In 2021, when mobile phone images are becoming more and more important, Android mobile phone manufacturers in various countries have made completely different solutions for the imaging system of flagship mobile phones, and such differentiation allows us to peek through today's horizontal evaluation.
Before the horizontal evaluation, let's first talk about several major trends in the imaging of domestic mobile phones last year.
Began to work closely with traditional optical factories, and gradually paid attention to the optimization of optical systems.
In the first half of 2021, Vivo announced a cooperation with ZEISS to carry out in-depth optimization in coating, lens structure and color, and marked the ZEISS small blue label for the next vivo X60 series and vivo X70 series; followed by the first product equipped with the Hasselblad mobile imaging system of OnePlus 丨 Hasselblad Mobile Phone Imaging System, one plus 9, with freeform lenses and "Hasselblad natural color optimization", which also made us shine.
The configuration ideas of the rear image system are diversified, and the multi-main camera configuration has become the mainstream.
Useful material luxuries such as the dual IMX586 + Samsung GN2 main camera used in the Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra, and the IMX598 micro gimbal + GN1 main camera + 2x + 5x periscope telephoto used by vivo X70 Pro+.
There are also models like oppo Find X3 Pro Photographer Edition, OnePlus 9, True Self GT Master Discovery Edition and Meizu 18 Pro that abandon the periscope 5x telephoto.
Perhaps thinking that the periscope telephoto perception is not strong, OPPO Find X3 Pro Photographer Edition chose a combination of 50MP dual main camera (IMX766) + 2X telephoto + microscopic camera; OnePlus 9 chose IMX689 main camera + IMX766 ultra-wide angle, which is also a different path.
Huawei P50 Pro is a bit different, abandoning the oversized bottom main camera used by the previous P series, and instead adopting a 50MP main camera + 40MP monochrome lens + 13MP ultra-wide angle lens + 64MP periscope 3.5X telephoto lens combination.
Multi-camera collaboration and computational photography are beginning to emerge.
Although it seems to shrink with material, in fact, the HUAWEI P50 Pro rear module consists of a "super main camera unit" and a "super zoom unit", of which the "super main camera unit" includes a 50MP main camera, a 40MP black and white lens and a color temperature sensor, which work together to output a high-definition picture through the ultra-clear image engine; the "super zoom unit" is composed of ultra-wide angle lens and ultra-telephoto lens to achieve a maximum zoom ratio of 0.5X to 100X.
With Huawei's unique computational photography technology, HUAWEI P50 Pro, under the premise of ensuring that the fuselage is thin enough, brings a shooting effect comparable to the oversized bottom main camera through multi-camera collaboration and AI algorithms, while computational optics can break through the physical limitations of the optical system, so that the digital zoom effect is comparable to optical zoom, and finally achieves a "win-win" between the lightweight and shooting effects of the mobile phone.
Emphasize the importance of color for mobile phone photography and focus on the shooting experience.
The ZEISS natural color adopted by vivo X70 Pro+, the "Hasselblad Natural Color Optimization" adopted by OnePlus 9, and the "true color" emphasized by OPPO Find X3 Pro Photographer Edition all make the straight out of the mobile phone camera more attractive.
The street photography mode launched by the True Self GT Master Discovery Edition brings a variety of highly stylized filters, and the OPPO Find X3 Pro Photographer Edition can recommend city impression filters that are suitable for local shooting themes based on the user's geographical location.
A total of 7 domestic Android flagship mobile phones participated in this cross-competition, namely Xiaomi 11Ultra, vivo X70 Pro+, HUAWEI P50 Pro, OnePlus 9 (only different from the OnePlus 9 Pro main camera), OPPO Find X3 Pro Photographer Edition, True Self GT Master Exploration Edition and Meizu 18 Pro. Next, we will compare the real-time samples for backlighting, multi-camera uniformity, image quality, color, HDR, and night scene performance.
Live-action session
Even if the mobile phone algorithm advances by leaps and bounds, the glare, ghosting and fogging of the picture under the backlight can never be truly solved, and only by starting from the optical structure and lens coating can we achieve results.
