the phones to their own devices. But, let's see, let me get my face in focus here, we'll bring those highlights. So those shadows down actually know what now I'll bring the shadows all the way up, and we'll crush out the highlights yeah. Okay, what if I tell the founder, take the default exposure for my second chest area. There come here, bring those up a little bring the sky back down, yeah I'm, still not quite getting there.

So, let's take the shot, do one and let's move over to the iPhone focus on my face, doing their shadows or the highlights right down there. Yeah, I'm liking that we'll take it any way through to one but yeah. Once again, let's just leave it to its own devices, we're sort of expose for the sky and let the iPhone figure out that it should be exposing my face. Because. It seems to be done a pretty good job of that.

So once more 3d one got down so there we go, so I thought this would be a clear victory for the pixel, but the iPhone, the front-facing sensor in our phone just seems to have a little wider dynamic range to begin with, and it's automatic adjustment for exposure is a little clever in the first place. I'll tell you something: I did notice with this thing, just even get to read: trigger I'm gonna camera mode here, and it's not going to tell me where it is Ray's camera for better angle. So it's telling me to do the space angle already. It can somehow tell that it's lower than my eyeliner and shooting up underneath my nose or something and every one looks more flattering with a higher camera angle. So that's that's kind of clever I'm, not sure exactly how it's doing that with face detection or just whether it's motion sensors, it can tell how far off the ground that is, or some other Nile interesting little interference with my creative process, though telling me how I should take my shot in turn.

Instead of letting me decide how I want to take my shot help, dare your pixel for the presumption of the arrogance of really the kind of helpful for those who don't know what they're doing I? Guess you get tried? Okay, so that was in default. Camera makers, I didn't want there. I do want the cameras doing any extra fussing and Music with it. So let's go and do dedicate portrait mode here and see how we deal with the exposure this time. So let's do the iPhone.

Yes, see the iPhone this time in portrait mode knows that the face is the more important thing, and it won't sort of water we just throw at sky. So let me bring it down manually again and give it all the lack. So even that seems to do a slightly better job than the default camera mode where in portrait mode it knows you know the face is the important thing, so I tried to keep that in mind. What if we do that on this? What if we come over here portrait mode, and we still get the dual adjustments here? So let's bring those shutters up, crush that sky down just a little no I'm still blowing out when we're getting a bit fuzzy here, ? for some reason, uh yeah I mean no. No I'll show you these on screen clearer, but it looks like I, don't know, I think I'm going to have to give that one to the iPhone as well.

Thanks for the truck over there for reversing and ruining my audio by the way, I'm not going to read tank I'm dealing with the screeching of the mini dinosaurs and the Australian skies, so you'll cope. You can hear me right. What do you reckon vote down below delicious texture right here? I'm, just going to pick it up. There I'll tell you what else battery life the switch when it comes to filming. It's been a bit of an issue, especially on phone, so you can just swap out the battery like you can on a proper camera.

Yeah, I mean my iPhone is the one currently connected to the cell network. There now I'm done using data to go to Twitter every now and again, and the pixel for doesn't have anything. It doesn't have a SIM card in it at the moment, I'm not connected to Wi-Fi, and it is still draining the battery. Much faster I am at barely 95% on the iPhone right now, FIFA for already down to 74 percent. Oh, but let's not forget by the way, but for a lot of these shots where I've been in front the camera.

My iPhone has also been wirelessly, sending beanie video across the map. Watcher. That's that's another battery drain, the pixels not dealing with in the pixels are still losing on the battery war. I mean each so just something else to keep in mind there. The battery on the Pixar for already smaller in capacity, and it is already making a significant difference in how confident that feel.

Shooting with us.

Source : Blunty