in recent years the cameras on Apple's iPhones have been beaten down by far
superior Android phone cameras but now we have the iPhone 8 plus and it's here
to take on our current smartphone camera pick the LG G 6 no matter what phone you
own you'll definitely want to stick around for this fight let's quickly go
over some specs before we get to the test results the iPhone 8 plus features
a dual lens setup one normal lens and one telephoto Apple has improved the
internals with new sensors new lens color filters and a proprietary image
signal processor or ISP the LG G 6 also has a dual lens camera system but it's a
normal lens paired with a super wide lens the hardware inside is mostly
off-the-shelf but where LG really shines is in its post processing and
feature-rich camera app for this camera showdown I'm going to focus mostly on
the results from the main cameras for both phones and I'll use them the way
most people do straight out of the pocket with the stock camera app and HD
are set to auto our testing results are broken into four sections color clarity
exposure and user experience and for this shootout we hired the beautiful
model valaria to help us with real-world testing now on to the results the first
category is color and I'm looking for accurate color balance along with the
reproduction of natural skin tones and I have to be honest I've never seen a
smartphone deliver such true-to-life colors like the iPhone 8 plus does like
I mentioned earlier Apple added a new filter to the lenses that helped with
this accuracy but I imagine most of their strength comes from their ISP in
past shootouts I've dinged Apple heavily in the color category but they're now
back with a vengeance and the g6 just can't keep up no matter what lighting
scenario I threw at it the 8 plus performed more like a DSLR than a
smartphone this category was a blowout and easily goes to the iPhone 8 plus
next we'll go over clarity and these results are a bit more nuanced here I'm
looking at the sharpness of each image and how each camera decides to maintain
a clear photo across multiple lighting scenarios in brightly lit scenes both
phones hold their own the g6 has a slight edge in white shots as you can
here in the distance the g6 was also sharper in most close range and macro
situations as well but at normal shooting distances the iPhone 8 plus was
noticeably better and these are the distances of regular people use the most
so it makes sense that this is where the iPhone has its sweet spot check out some
low-light scenes and it's more of a toss up you can see slightly more sharpening
and post on the iPhone but not enough to tip the scales it really came down to
autofocus in these situations and that's where the iPhone had a clear advantage
the g6 is no slouch but the 8 plus was just plain faster and more accurate
which is super important so with that said I'm gonna have to give the clarity
category to the iPhone 8 plus next up we have exposure and here I'm going over
the dynamic range capabilities of each phone and how they chose to expose for
the scene will bring up the histogram for these shots and here's the basic way
to read one the right side of the graph represents the bright areas of the image
and the left side represents the dark areas you go too far in either direction
and the exposure Clips meaning you lose valuable information this category is a
tight race and both phones handle themselves well in almost every lighting
scenario the g6 has a flatter image which allows for more editing in post
but appears as more of a washed out photo the problem I've had with a lot of
phones including iPhones is that an image with more contrast looks punchy
right off the bat but it's a decision that limits you later on in other words
if the exposure gets messed up you won't have as much flexibility to correct an
editing that said almost all of the decisions with exposure and contrast on
the iPhone 8 plus were what I would have done anyway
these images are punchy and accurate the g6 is accurate as well and allows for
more flexibility in post so at this point it comes down to personal
preference would you like a photo that looks great with no editing or flatter
image that gives you more flexibility to edit the way you want I have to call
this category of time the last category is user experience because even if the
camera is amazing it's not worth using if the experience is horrible the g6 has
advantages like being able to launch the camera with a quick button press and
there's a robust manual mode there are also more interesting features
to play with on the g6 like pop-out which uses both cameras to
stitch together a unique photo the iPhone on the other hand is snappy
straightforward and easy to use autofocus performance is also speedier
on the iPhone especially in low-light the biggest
difference between using both phones is their second cameras the iPhone uses a
telephoto lens that gives you an effective two time zoom which is good
for capturing far-off subjects but apples portrait mode offered even more
value from the telephoto lens it uses a tool on system to gather depth
information and introduces blur into the scene providing stunning results on the
LG side we have the second lens with a super wide field of view allowing more
of a scene to fit into the shot as awesome as portrait mode is especially
when shooting with a model I just found myself having way more of a need for the
super wide lens during day to day use these features really boil down to
personal preference though I'm only going to give the slight edge to the LG
G 6 in this category mainly on the strength of its camera app features you
could just simply do more with LG's camera from its manual mode to pop out
to raw photo support there is plenty to have fun with well after four categories
we have a clear winner Apple's iPhone 8 plus the LG G 6 took down some awesome
phones this year and it's been great but after a couple years of lackluster
results Apple has finally stepped up to the plate and created a truly stunning
camera system photo shot with the iPhone 8 plus have the most accurate colors
I've seen in a smartphone camera the accuracy approaches DSLR levels even in
low-light I believe the strength of this new
system lies within the new ISP and if this phone is any indication we should
see even better results coming from Apple's upcoming iPhone 10 are you
impressed with the new iPhone or are you waiting for the next pixel let us know
in the comments below and be sure to subscribe for more camera battles like
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