In the first half of 2017, all the flagship international manufacturers have been unveiled. The Galaxy S8 has not brought much hardware change. Sony Xperia XZ Premium is equipped with an IMX400 with its own DRAM and high pixel and unit pixel sizes. The HTC U11 has won the highest photo rating in mobile phone history with hardware that is highly similar to the S8. Now let's compare them. what? LG G6? Can the dragon 821+IMX258 be regarded as the flagship?
Parameters and wide-angle/lens quality
The XZ Premium we compared this time is a dual card version (Hong Kong version, G8142), the Galaxy S8+is a Korean version (G955N) using Exynos 8895+S5K2L2, and the HTC U11 is a national version. Except Sony XZ Premium, which has no automatic HDR function, all other machines turn on automatic HDR and focus on the center.
What should be noted here is that Sony is electronic anti shake, not optical/mechanical anti shake, and is mainly used in video (there will be obvious scene capture processing). Sony seems to be suspicious of deliberately obscuring its official propaganda, which is not very kind.
Year on year display
Enlarged year on year (license plates under Sony, iPhone, S8+/U11 lenses still shrink)
Sony XZ Premium has 7 million pixels more than other machines (58% more pixels), which reflects that the advantage of the sample size is not as big as expected, but it is enough to make up for the disadvantage brought by the small equivalent focal length. The number of pixels allocated to the same scene is still the largest (the largest object). Among the three machines with the same pixel, the HTC U11 and S8+are all 26mm equivalent focal lengths, and the iPhone 7 Plus is closer to the commonly used 28mm. It should be noted that the smaller the focal length value, the larger the same 1mm focal length gap will appear.
The short focal length can exchange for a larger wide-angle/view range. Shooting from 5 meters away, U11 and S8+are almost the same at the lower right corner, while XZ Premium with a large wide-angle can see more pictures.
On the left side of the super far view, except that there is still a gap in the shooting range, the edge degradation of Sony XZ Premium and HTC U11 is more obvious than that of Samsung S8+and iPhone.
After the difference between noise and HDR algorithm is superimposed, the disadvantages of Sony XZ Premium and HTC U11 on the edge of dark parts will be more obvious.
Investigation items and scales
The core of mobile phone photographing is the photographing experience and imaging effect. The main factors that affect the experience are:
Smoothness of shooting and film consistency : Whether the viewfinder box has problems such as delay/shadow dragging/frame dropping/noise full screen;
speed And also includes focusing speed, shutter response and imaging speed;
Film rate , the probability of destroying the film by shaking hands;
Degree of automation , whether it can identify the scene with large light difference and weak light, and automatically trigger HDR and night view mode;
The imaging effects mainly include:
White balance and photometry In many scenes such as sunlight/light/weak light and extremely weak light, whether the white balance (picture color and wind direction) and brightness can be close to the naked eye;
Discriminative power Roughness can be understood as clarity, and the sharpness, detail and naturalness of the picture must be taken into account at the same time;
Tolerance , that is, the ability to show details in the light and dark at the same time. For mobile phones, this is basically equivalent to whether the HDR effect is natural and harmonious, whether there are ghosts, white balance deviation, and poor discrimination after synthesis;
The remaining assessment contents include noise control, color saturation (the closer to the naked eye, the better, but Samsung and Huawei will be able to raise it recently to please users), lens quality (including edge degradation control, anti glare, fog control, wide-angle and pillow deformation control, etc.), and many other contents.
Although everyone's requirements for the photographic experience are almost the same, for different users, the proportion of different items in the imaging part is completely different. For example, the Maoist Party, who likes to zoom in and scan, will definitely put discrimination first, and the proportion is very high; The party in the circle of friends attaches great importance to tolerance, white balance, saturation and other items, but the requirement of discrimination is not high. It would be better for everyone to focus on what they care about.
Photo experience
The photography experience of Samsung flagship and iPhone is now the top level in the industry. The S8/S7 products with dual core focusing are the fastest in focusing, imaging speed, film rate and automation; However, the iPhone is mainly affected by the low light focusing speed/success rate, as well as a certain degree of unresponsive shutter after continuous HDR/night scene synthesis.
