In the previous episode of Last Cam Standing we saw the iPhone XS’ camera win its second
straight victory over Huawei, Xiaomi, and Sony.
In this matchup, Samsung steps into the ring with its S10+, Nokia pushes boundaries with
the Nokia 9 Pureview, and Google’s Pixel 3 is back for a rematch.
Let’s start this epic photo fight!
Last Cam Standing is PCWorld’s video series that determines the best phone camera for
still images in a King-of-the-hill style battle.
Whichever phone wins moves on to face the next contender - so subscribe for future shootouts!
First up, let’s meet the competitors.
Apple’s iPhone XS has held the top spot for 2 rounds now thanks to it’s computational
photography chops.
But now it’s up against some stiff competition, so we’ll see if it can stay on top.
The first challenger is Samsung and its S10+.
It features a triple camera system, with the main lens maintaining that ‘dual apeture’
gimmick.
Samsung has never done well in Last Cam Standing thanks to aggressive processing - so hopefully
it’s toned back some.
Next in line for the title is Nokia.
The Nokia 9 Pureview and it’s 5 camera lenses could be a game changer for smartphone photography.
Nokia has partnered with Zeiss and Light to push the boundaries of what’s possible,
so let’s see if it works out well in our testing.
And last but not least is Google.
The Pixel 3 lost to the iPhone XS a couple rounds ago, but since then it’s gotten patched
up and upgraded so it’s looking for a rematch!
As always, I’ll be focusing mainly on the standard camera of each phone, using them
in auto mode as they were configured out of the box.
This allows for consistent testing and shows just how each company puts its own flavor
on camera processing.
The tests will be broken into four categories: Color, Clarity, Exposure, and Extra Features.
Extra features is where I dive into suplimentary tests for things like portrait mode, extra
lenses, and low light modes.
And we hired the fabulous Natalie to model for us - be sure to check out the link to
her Instagram page in the description.
But enough with the build up, we’ve got a lot of test results to get through!
First up is color, and we’ll be looking at things like color reproduction and white
balance accuracy.
Starting with this first shot of Natalie chilling on the bricks, let’s note the differences
in color temperature - illustrated mainly by the concrete.
The iPhone is the warmest, followed by the Nokia.
The Pixel is the coolest, and the S10 is somewhere in between.
The concrete in the S10’s photo is cool but the siding of the house is the warmest
of the bunch.
I’m going to give the Nokia the edge here as it offers a great balance.
But switching to this next shot, Nokia really ramps up the warm tones way too far for my
tastes.
The iPhone has the most saturated red shirt, as well as a reddish hue on her skin, which
is typical for Apple.
And of course the Pixel is the coolest, but is pretty great overall.
I think the S10 did the best here thanks to punchy, warm colors that don’t feel overexaggerated.
I feel the same about this shot across the bay - the S10’s photos just haven’t been
as saturated as past Samsung phones and that’s a good thing.
But the Nokia falls flat on it’s face yet again and makes a very odd choice in white
balance - I’m not sure what to think.
Against this wall of vines, the Nokia struggles yet again, coating the entire photo in an
orangish hue that isn’t flattering.
The rest of the phones look fine, but I’d give the slight edge again to the Pixel.
Strangely enough, Nokia did the best in this situation, thanks to the prevalance of brown
tones in most of the scene.
It’s not accurate but it is pleasing, giving Natalie’s skin a nice warm glow that’s
missing in the S10 and Pixel’s photos.
Her skin tone is far too red in the iPhone’s shot, a horrible quality Apple just can’t
shake.
So overall, Nokia has flashes of briliance when it comes to color, but it’s inconsistent
and unpredictable.
The iPhone leans too warm too often, and I’ve never liked the way it handles skin tones.
The Pixel won this category last time and continues to impress with deep colors and
pleasing tones - even when it’s the coolest of the bunch.
But I was surpised by just how muted the S10 was compared to older Samsung phones, performing
great in almost every situation.
I’m going to have to call the color category a tie between the Google Pixel 3 and the Samsung
Galaxy S10+.
The next category is clarity.
Here we’ll be looking at things like the sharpness of each camera, and how well they
stay sharp in low lighting situations.
Starting with some scenes that don’t include any people, let’s zoom in on this building
and focus on the bricks.
Right off the bat we can see Samsung’s signature noise reduction in play, taking away detail
and smoothing textures.
Nokia’s shot is clear enough but features some jagged edges and doesn’t really impress.
The Pixel has the most definition in the bricks, but it’s highly sharpened which produces
artifacts.
The iPhone isn’t too far behind on this one, pulling in a solid performance.
At this closer distance we see a striking amount of detail on the pole and in the wood
grain in Nokia’s photo.
I’m impressed by just how sharp this photo turned out without looking oversharpened.
