Color Study: Fujifilm vs Pixel

Our neighorhood has many deciduous trees, which means, in Canadian October, lots of bright colors overhead and also on the ground. The camera (from its corner in my office) and phone (from my pocket) both quiver with eagerness to be pointed at those colors. Sinced I’ve grumbled a bit recently about the Pixel’s color rendition, I thought I should try some side-by-sides. So here are three pairs of pictures from the mobile and the “real” camera.

The gear · The mobile is a Pixel 10, shooting with the default Google camera app. Since it shoots at a wider angle than either of the camera lenses I used, those shots have been cropped down quite a bit, but I don’t think that affects the fairness of the comparison.

The camera is a Fujifilm X-T5, four years old now but not too far off the state of the art. For camera nerds only: The sensor is APS-C not full-frame, which is why the body and (especially) lenses are smaller and lighter.

Two lenses are used; amusingly, they are the pair I bought with my first Fujifilm camera in 2013, the 35mm F1.4 and the 18-55m F2.8.

For each pair, the pictures were shot at the about the same time.

I used Lightroom, but only to crop and rotate the Pixel shots. Which you could argue is a flaw in this comparo because normally I touch up photos quite a bit before I share them. But I think these straight-out-of-the-camera versions have something to teach.

Look, I like the Pixel, it’s not a “great camera for a mobile”, it’s just a great camera. I use it all the time with confidence that it’ll give me an excellent chance at a keeper. But it doesn’t come off well here.

I can guess why: First, this was a cloudy afternoon with a row of big houses between the leaves and the part of the sky the sun was in. Apparently the Fuji sensor does better with this particular flavor of low light.

Second, that lens; I think a whole lot of people in Fuji-land would agree that that 35mm F1.4 is one of the greatest lenses ever made by anybody ever. Things just look better through it. Go looking online and you’ll find lots of moist but inarticulate voices and they’re all saying something along the lines of “I dunno what it is but I like it.”

In this case, the Fujifilm picture looks strikingly more three-dimensional than the Pixel’s. Lens design is one of the last domains of analog engineering design. For which I’m thankful.

The Pixel version is light on context and the less-dark leaves look blown out. It would benefit from Lightroom adjustments but I don’t think it’d catch up.

When I got these two up side-by-side on the screen I wondered “Is the Fuji exaggerating the saturation and contrast and brightness?” Maybe so. But if the Pixel version is accurate, I don’t think I would have been impressed enough to take the picture. The cameras’ opinions on the relationship between the red and yellow differ sharply. I think the Fuji is right but I can’t remember where exactly I shot that, so I haven’t checked.

If you zoom way in, the Pixel actually got slightly better focus. Which is irrelevant to the way the picture looks on screen. You might be able to notice on a really big print?

Anyhow, I’m not sure what’s going on here. There was plenty of light; the Pixel was at 1/180sec, the Fuji 1/60. Now I’m going to be suspicious of my camera, is it lying to me in a pleasing way?

Obviously, all the light anyone could want, loads of contrast, and it’s hard to pick a winner. The Pixel does a little bit better at capturing branch textures; those branches are mostly just silhouettes per the Fuji. If you look really close and care a lot, the Fuji’s take on the color of the sky is better. I’ve griped about this before, I think there’s something in the Google computational photography that detects sky and slams the pretty-sky-blue lever over on the color mixer.

Take-aways · I’m pretty sure I would have been willing to share either version of each of these pictures, especially post-Lightroom. Since the Fuji is shooting RAW, those files would have had “deeper data” and thus more scope for pulling light out of darkness or texture out of highlights.

The differences in image quality are there, and they’re significant. But the “real” camera’s biggest advantage is that it’s shaped to fit in your hand and has physical knobs and dials to adjust things, and is awake more or less instantly when you turn it on. It’s not trying to be anything but a camera. Also, you can attach a huge variety of funky lenses, including extreme telephotos. The bottom line: Cameras are immensely more fun to shoot with. But you’re going to have the mobile with you more often.

I’m pretty sure my conclusions would have been the same had the camera been a Canon/Nikon/Sony or whatever.

The phone-cams will go on getting better. But until they can do the hand thing and the lenses thing, I can’t see going without a real camera.