HTC U11 can approach S8 in focusing property, but HDR processing speed is general (similar to Pixel); and Compared with the previous generation, Sony's photography experience has improved significantly, but in addition to focusing, the software experience is still at the bottom level of the flagship machine. The logic of the photography app is chaotic, the UI design is strange, and the HDR can only be opened in the manual mode, while the manual mode is still semi-automatic (ISO and shutter value are intertwined and cannot be manually operated at the same time).
Outdoor scene during the day
PS: The focus of the proofs is in the middle, and they are magnified in the center. All samples are arranged from strong to weak according to ISO and shutter:
Day Scene 1
Daytime scene 1 central magnification
Daytime scene 1 center right zoom in
Day Scene 2
Daytime scene 2 central magnification
Daytime scene 3 central magnification
Daytime scenario 4
Daytime scene 4 central magnification
Day Scene 5
Daytime scene 5 central magnification
Day Scene 6
Daytime scene 6 central magnification
Daytime scene 7 central zoom in
Indoor scene
Indoor scene 1
Indoor scene 1 central magnification
Indoor scene 2
Indoor scene 3
Zoom in below the center of indoor scene 3
Indoor scene 4
Indoor scene 4 central magnification
Indoor Scene 5
Indoor scene 5 (comparison between metering and white balance)
Indoor scene 5 central magnification
Indoor Scene 6
Indoor scene 6 central magnification
Indoor Scene 7
Indoor scene 7 central magnification
Indoor scene 8
Indoor scene 8 central magnification
Indoor scene 9 central magnification
Indoor Scene 10
Indoor scene 10 central magnification
Low light scene
Weak light scene 1
Weak light scene 1 central amplification
Weak light scene 2
Weak light scene 2 central amplification
Weak light scene 3 central amplification
Enlarge the left side of the center of weak light scene 3
Weak light scene 4
Weak light scene 4 central amplification
Weak light scene 5 central amplification
Weak light scene 6 central amplification
Weak light scene 7
Weak light scene 7 central amplification
Low light scene 8
Weak light scene 8 central amplification
Summary
Among the four machines, the Galaxy S8+and HTC U11 obviously belong to the first echelon, and the S8+is the most accurate in light metering and white balance on most occasions (but the indoor fluorescent lamp scene has a specific color temperature that is warm and yellow). The excellent HDR algorithm makes it a clear leader in tolerance, while the contrast and saturation are high, which is a typical eye pleasing type, Noise control is also quite strong. Its main problem is that the sharpening algorithm is very powerful, and the first impression discrimination is very good, but for users who like the natural picture, it is a bit too much.
Although HTC U11 is far from DxOMark's psychological expectation of 90 points, its performance is eye-catching. Its comprehensive discrimination is one of the best among 12 million pixel models (LG V20: Are you talking about discrimination?). After the light passes through the threshold of indoor light to weak light, its ISO exceeds 500-600, and the discrimination force is reversed by S8+. In most photo scenes taken by normal people, its analytical power is slightly better than that of S8+, which is more obvious compared with products such as iPhone. The main problem is that the metering is not very stable. The HDR algorithm has a high probability of causing the metering to be slightly bright, and the processing effort is very light. Many bright details will still be lost. When triggered, the noise can be wiped clean and the loss of discrimination is very small (only dense texture scenes will detect the loss). The white balance is remarkable, and the tolerance, contrast and saturation are closer to the tendency of iPhone partial restoration.
I think everyone is familiar with the performance of the iPhone. It is a pure, realistic and reductive style, bucket player. Color saturation and eye-catching style competitors together will have the illusion of "frigidity". The white balance is more accurate most of the time, the light measurement tends to be dark, the HDR algorithm has natural effect, the contrast is relatively low, and the discrimination is hard in the whole process.
Sony XZ Premium has made significant progress compared with its predecessor products, but it is still far from catching up with the current top level. Light metering and white balance cannot be separated from HTC U11, and they are both occasionally slightly deviated. Color saturation and contrast adjustment are closer to the pleasing direction of S8+, and the default tolerance performs well. However, the light is slightly worse, its picture quality deteriorates significantly faster than the other three flagship, and the yield decreases rapidly. Although the pixels are high, the ultimate discrimination cannot be separated from the HTC U11. In addition, Sony's noise reduction algorithm is seriously lagging behind, and the weak light scene will be like an oil painting, which will paint a lot of details and lag behind, especially in complex detail scenes such as leaves.
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