The Pixel is the only phone that comes close to that kind of clarity but it’s hampered
by the sharpening style that produces this swirling pattern.
But that S10 photo is horrible.
Not only does it remove noise, it also removes any chance of showing fine detail.
And the iPhone doesn’t do great here, but at least it’s better than the S10.
Moving on to my favorite building in San Francisco, I do need to point out a problem in some of
Nokia’s shots.
Zooming in on the power lines we notice haloing around these cables.
But it’s not just in this photo, it’s present in others as well.
This haloing happens around edges with high contrast because of how sharpening works.
It essentially increases the contrast of edges, causing the edge pixels to overlighten when
pushed too far.
Like I said, it only appears in photos that feature hard contrasting edges so it’s not
a huge problem, but it does reveal what Nokia is doing in its software.
Checking out some photos in this dark garage, we notice that the S10 is almost the brightest
of the bunch, but zooming in reveals a pretty soft image.
There is some detail in the S10’s photo at least, more so than Nokia, which turns
in a blurry mess.
Nokia’s five cameras are supposed to bring in more light, but it doesn’t seem like
the system knows how to keep the photo sharp.
And the Pixel’s photo exhibits some serious chroma noise in the darkest parts of the image,
which is a real bummer.
The iPhone does the best here - especailly in the corner.
Before I zoom on this dark photo I’ll point out that when I was standing there shooting,
I couldn’t even tell if Nokia even captured anything, as the screen was completely black.
I thought I messed something up but this is really how poorly it performed - its horendous
and an absolute waste of a jpeg.
Zooming in reveals pretty crappy performance across the board, each breaking down in their
own ways.
The Pixel’s noise is out of control and the S10 is super soft and lacks definition.
The iPhone holds up the best but it’s still not anything to write home about.
And if you are wondering how night mode shots perform here, stick around for the extra features
category.
Now let’s move onto some examples with Natalie.
For this wider shot let’s focus on the bricks as well as her face.
The results are fairly similar to what we’ve seen so far, espeically on the S10, where
it’s smoothing over details like strands of hair.
Luckily the Nokia does just fine here and remains a viable option in some cases.
But moving to a closer shot I’m a bit concerned by some of these results.
The Pixel’s oversharpening isn’t very flattering to skin.
The Nokia’s photo has the most background blur, almost indicating it’s applying blur
even though it wasn’t in portrait mode.
But it’s the S10’s shot that’s the most extreme, smoothing over her skin to the point
of her looking like a doll.
Its noise reduction has been heavy this whole time but the amount of smoothing on her face
seems to go past basic noise reduction.
Moving in even closer, the effect on the S10 is obvious.
The details in Natalie’s iris and eyelashes are clearly sharpened yet the skin on her
cheek and forhead are smoothed over and exhibit barely any detail.
This is just far too extreme in auto mode -- seriously, this type of beautification
should only be applied in a dedicated beauty mode.
But what about that Nokia shot?
It appears to be trying to replicate a DSLR with shallow depth of field by having most
of her face in focus while bluring everything else.
Once again, this isn’t in Portrait mode, this is from auto mode and it’s going too
far for me.
Of course the Pixel doesn’t flatter Natalie’s skin, and it’s the iPhone that looks the
best in all the shots with her in it.
So this category has been defined by extremes.
The S10 applies heavy amounts of noise reduction and appears to smooth skin.
Nokia is hit or miss, and tries to add depth to photos of people whether you want that
or not.
The Pixel can be the sharpest of the bunch, but uses sharpening to get there, which doesn’t
flatter skin.
So it’s the iPhone that’s consistent and performs well in almost every scenario.
Apple’s iPhone XS takes the clarity category.
The third category is exposure.
Here we’ll be looking at dynamic range and how each camera chooses to expose for a scene.
Checking out this construction site we notice right away that the Nokia 9 is the flattest
of the bunch.
It has the most info in the shadows toward the bottom of the frame, but it doesn’t
protect the highlights as well as the iPhone does on this sign here.
Overall the Nokia 9 is a bit underexposed, whereas the S10 is the brightest, but completely
blows out the sign.
This street scene illustrates the differences even more, with the Pixel having the most
contrast and Nokia being a bit underexposed and flat.
The iPhone and S10 are pretty similar, though Apple keeps those shadows pretty dark.
The S10’s shot looks washed out, but in a good way for this scenario.
For example, both the S10 and Nokia images allow me to pump up as much contrast as I
want when I go to post the photos on Instagram
But this is where the processing of each camera becomes obvisouly clear in a high-contrast,
back-lit scenario.
The highlights are blown out in the S10 and Nokia photos, while the Pixel and iPhone keep
the exposure right where it needs to be in order to retain information.
But the Pixel’s HDR is too aggressive and looks too processed, a trait in Google phones
that I’ve never loved.
