Google Pixel XL Camera Sample 4K - The Best Yet?

[Eric Calabros]

The main problem with smartphones is their lenses. While Pixel lens is way better than other flagships but its still far behind even a P&S camera lens. and they can't do much to improve it though, I mean its ridiculously tiny plastic! 

[Michael Ma]

I guess it's time to put my Galaxy Note 7 on my Edelkrone slider and make some quick cash on youtube.

[JurijTurnsek]

49 minutes ago, Eric Calabros said:

The main problem with smartphones is their lenses. While Pixel lens is way better than other flagships but its still far behind even a P&S camera lens. and they can't do much to improve it though, I mean its ridiculously tiny plastic! 

Of course they can ... no one is forcing the entire industry to make such slim phones. Give us some semblance of a grip, thick body with larger battery and maybe even a 1" sensor like Panasonic CM1. Or Samsung could finally produce a 4K K Zoom successor. Zero innovation in hardware, just waiting for the latest Sony sensor and that's it.

[sanveer]

1 hour ago, Eric Calabros said:

The main problem with smartphones is their lenses. While Pixel lens is way better than other flagships but its still far behind even a P&S camera lens. and they can't do much to improve it though, I mean its ridiculously tiny plastic! 

It's difficult to reason why Google refuses to put OIS in their smartphone cameras, and have an f/1.7 lens instead of the f/2 one.

Also I am very curious to know the truth about the double exposure for getting the noticeable exposure improvement. While I don't doubt that the Sony IMX378 sensor can actually read RAW at extremely high rates, allowing for superb HDR, I am guessing that Google does it in jpeg, since the processor may not be able to handle high speed RAW, along with HDR. Also, the missing OIS may limit the exposure range. Google really doesn't have any good explanation for not including the OIS (except perhaps to save on money and a few extra engineers). Also, the low light pics seem to lack details. Google's algorithm are quite exaggerated. They cannot possibly compensate for a lack of OIS.

[Trek of Joy]

52 minutes ago, JurijTurnsek said:

Of course they can ... no one is forcing the entire industry to make such slim phones. Give us some semblance of a grip, thick body with larger battery and maybe even a 1" sensor like Panasonic CM1. Or Samsung could finally produce a 4K K Zoom successor. Zero innovation in hardware, just waiting for the latest Sony sensor and that's it.

But then you get something really bulky, expensive and far less capable than the 1" compacts, all you're really talking about is a RX100 with an oversized, clunky touchscreen interface and a slower lens that's not as wide or long. That's no-man's land when top phones sell in the millions every month. There's just not enough of a market to sustain the P&S phones, its a small niche market in an industry that's purely volume driven. Even companies like Sony and Microsoft are finding mobile devices a tough place to turn a profit - despite selling millions of phones annually.

Personally I'd prefer one of the 1" compacts or something like the LX100 -- better IQ, better lens with a wider range, much faster in use, swappable battery, no micro SD card and so on -- to carrying a P&S phone.

I have a couple cinematic apps for the iPhone, snap speed, LR mobile and such. Its fine when that's all I have to get a shot, but phone photos suck for anything more than the web, phones are far less responsive compared to pretty much any camera on the market today, and the video is good for a phone and little else.

Just my opinion.

[Don Kotlos]

2 hours ago, sanveer said:

It's difficult to reason why Google refuses to put OIS in their smartphone cameras, and have an f/1.7 lens instead of the f/2 one.

Also I am very curious to know the truth about the double exposure for getting the noticeable exposure improvement. While I don't doubt that the Sony IMX378 sensor can actually read RAW at extremely high rates, allowing for superb HDR, I am guessing that Google does it in jpeg, since the processor may not be able to handle high speed RAW, along with HDR. Also, the missing OIS may limit the exposure range. Google really doesn't have any good explanation for not including the OIS (except perhaps to save on money and a few extra engineers). Also, the low light pics seem to lack details. Google's algorithm are quite exaggerated. They cannot possibly compensate for a lack of OIS.

Pixel has one of the largest sensors in mobile so even if it is f/2 it collects more light than the iphone7, offering better details and much better color. 

Compared to S7 it collects tiny bit less light, and the quality differences between the two are much less. The processing has more of n effect. S7 has less noise but it has the plasticky look of excessive noise reduction + oversharpening. So to me Pixel offers the best low light quality. 

Now OIS is quite useful in low light, but the differences between OIS and multi-frame capture in photos or OIS and EIS with gyro in video is small enough that I guess for Google not having a camera protrusion by not using OIS, was more of an advantage marketing wise. On top of that, since they use the gyroscope to compensate for motion, I am not sure how compatible it would be with OIS if there is no communication between the two. S7 doesn't even offer OIS during 4k video.