The vivo X70 Pro+ with low-dispersion glass lenses, pigment spin coating process, ALD coating and SWC coating technology is the only one of the seven phones mentioned above that is not subject to oblique sunlight images; the HUAWEI P50 Pro and Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra are slightly better, but still significantly affect imaging; the remaining four phones, such as the Meizu 18 Pro, have a rainbow-like ghost.
Multi-camera uniformity was once the most headache problem for each product, due to the general use of different models and even cmOS of different manufacturers, coupled with different optical components, often color and HDR effects will have very obvious differences.
However, at present, it seems that multi-camera unification is no longer a problem for most flagship mobile phones. If you carefully provoke, only vivo X70 Pro + ultra-wide angle is slightly greenish, and the ultra-wide angle saturation of the True My GT Master Exploration Edition is higher; but the Meizu 18 Pro is not only ultra-wide angle significantly greener, but also the color saturation is significantly lower.
Let's take a look at the HDR and color performance of these 7 mobile phones in the big light ratio environment.
In terms of color, the OnePlus 9 is the only model among the 7 mobile phones with an overall tone of magenta, and several other mobile phones do not have obvious color casts. The color saturation of vivo X70 Pro+ is the highest, the picture feels the most three-dimensional, the most eye-catching; HUAWEI P50 Pro's color is the dullest, and the stereoscopic sense of the picture is the lowest.
In terms of HDR, in such a large light ratio environment with trees as the foreground, the sky taken by 7 mobile phones has more or less certain HDR traces; in the highlight detail preservation of the building in the center of the picture, the best thing to do is HUAWEI P50 Pro and OnePlus 9, and the worst is Meizu 18 Pro.
In the same large light ratio environment, from the small picture, the exposure and HDR effect of the 7 mobile phones are basically the same, and the highlights of the sky and direct sunlight are colored, and the shadows are not dead black.
OPPO Find X3 Pro Photographer Edition is the only phone among the 7 mobile phones to correctly reproduce the color of the sky, while oppo Find X3 Pro Photographer Edition and vivo X70 Pro+ are also the models that can best show the warm colors of the sun; HUAWEI P50 Pro and Meizu 18 Pro also have a low overall saturation in this scene.
Then we zoom in on the bottom left of the screen.
At this point, oppo Find X3 Pro Photographer's Edition shows the best indoor details in the backlight, with the sharpest texture; the remaining 6 phones perform slightly worse.
Finally, we turned indoors and looked at the judgment of the dialogue balance and HDR of these 7 mobile phones in the scene of more complex color temperature in the shopping mall and other environments.
The contrasting image taken at Tsutaya Bookstore was generally warmer, and I chose a corner with a chandelier to shoot it.
Let's start with the trade-off between exposure and HDR. It can be clearly seen that vivo X70 Pro+ and Meizu 18 Pro chose a bright exposure strategy, and the exposure of the other 5 mobile phones has some conservative and dark; on the effect of HDR, Xiaomi 11 Ultra, vivo X70 Pro+ and Meizu 18 Pro have a good suppression effect on the highlights on the chandelier, and the other 4 mobile phones have obvious overexposure.
In terms of color, only vivo X70 Pro+ provides the correct color temperature and higher color saturation, which restores the actual environment of the scene; Meizu 18 Pro can also be seen; Xiaomi 11 Ultra is somewhat green, and the remaining 4 units also have a certain color cast.
You can see that the vivo X70 Pro+, OPPO Find X3 Pro and HUAWEI P50 Pro have each other's wins and losses in the color and HDR links; Meizu 18 Pro is basically at the bottom in addition to the indoor environment; the remaining 3 mobile phones Are actually not big, and the performance is OK.
In terms of image quality, we will compare the details for the main shot, ultra-wide angle and ultra-telephoto respectively.
First of all, we 300% zoom in on the center and edge of the picture taken by the main camera in the same scene.
Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra
vivo X70 Pro+
HUAWEI P50 Pro
Meizu 18 Pro
One Plus 9
OPPO FInd X3 Pro Photographer Edition
True Me GT Master Discovery Edition
The center quality of the Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra with GN2 outsole is the best, and the traces of sharpening and smearing are also the least; the edge quality of the OnePlus 9 is the best, but the traces of sharpening are slightly obvious; the vivo X70 Pro+ has fewer sharpening traces, in fact, the details are OK; OPPO Find X3 Pro Photographer Edition, True Self GT Master Exploration Edition and Meizu 18 Pro have only a slight gap with the previous 3 mobile phones; HUAWEI P50 Pro's computational photography adds a lot of detail to the picture that shouldn't be there, and it feels like it's over-sharpened.
(Main photo)
Next, let's look at the ultra-wide angle.
Judging from the small picture, the Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra has the widest field of view, and the HUAWEI P50 Pro and True Self GT Master Exploration Edition are also good.
OPPO Find X3 Pro Photographer Edition
The best performance of the center picture quality is the use of IMX766's OnePlus 9 and OPPO Find X3 Pro Photographer's Edition, the latter's sharpening traces will be more obvious; vivo X70 Pro+, HUAWEI P50 Pro and True My GT Master Exploration Edition are slightly inferior; xiaomi 11 ultra is obviously lack of sharpness, although there is detail but lack of contrast, not three-dimensional enough; Meizu 18 Pro is a paste.
In terms of edge quality, in addition to meizu 18 Pro also abandoning treatment, the edge of the True My GT Master Exploration Edition has a certain purple edge and a significant decline in picture quality; the performance of the remaining 5 flagship mobile phones is basically the same.
In the choice of field of view and detail quality, the Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra gives a different answer from the OnePlus 9 and OPPO Find X3 Pro Photographer Edition. For ultra-wide-angle usage scenarios, one inch wide and one inch strong, I may still prefer the ultra-wide angle of the Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra to perform better in practical applications.
Then there's the telephoto. It should be noted that only the Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra and vivo X70 Pro+ in the following 4 mobile phones chose the native 5x telephoto; the HUAWEI P50 Pro was 64MP's 3.5x periscope telephoto for cutting; Meizu chose the 8MP 3x telephoto, which supports 5x hybrid zoom, and the hardware is the weakest.
Let's first zoom in on the details of the sign in the center of the picture.
The most solid picture quality is definitely the Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra, considering that the Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra telephoto uses a 48MP IMX586 processor, such obvious advantages are also deserved; vivo X70 Pro+ is slightly inferior, the font is somewhat blurry; HUAWEI P50 Pro is less sharpened, but the details are equally rich; the hardware and algorithm are lacking Meizu 18 Pro can only be at the bottom.
As the position of the zoomed-in detail changes, we have an unexpected discovery. A closer look at the texture of the black decorative lamp shows that the Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra still retains certain advantages, but the HUAWEI P50 Pro's reproduction of the detail texture is significantly better than that of vivo X70 Pro+, while Meizu is still in the bottom state.
In scenes where this detail texture can be predicted, the HUAWEI P50 Pro's computational photography is powerful, and the hybrid zoom form can even outperform the vivo X70Pro+ with optical zoom; the Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra does show us the advantages of large outsole high pixels.
Next, let's take a look at the performance of the night scenes of these 7 mobile phones, and we also chose to shoot multiple sets of main cameras and ultra-wide-angle shots in blues time.
Let's start with color. HUAWEI P50 Pro still achieves the lowest saturation of the 7 mobile phones, the picture is gray and not clean; several other mobile phones have different understandings of the display of sky colors, which is a matter of opinion, I am more inclined to vivo X70 Pro+ such a more positive color.
As an aside, although they are all three sub-brands under the Oujia Group, one plus 9, OPPO Find X3 Pro photographer's edition and true gt gt master exploration edition are 3 completely different color styles, and it seems that they are really independently operated sub-brands (laughs).
In terms of HDR effect, OPPO Find X3 Pro Photographer Edition, True My GT Master Exploration Edition and vivo X70 Pro+ have better retained the color inside the bookstore and have not been exposed to whitening; the other 4 mobile phones have more or less obvious overexposure.
Then I turned the camera around again and took a set of contrasting samples of the crystalline beach under the setting sun.