The iPhone does the best here, and gives me editing flexibility and a well-balanced photo.
This next example is similar, but each phone fails to retain those highlights.
That’s fine though, because I knew it would be a really hard scenario that forces the
cameras to make a choice.
Samsung seems to choose to keep Natalie properly exposed in all of these shots, regardless
of what happens to the rest of the image.
Nokia tries its hardest to keep the most dynamic range, which pleases the photographer in me,
but results in editing becoming a necessity, not a choice.
But that iPhone photo has the best balance of contrast and dynamic range in mind.
I do really appreciate what Nokia is doing here by protecting hightlights and offering
a flat image.
Out of all of these photos, Nokia’s version is the closest to how I would capture this
scene with a DSLR.
The rest have a phone capture quality to them, while the Nokia feels unique and professional.
But for the average user, it might be too dark.
This last example is interesting, as Natalie’s all-black outfit confuses Nokia into blowing
out the sky in order to retain the shadows.
I still prefer that to what happens in the Pixel’s photo, turning her into a black
slab of nothingness.
So if this category was defined as ‘most dynamic range’ the Nokia would win hands
down, but it’s more than that.
There needs to be a balance between a flat and editable photo, and one that can be posted
with minimal editing required.
On top of that, the Nokia just tends to underexpose too often, which makes correction a necessity.
On top of that, the five-sensor system doesn’t deliver on the promise of bringing in more
light, which is most likely a faliure of software tuning.
So all in all, it’s the iPhone that does the best in most scenarios, providing enough
information for editing, but a pleasing photo even without it.
The S10 isn’t too far behind, but its tendancy to push exposure too high results in some
problems.
And the Pixel’s results are still to highly processed for my taste.
So Apple’s iPhone XS wins the exposure category as well.
The fourth and final category looks at extra features, and here we’ll go over some of
the trademark features that set each phone apart.
I’m going to tackle this category a bit different this time, and annouce the winner
up front and explain why.
So when I laid out all four phones in front of me and honestly asked myself which one
I preffered to use and has the most features, it was the S10.
When talking about lenses, sure the Nokia 9 has five of them, but only one effective
field of view.
Meanwhile, the S10 has three cameras dedicated to three different fields of view - the only
one in this fight to do so.
And by this point, fans of Last Cam Standing will know that I’m a huge fan of wide angle
lenses, and the one featured on the S10 is great.
The 123 degree field of view is wide enough to capture very large scenes with minimal
distortion.
And it’s f/2.2 lens is wide enough to let in plenty of light.
Speaking of light, Samsung’s Night Mode just wasn’t as useful as the one found on
the Pixel and never produced a widely better image over the standard shot.
But luckily the S10 is no slouch in the low light department even without Night Mode,
so it’s not a huge knock.
Maybe Samsung can do more in future software tuning.
But even though Night Mode wasn’t that impressive, I was impressed by Live Focus - Samsung’s
version of portait mode.
Out of all four phones, the S10 delivered the best edge detection, even better than
what Nokia offers with its unique five camera setup.
And Samsung’s extra options like Spin and Color Point are way more fun than Apple’s
Portrait lighting.
I also appreciate depth modes are available for the main wider lens, and not just limited
to the telephoto lens.
It offers more creative possiblities and ensures the best quality possible.
All in all, Samsung’s camera app is easily the most robust and feature-rich.
You can choose to hide unused camera modes, save RAW files when shooting in Pro mode,
and export directly to Instagram if you wanted to.
Add in the speed and reliablilty of the app itself, and it’s hard find much fault.
I will say that the Scene Optimizer is nowhere near as powerful and useful as something like
Huawei’s Master AI and I will never use Bixby Vision, so it’s just taking up space
on the screen.
But those downsides are very minor gripes and don’t have an impact on how I used the
app daily.
Not that the other phones don’t have great things going on for them, I just can’t say
any of them are as reliable or feature rich as what’s going on in the S10.
So yeah, Samsung’s Galaxy S10+ wins the extra features category.
And with that, it’s time to crown a winner of this epic match up!
First, I do want to give a special award to the Nokia 9 Pureview.
While I can’t recommend anyone buying into this camera system, it does have flashes of
brilliance and shows a promising future for multi-lens systems - especially for camera
lovers.
But if we are talking about the best of the best available today, look no further than
Apple’s iPhone XS!
This marks Apple’s first back to back win, and the longest streak they’ve held in Last
Cam Standing.
The XS marks a very important turning point for Apple and its thanks mainly to computational
photography.
The photos that come out of this camera are consistently sharp, feature plenty of dynamic
range to play with, and look great even with minimal editing.
Apple is at the top of it’s photography game right now, and is worthy of the crown.
But there will always be new and exciting Android phones to come out like Huawei’s
P30 Pro.
Subscribe and tune in next time for more camera testing on Last Cam Standing.