For video iphone7 offers better stabilization than the Pixel. EIS with Pixel suffers from abrupt motion and algorithmic blurring artifacts. But if you are planning to shoot plenty of videos while walking, don't rely on EIS, or OIS. Get a gimbal :p . 

 

 

[sanveer]

1 hour ago, Don Kotlos said:

Pixel has one of the largest sensors in mobile so even if it is f/2 it collects more light than the iphone7, offering better details and much better color. 

Compared to S7 it collects tiny bit less light, and the quality differences between the two are much less. The processing has more of n effect. S7 has less noise but it has the plasticky look of excessive noise reduction + oversharpening. So to me Pixel offers the best low light quality. 

Now OIS is quite useful in low light, but the differences between OIS and multi-frame capture in photos or OIS and EIS with gyro in video is small enough that I guess for Google not having a camera protrusion by not using OIS, was more of an advantage marketing wise. On top of that, since they use the gyroscope to compensate for motion, I am not sure how compatible it would be with OIS if there is no communication between the two. S7 doesn't even offer OIS during 4k video.

For video iphone7 offers better stabilization than the Pixel. EIS with Pixel suffers from abrupt motion and algorithmic blurring artifacts. But if you are planning to shoot plenty of videos while walking, don't rely on EIS, or OIS. Get a gimbal :p . 

 

 

I saw quite a few comprisons between the iPhone, the S7 and the Pixel, and the difference is far more than DPReview states. Most likely because DPReview doesn't consider the OIS (I wonder whether it considers the f-stop of the lens?). Therefore it is not a very real user experience, and even technically,  therefore, it may be flawed. 

[Chris Oh]

5 hours ago, Michael Ma said:

I guess it's time to put my Galaxy Note 7 on my Edelkrone slider and make some quick cash on youtube.

You didn't return yours??!?

[Don Kotlos]

12 minutes ago, Chris Oh said:

You didn't return yours??!?

Have you seen how many YT views explosive Note7s get? 

I bet an explosive Note7 on an Edlkrone slide would raise enough money for 2 Pixels ;). 

P.S. If Samsung hadn't fucked up (or I didn't care about 3rd degree burns) Note7 would be in my pocket instead of the Pixel. 

[leeys]

12 hours ago, Eric Calabros said:

The main problem with smartphones is their lenses. While Pixel lens is way better than other flagships but its still far behind even a P&S camera lens. and they can't do much to improve it though, I mean its ridiculously tiny plastic! 

Actually, given the smaller sensors, smartphone lenses are technically outresolving lenses from larger formats. It's always been this way - the smaller the imaging area, the harder the lens has to work. The volume moved means there's more R&D being done there - again, just like how 35mm lenses became so much better over time; more people were buying them so more R&D was done there.

The main problem really is the tiny sensor.

9 hours ago, Don Kotlos said:

Now OIS is quite useful in low light, but the differences between OIS and multi-frame capture in photos or OIS and EIS with gyro in video is small enough that I guess for Google not having a camera protrusion by not using OIS, was more of an advantage marketing wise. On top of that, since they use the gyroscope to compensate for motion, I am not sure how compatible it would be with OIS if there is no communication between the two. S7 doesn't even offer OIS during 4k video.

I wasn't expecting to see this here, unlike in mainstream tech sites where people were going by Google's announcements... but ask yourself, how does an OIS system know which direction to shift the lens element?

[Don Kotlos]

3 hours ago, leeys said:

I wasn't expecting to see this here, unlike in mainstream tech sites where people were going by Google's announcements... but ask yourself, how does an OIS system know which direction to shift the lens element?

Yes, gyros do need to be used as well, but from what I got by sampling the gyro faster they could compensate for faster motion and reduce the jello so an OIS might have been too slow. Quite possibly I am wrong and this was just a marketing spin. Anyways, I wasn't trying to defend their decision more like to offer a possible explanation and I would still prefer OIS with a camera bump  .

Edit: after trying to find which marketing script influenced me I found their line of argument here:

" and EIS improves shaky video by maintaining a consistent framing between multiple video frames. OIS is primarily for photo, and EIS is only for video"

So nothing about why the two are incompatible. camera bump it is. 

[Michael Ma]

9 hours ago, Chris Oh said:

You didn't return yours??!?

They'll have to pry it from my dead hands.  Which may happen soon enough.

[DBounce]

10 hours ago, Michael Ma said:

They'll have to pry it from my dead hands.  Which may happen soon enough.

You might want to disable the automatic updates to prevent Samsung from limiting battery life to 60%.

[Chris Oh]

11 hours ago, Michael Ma said:

They'll have to pry it from my dead hands.  Which may happen soon enough.

I'm holding on to my Note 5...

[Michael Ma]

1 hour ago, DBounce said:

You might want to disable the automatic updates to prevent Samsung from limiting battery life to 60%.

Yeah. 60% update is hitting on October31. Not sure if it's world wide.