biglouis
Well-known member
Got myself the new Pixel 7 Pro the other day and it is the first time since my Huawei P20 Pro died that I have a smartphone that supports RAW.
I sort-of expected that by now smartphone cameras and sensors would make something like my Ricoh GRIII - which I rely on for portability - redundant.
I'm pleased to report that even using RAW on the Pixel 7 Pro it is still no match for a proper camera.
I found most of the RAWs are very 'blocky', very 'washed out' and there is a fair bit of fringing which I had to remove in Lightroom. I had to use a lot of 'dehaze' as the images seemed to tend towards over exposure. All in all, I guess if you are a kid taking selfies of yourself or your mates, it is not a bad camera and I would use it for Instagram snaps and the like.
The JPEGS (not shown) are quite nice and would do for Insta etc.
However, if this is the state of a flagship smartphone camera then there is still a long way to go, imho.
Here are some samples.
Normal 'high resolution' lens.
This was taken with the 'telephoto' lens, with some slight cropping to even it up.
The wide angle lens - in my opinion the weakest of all three lenses on the camera. I had to work very hard to get a decent looking photo from the RAW. At 100% it is pretty soft. I also don't like the rendering of the sky. The blue tone looks very unnatural, even after adjusting the white point.
This is a standard test shot for me, which is a small altar in St Pancras Old Church. I like the lighting and the textures of the woods and textiles. There was ghastly purple fringing in the window which I removed in LR. However, it is probably the best of all the photos I took after processing.
I sort-of expected that by now smartphone cameras and sensors would make something like my Ricoh GRIII - which I rely on for portability - redundant.
I'm pleased to report that even using RAW on the Pixel 7 Pro it is still no match for a proper camera.
I found most of the RAWs are very 'blocky', very 'washed out' and there is a fair bit of fringing which I had to remove in Lightroom. I had to use a lot of 'dehaze' as the images seemed to tend towards over exposure. All in all, I guess if you are a kid taking selfies of yourself or your mates, it is not a bad camera and I would use it for Instagram snaps and the like.
The JPEGS (not shown) are quite nice and would do for Insta etc.
However, if this is the state of a flagship smartphone camera then there is still a long way to go, imho.
Here are some samples.
Normal 'high resolution' lens.
This was taken with the 'telephoto' lens, with some slight cropping to even it up.
The wide angle lens - in my opinion the weakest of all three lenses on the camera. I had to work very hard to get a decent looking photo from the RAW. At 100% it is pretty soft. I also don't like the rendering of the sky. The blue tone looks very unnatural, even after adjusting the white point.
This is a standard test shot for me, which is a small altar in St Pancras Old Church. I like the lighting and the textures of the woods and textiles. There was ghastly purple fringing in the window which I removed in LR. However, it is probably the best of all the photos I took after processing.