so you don't need a fancy camera in order to entice your creativity for
video or photography all you need is the realization that working with what
you've got well actually get you to the result
better in terms of being satisfied with your photography or anything capture and
so today's video is about smartphone photography versus a real camera
photography and why I would say to just avoid you know the fancy stuff and just
keep shooting with your smartphone now with my most recent trip to Brazil all
the pictures you're about to see were captured with the oneplus 5 with some creative
editing too but still I was blown away at what this phone was able to capture
and it's not about the oneplus 5 camera it's about any camera that is on your
smartphone so start shooting and don't be thinking about having this around
your neck just don't be missing out of hardware when you have fantastic tools
at your disposal already
all right so I hope you enjoyed those pictures but now it's time to see if you
can tell the difference between me oneplus 5t portrait note vs. something that is
equivalent in focal length and aperture on the photography side of things so let
me show you some pictures right after this so it was kind of a love at first
sight you know there's really nothing like this exterior I love the metallic
color the tinted glass panel the RGB fans at the front it's basically a
see-through case and who doesn't love that your graphics card can go vertical
the top is radiator friendly and the right side is so unique when exposed
thanks to these cable covers so you can show off everything you've got with the
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let's quickly talk about the gear for the smartphone I'm using the 1 plus 5t
sandstone white edition because it has this new coating that this far less
slippery versus the aluminum bodies on early models making it easier to handle
while I'm taking pictures without needing incase but it's not as textured
as the actual stands don't case and by the way who doesn't love an accent I
absolutely love this red alert slider that I'm sure many will appreciate now
for the camera hardware like most smartphones today we have a dual shooter
so a 16 megapixel and 20 megapixel sensor and they work together to create
the depth mapping and that whole blur effect and it's a 27 millimeter lens
with an F 1.7 aperture while for the fancy camera I decided to go with a Fuji
XT20 because it's super compact it's got a fantastic sensor interchangeable
lenses and the image quality and the color out it's Fuji is fantastic and for
the lens I have the 23 millimeter F 2.0 lens which is a 35 mm water equivalent
in full-frame and so the Fuji is slightly more zoomed in versus the
smartphone but I accommodate by stepping back a little bit to acquire an almost
identical composition so now let's go outside and take some shots
now obviously portability is kind of important so with the fancy
you have to keep around your neck you cannot stuff it in your pants pocket and
you just have to be cautious when using this thing on the street when this is a
lot more discreet you put it in your pants pocket forget about it take it out
when you take a shot now the beauty of smartphone photography is the whole
point and truth approach everything is simplified your exposure is automatic
tap to focus and all the pictures are there for you to share immediately so
let's put the fancy camera on automatic so all the settings are handled by the
camera and they're taken out from the users experience to see what the JPEG
versus smartphone quality looks like so let's start with a shot of the sky so
both of them acquire proper exposure but the Fuji has different character in
their colour rendition while the smartphone has those nice vibrant blues
of the sky both of them are good very ready for social media sharing for this
next shot I use the portrait mode on the 5T and it does a really good job of
making sure that I'm cut out and that subject isolation and blurring out the
background properly however the dynamic range is better on
the Fuji and the fine detail is a lot better on the larger sensor so that is
kind of the the advantage if you want to really zoom in or like punching
digitally to expand your footage and maneuver your composition whereas with
the 5T it really falls apart in the fine details when you try to get really
close to the image for this next shot I'm still using the portrait mode on the
5T and it does a really good job again and isolating that camera from the
background with little hiccups here and there so you can you can definitely see
those artifacting around the edges but if you're sharing this on social media
most likely people are gonna be zooming in and so you can't really tell the
difference between the two shots aside from better dynamic range and detail of
the few G for this next shot on my feet the color and vibrancy is a bit higher
on the 5T and it's because I'm using the classic chrome color preset on the
few G because I think it has a lot more character but as you can see here with
this like boring composition the 5T wins for this next shot of the tree bark
the detail is amazing in both but you can tell which one is the fancy camera
because of that additional depth of field and character versus the you know
the 5T just feels like a standard point-and-shoot although I will say that
the depth of field it creates behind the tree is very nice and natural this is
not in the portrait mode and so this is standard lens and because
I'm close to the subject it allows me to isolate it from the background for this
next shot of the breakfast plate you can see the Fuji has a lot more color
definition and contrast within its shot versus the 5T looks a bit you know kind
of washed out but it's an easy fix with a little contrast curve now the one
thing that really impressed me was how is similar the auto white balance was on
both cameras sure we had more contrast and more detail in a few G but the 5T
