Camera Comparison: iPhone 15 Pro Max vs. Pixel 8 Pro

[toke lahti]

3x comparison would be needed.

 

[sideshowuniqueuser]

I wish MacRumors would stamp images with A & B or 1 & 2 and poll the crowd on which images look better... then "update" or post a followup article after 48-72 hours revealing which was Apple's vs. which is <others>. By putting the favorite company's name on images in articles like this, fans/anti-fans find things to favor/fault in those shots.

A poll as described would have people judging solely on quality of photos head-to-head and the delayed big reveal or followup article would give us an overall objective group opinion.

Yep, but the reality is the raw images before the phone software post-processes them, are probably much of a muchness, and what people are judging on is merely what each brand has set it's choices for saturation, brightness, etc. All of which the user can then change themselves.

Apple is clearly turning up the yellows, and Google is turning up the blues. Sometimes the result is that iPhone looks better, and sometimes Pixel looks better. Sometimes one looks an oversaturated mess, sometimes the other does. Sometimes one looks too bright, sometimes one looks too dull. It's so hit and miss.

Sure, ideally, most users just want the pics to look great without having to mess about with them, but it looks like both phones are guilty of getting too carried away with over processing them, hoping for the conditions to be right for an epic result.

My verdict: both are pretty decent, and more or less on par. Choose your phone based on something else.

 

[257Loner]

This comparison is unhelpful. There needs to be an exemplar photograph from a professional DSLR or mirrorless camera to compare the two smartphone photographs against so we know the target or goal these smartphone camera systems should be imitating.

 

[AndiG]

This comparison is unhelpful. There needs to be an exemplar photograph from a professional DSLR or mirrorless camera to compare the two smartphone photographs against so we know the target or goal these smartphone camera systems should be imitating.

Basically your right, but when you look at an image, you see that it is to "yellowish" and notice as well when something looks too cold. Guess this is simply because we know how things looks like in the real world.
I noticed this when a guy filmed cobblestones with a yellow tint and simply everything was too yellow - no DSLR needed.

 

[fromgophonetoiphone]

These reviews always make me question if reviewers and commenters have any basic sense of photography. How can you say the iPhone is a "better HDR" when in half the images it's underexposed with crushed shadows. Is it because people like punchy blacks? This is the problem. What your eyes like in subjective taste isn't necessarily "better HDR." Learning how to evaluate proper exposure should be a basic 101 for any reviewer. If you can't tell what underexposure or overexposure looks like and clipped highlights and crushed shadows look like, you really shouldn't be commenting. The typical amateur reviewer just comments about color. He uses the term "dynamic range" a lot but ends up talking about color. I don't think he even understands what dynamic range means.

 

[schnitzel-pretzel]

Image processing is an art with no right or wrong. However, the vast majority of the general public prefers images that are brighter, more saturated, with higher contrast. It seems to be biologically hardwired. BTW image processing choices to please the masses are not just for smartphone vendors but television as well. Go to any Best Buy and the TV’s on display have brightness and saturation that are cranked to 11. That being said the enthusiast videophiles and photographers, unlike the Instagram crowd, do not prefer everything cranked to 11. They prefer accuracy and restraint. They don’t prefer skin texture to be processed to the point that it looks plastic or teeth looking perfectly white. Until the next big tech breakthrough comes most smartphone cameras are going to be very similar with differences mainly in the post processing choices. Pick the one you like. People have been using color science to pick between Canon, Nikon, and Sony cameras for many years.

None of this is a valid excuse for Apple not providing the options present on most of those cameras you mention -- Canon, Nikon, Sony, even low end cameras let you pick how much sharpening and HDR and noise reduction you want baked in.

Apple is already 1/4th of the way there with "Photographic Styles". They just need to ADD MORE photographic style options, this time for HDR, noise reduction, sharpening etc.

There is literally zero excuse for them not to do this.