Though I would also provide my professional recommendation to always look for the more unconditionally natural-looking shooter, as it's generally easier to adjust *to* a desired effect from a solid base than it is to come back *from* an undesired effect.What is a desktop wallpaper? When you boot your computer, there is an initial screen that comes up, in which your folders, documents, and software shortcuts are placed. Then I can also point out that one is closer to reality in terms of saturation or color temperature than the other yet, at the same time, include an asterisk that some may prefer the warmer/colder vibrant/dulled look subjectively. One's image stabilization or noise reduction is better. Or that one's shutter or processing speed was slower than the other. Or how one struggled to focus on a moving object and the other didn't. Or mentioning the aesthetics separately.įor example: If I take two photos with two separate devices I can clearly show and explain why one is sharp and clear or blurry and grainy. Hence comparison photos of the exact same subject in the exact same setting and lighting, simply measuring the technical merits and not so much the aesthetics.
That 'standard' usually being as close to reality as possible with some consideration given for certain aesthetically pleasing qualities like narrow depth in portrait modes or boosted dynamic range in less than ideal lighting conditions. But when comparing devices themselves we're sort of measuring the devices' ability to achieve the same standard at the same settings. Now, interestingly enough, some of those absolutely can be used purposefully to achieve a specific effect. We're talking about things like clarity or sharpness, resolution, noise (especially in lower light), focus, lens distortion, aberration, flaring, balance, exposure, saturation/contrast, etc. In the case of digital photography, there are actually a whole lot of those qualities. However, there are also absolutely objective qualities that can be measured and compared. Yes, with photography as well as other forms of art/design there is a whole lot that boils down to subjective interpretation or appreciation. What are your thoughts on the differences between the Pixel 2 and iPhone XS cameras?Īs someone who studied both fine art and digital imaging and has worked professionally with both, yes and no. We were rather skeptical of the Pixel 2 and 2 XL's cameras as the start given their lackluster hardware, but Google blew us away - now with another year of hardware advancement and software improvement, it could widen the gap. That has me increasingly excited for the Google Pixel 3 and 3 XL, which we'll see in a matter of weeks.
Other publications and reviewers have observed the same: the Pixel 2 just takes better photos, whether you measure by subjective feelings or objective metrics.
But it's interesting to see them beaten by the nearly year-old competition from Google. They're better than what the iPhone X was capable of, and probably better than most other phones out there. The iPhone XS takes great photos - they just aren't as great as the Pixel 2.Īs is the case in so many camera comparisons, if you were to take the iPhone XS photos alone and analyze them you'd be perfectly happy with the results.