performed very well in its own right in both portrait mode and standard detail
stuff now obviously the advantage with the larger sensor is being able to
create that depth of field and subject isolation especially with the fast lines
like an f2 however camera is becoming so good in developing
their own portrait mode and using software to determine what's in focus
and what's in the background however the fancy camera wins in dynamic
range preserving a lot more information in those bright areas but of course this
is a tough shot for the smartphone sensor because I'm in the shade and the
background is super bright so it's trying to compensate to make sure that
the whole scene is balanced again here we get more dynamic range and detail
from the fancy camera but it is backlit with the harsh sunlight and the 5T does
an okay job with those blur edges while preserving excellent color for the skin
and the environment now for this next shot I'm super impressed by the edge
detection on the smartphone around the furry hood and which is much more
accurate than before and comparing the side-by-side made me realize just how
natural this artificial blur is on a smartphone with an appropriate
out-of-focus gradient so it doesn't simply cut out the subject and blur
everything behind it but we have a more realistic blurriness with the distance
and I think one of the driving forces behind people wanting a fancy camera is
because of that optical depth of field which is created through the glass and
not through AI but portrait mode is becoming so good that I love shooting
people with it but even shooting is still subject it turns out to be just as
good so for example in this shot the photos almost look identical and the 5T
actually renders those light reflections beautifully to really sell the effect
you probably cannot tell which is which if I posted them without telling you but
you have to be careful with reflections since they're not recognized by the
distance and you can tell this is a portrait mode photo from the smartphone
but shooting through glass delivers awesome results because reflections get
blurred out and help to hide any edge imperfections in portrait mode also
works really well for close-ups actually better than my fancy camera and
compatible end results in the controlled environment in terms of color and
exposure when that occasional hiccup around more complicated areas now the
floor on this one is very similar between the two but you can tell which
one is the smartphone because of the blow now at highlights so that seems to
be the major disadvantage the dynamic range needs to improve to really sell
the effect and the pixel to camera right now has done this right but with more
aggressive edge detection which is less natural but we get that beautiful
dynamic range and here are some more examples of the 5T in portrait mode I
think this is an outstanding direction to encourage smartphone photography you
don't need a fancy camera to have a good time now what about the convenience of
capture - sharing with the smartphone is instantaneous all your images are here
and all your social platforms are on there - you want to apply some Instagram
filter be my guest but with the camera you have to offload the images from the
SD card maybe process them in some way choose your best one and only then
upload it however majority of cameras now also have Wi-Fi capability allowing
you to connect the smartphone to the camera and then instantaneously get all
your photos directly on your smartphone which makes the whole process from the
fancy camera of capturing and sharing a lot easier now what if you want to
tinker with all your settings manually so majority of smartphones have that as
pro mode and of course it's a bit easier to handle on the fancy camera because
you don't have to it's not software based it's all just like little dials
and buttons on the body itself and if you want to take your photography to the
next level you can always edit your photos I use Snapseed it's free and it's
powerful I generally just do brighten it up bring out some color with the
vibrancy and contrast sliders I warm it up so it's a three easy step to really
give your photos a little extra pop and for people who want to take their fancy
camera photography to the next level always shooting raw obviously allows you
to capture so much more information and then edit that in post-production so for
example in these shots I really overexposed
I seen just to see how much I can push the raw files and the amount of detail I
was able to recover is just incredible so that gives you a little indication on
how raw workflow is so much more powerful but that workflow in Photoshop
or Lightroom or any other software is intensive on your on your computer and
it's also time consuming here's a fun fact a single photo out of
this is 50 megabytes in RAW so imagine I take 20 pictures that's one gigabyte of
storage on my computer and so you can either shoot in like a smart way where
you delete things you're not going to be using and so for like everyday life
you're using your smart phone to capture your stuff and then when you want to
capture like wallpaper printing material then the fancy camera it might come out
now if you are going the fancy camera around I will give you one advice and
that is to buy one lens that means you learn the body you learn the
characteristics of your lens and how far you have to be away from your subject
and Composition details and all that stuff that way you can have a good time
and move your feet in order to like capture your shot kind of like you do
with a smartphone because most of them have a single camera only then you
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your favorite smartphone captures share them on Twitter @hardwarecanucks I'm
Dmitry you don't need a fancy camera take good pictures and enjoy doing so
hopefully this has been the message across this video thanks so much for
watching we'll see you in the next video