Sonntag, 29. April 2018

Samsung Galaxy S7 vs. LG G5 quick camera comparison

This is just a short one, because I made my decision for the S7 by the excellent SuperAMOLED screen and both cameras are good enough for what I need. Comparing the Cameras, here is the obvious. The dual cameras makes the G5 much more usefull. The wide angle lens catches about the same field of view as the human eye, which is a big plus. The narrower lens gives a slight telephoto angle. In between is the single lens of the S7, which is 4/3 compared to the 16/9 of the G5. Personally I would prefer the DSLR-like format 3/2, which is a good compromise but none of the two offers.
The autofocus of the S7 is more reliable, I dropped a few shots from the G5 because of AF misses.
Comparing the images, the G5's images look much punchier, the S7's a little dull. The S7's images need a bit more punch like the one I gave a slight edit in Darktable. For later editing the S7's approach is more usable, because the high contrast of the G5's images leads to some loss of highlights and depths. The S7 seems to try to Expose-to-the-right (ETTR) to save highlights, wheras the G5 has a few blown out highlights as in the white sections of the roof on picture 3.
Interestingly, when looking on the photos on the smartphones screens, the G5 images look dull and the S7 images are punchy. So maybe both manufacturers try to comensate the properties of the specific screen.


Picture 1: The G5's shot is out of focus, though this is a best of three


Picture 2: More punch on the G5, more sharpness on the S7


Picture 3: More punch on the G5, especially more saturated green. But also blown out highlights on the white part of the roof on the G5. The S7's image is slightly dull.


In comparison a wide angle shot of the G5, which matches about the angle of the human eye, but with visible distortion at the hut on the left.


On picture 4 again more punch from the G5, but the shadows got too dark with loss of detail. The S7's shot is too dull. The optimal look would be somewhere in the middle. The G5's image looks overprocessed, especially way too much microcontrast/clarity. In contrast, the S7's image could use some more processing.


With some editing in Darktable, I adjusted the S7's image to my taste,V adding some elvia, local contrast and vibrance.

Both smartphones are good casual shooters, but for both the results need some touching. As an alternative, RAW might be an option.