iPhone 8 Plus vs. Google Pixel 2 Camera Shootout: Apple Wins

[angelguidesabbath]

Pixel 2 xl won them all, might want to get your eyes checked. Bright color is always good color. Also detail and blacks and boka

 

[johnnyb588]

Stopped reading at the Lego man when that one was called a draw. Are you kidding me? Look at all the detail that is lost in the iPhone photo! The pixel shot is completely and totally obviously better. It's not even a contest, yet you call it a draw?

This is a subjective comparison that is objectively wrong.

 

[os2baba]

240.9638.MARK is spot on. Since you prefer a brighter shot at the possible expense of accurate colors, just lock in a +0.5 or +1.0 EV on the stock camera. (Just tap anywhere and the drag your finger up when you see the AE scale on the right. Tap the lock icon to lock it). Try that out and see if that works for you. If it does, then you may get the best of both worlds with the Pixel 2.

 

[geoffrey.platt]

I don't understand all these people claiming that the Pixel 2 took a better photo of the Lego man. The iPhone clearly took a better photo of the Lego man - which was the subject of the photo, after all. If the background outside the window is overexposed, so what? That's normal when you are taking a photo of something inside. The Pixel 2 erred when it prioritized the exposure for the outside background.

 

[kidkidpush]

I found the reviews more based opinion than in any kind of fact or eye for detail. In fact one of the final examples he like the iPhone for having more contrast but if you look in a few areas the iPhone has completely blown the details out! The pixel captures all of the details including the Shadows of the tree and the whites of the building.

Other various differences are just from the automatic exposure level and general good practice is to slightly underexpose when Outdoors to prevent blowing out light colored objects are objects with sunlight on them.

 

[james.lei65]

I don't understand all these people claiming that the Pixel 2 took a better photo of the Lego man. The iPhone clearly took a better photo of the Lego man - which was the subject of the photo, after all. If the background outside the window is overexposed, so what? That's normal when you are taking a photo of something inside. The Pixel 2 erred when it prioritized the exposure for the outside background.

Sometime it's good to preserve details in the background by underexposed if they are part of the story and not just the subject. I prefer the camera man and Mark to do a better job here than using default setting. Likewise, even if we have DSLR camera, we can still take bad photography but the review here is limited.

We are our own best reviewer.

Probably using Moment Lenes v2 wide len or 3rd party camer app.

 

[przybylak44]

Lego - draw? Hehe the winner is Pixel 2 no doubt , how much does Apple paid you guys? IPHONE picture has lots of details missing. Someone who has wrote this compare has nothing to do with photography. Pixel 2 is the winner.

 

[james.philippon]

You are out of your mind. Stop writing for tech if you can't be impartial. What a joke.

 

[rockooldude]

So much bullshit here!

 

[kidkidpush]

Lol

 

[techcritic]

I agree with the others that the choice of winner seems biased towards the iPhone. Another guy here phrased it well, but it seems in the tech journalism industry, whatever Apple's products do at the moment is the "objectively" preferred quality. When Apple was better with color accuracy, that's what was best. Now that Apple's delivering punchy sometimes over-exaggerated colors, that's the quality all the reviewers now prefer.

This is just like Samsung's AMOLED displays in most OEM's Android flagships vs Apple's LCD displays. For some mind boggling reason, the reviewers all seemed to believe that color accuracy was the most desirable display quality, over deep blacks, high contrast, and vivid colors. ('m looking at you Arstechnia and Anandtech. 95% of consumers never cared about color accuracy unless it was completely terrible and anyone with eyes thought the Samsung displays were stunning and Apple's were "meh." Now that Apple's finally stopped pinching pennies to bolster it's profit margin by using last gen display tech, all of a sudden we all prefer vivid colors and deep blacks. Go figure.

Perhaps part of this stems not only from Apple user's cult like loyalty, but also from the fact that Jony Ive uses his sexy accent to literally tell that Apple faithful what they should value (coincidentally iPhone's strengths), whereas Google and others put a product out there and let it be judged on it's own merits without attempting to conjure up illusions of divine inspiration. Not everyone can be a cult leader...

 

[techcritic]

Anyone else notice that the photos being compared are often taken from noticably different angles? Clearly a tripod wasn't used, and that does make some sense if we're trying to test real world performance with hand shake etc, but it would've made more sense to isolate the two variables and use a tripod to test image processing of the exact same scenery from the exact same POV. Then you could do other controlled tests with a vibrating or shaking camera mount. As it stands, this is a poor comparative test of either capability.

Take the flowers for instance. The pixel shot is taken lower down height wise and catches the side of the flowers more. The iPhone photo is taken more from above looking down on the purple flowers in the foreground. In my experience with smartphone cameras, that seemingly small angular difference can completely change the auto-exposure and the post-processing/end result. It's completely conceivable that the photos would've been more similar (or different) if taken from the exact same perspective. The algorithms are working with the optical data on the sensor. Different input data, different end result. The author shouldn't be comparing any products if they don't understand that.

 

[amaietta76]

Problem with Comoros like this are people will be subjective and somewhat biased no matter what. I will add this even if the 8 plus is the winner ( which I don’t see ) the big difference is the pixel is already getting a software update to add more fine tuning to the HDR+ in 8.1 Oreo and because the pixel 2 camera is mostly software and AI based it can always be perfected more and more through updates while the iPhone sadly is all about the hardware here and the camera is what you get. So another advantage Google

 

[balug78]

Very biased review

 

[kareefh]

Your obviously not a photographer. All the shots that you have the win to the iPhone because they were brighter and pooped more where all overexposed. The pixel had better dynamic range and much more detail. In fact the only picture that I would have given win to the iPhone was the fountain one. For whatever reason that one looked better on the iPhone. Lego man alone tells it all. Pixel should have won this hands down.

 

[belfastbiker]

Both good cameras, but holy crap, the comparison on the lego picture was astounding, especially the conclusion: "If you look at the iPhone 8 Plus' image, it's a bit overexposed, especially to the right, outside the window"

A *bit* overexposed? The outside part of the shot is blown to shit, and the image is useless. Seriously, you needed to have got a photographer to do this comparison, not a geek.

- iPhone user since 3G, currently on 7+.

 

[clefebvre81]

This review was so biased. I would rather have natural looking pictures with more details. DxO Mark tells it all with a 98 for the Pixel 2 XL and a 94 for the iPhone 8 Plus. You really need to disclose that Apple it's paying you for this review and that is why you put it on top.

 

[stephenfrancisgray]

The iPhone low depth of field flow shot is far superior. The Google shot suffers from a single lens. It turns the foreground flowers into a single object with uniform focus and then blurs the background. The iPhone imitates a good lens: the very foreground is slightly blurred... flowers then come into and go out of focus gradually. There's no comparison in quality.

Also the Google HDR shot is way over processed. It looks like a painting. You may like that style but it is tiring on the eye. Over sharpened and flattened it vibrates with sharp parallel lines. Again, the iPhone is far superior.

In low light the Pixel does really well... both with and without the flash.

 

[youngden59]

I will say this " The Pixel can act as the Apple (with saturation and exposure) but the Apple can not act a Pixel (detail)"!

 

[ksuyen]

The fountain tells all you need to know. iPhone is superior than 2XL. The details in iPhone's shot are perfect, while Google's missed the mark.