This round I prefer the color style brought by the OnePlus 9, the exposure trade-off is just right, and it is closer to the effect of the naked eye on the spot; at the bottom, it is the turn of the Meizu 18 Pro, and the brightness of the sky is obviously much higher than that of the other 6 mobile phones, which destroys the atmosphere of the night scene; the other 5 mobile phones are basically decent.
Then let's zoom in on the Jingyao Qiantan LOGO in the lower right corner to see the recovery ability of the main camera of these 7 mobile phones for highlight details.
At this time, the performance of the highlight suppression and the text details on the advertising signboard is the best performance of vivo X70 Pro+; the worst performance for the highlight suppression ability is HUAWEI P50 Pro, which has no details exposed in its own exhibition hall; the performance of several other highlights is basically the same.
In terms of details, the Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra, Meizu 18 Pro and True My GT Master Exploration Edition can also be seen; HUAWEI P50 Pro, OnePlus 9OPPO and Find X3 Pro Photographer Edition "Vientiane New Life" Four words plus are somewhat blurred.
Let's look at the performance of ultra-wide angle.
In the small picture, there is still a certain difference between the field of view and color, the Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra is the widest, and the HUAWEI P50 Pro has the coldest color temperature.
After the zoomed-in details on the Real Me GT Master Exploration Edition and HUAWEI P50 Pro compared to several other mobile phones can see the obvious picture quality gap, the detail outline of the bookshelf is somewhat blurred; one plus 9 is the remaining 5 mobile phones with the lowest degree of sharpening, the look and feel is more comfortable; Xiaomi 11 Ultra, vivo X70 Pro+, Meizu 18 Pro and OPPO Find X3 Pro sharpening are somewhat heavy, facing a lot of texture details of the scene when the look and feel is somewhat uncomfortable.
To arrive at a more accurate conclusion, we took a set of samples of urban architecture with a super wide-angle lens outdoors.
Huawei P50 Pro still holds the record for the lowest saturation, and the picture light ratio of the True Self GT Master Exploration Edition is not three-dimensional enough, and it is a little flat; several other mobile phones are good in picture contrast and color saturation.
After the picture is enlarged, you can see that the sharpness of HUAWEI P50 Pro is also at the bottom, and the True Self GT Master Exploration Edition is only slightly better; the best picture detail feels like vivo X70 Pro+, under the premise of less sharpening, the texture of the building remains the clearest, and the effect of the micro-gimbal is visible; OPPO Find X3 Pro Photographer Edition Sharpening marks are more obvious, the resolution is slightly inferior; Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra and OnePlus 9 are less sharpened and the texture is more mushy; Meizu 18 Pro is somewhat oversharpened, adding a lot of non-existent textures to the white walls.
conclusion
By the end of 2021, we were pleasantly surprised to find that there is basically no essential gap between major mainstream manufacturers in terms of color optimization, dynamic range, multi-camera uniformity, etc., and only a certain mobile phone will have a small advantage in a specific comparison, and there will be no all-round leading or all-round backwardness.
Simply considering the sharpness of the picture quality, the Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra full focus segment with the most material is very good in daylight, but the performance is mediocre at night; vivo X70 Pro+ Although the picture quality is not outstanding, but the color is excellent and the anti-glare ability when backlighting impresses me; the color of the HUAWEI P50 Pro is lighter and the night performance is not ideal, but considering that its hardware specifications are not high, or even a relatively weak level, it is very good to have such a performance under the blessing of computational photography. I hope that Huawei can tide over the difficulties in the future and adopt more powerful hardware specifications in the future imaging flagship mobile phones.
I was surprised by the fact that the three phones in the Euroca system brought completely different color performances; the uniform lack of telephoto made users feel constrained in the actual shooting experience. Overall, the OnePlus 9 has less sharpening and more detail (but the main camera edges are sharpened more); the OPPO Find X3 Pro has more sharpening and richer colors; and the True Self GT Master Exploration Edition is average in terms of picture quality and other aspects, but it is also quite attractive considering the price factor.
The Meizu 18 Pro of Zhuhai Small Factory is backward in many comparisons such as picture quality, color, HDR, etc., and has a certain room for improvement compared with mainstream large factories.
recommend
If you are sensitive to image quality and full focal length coverage, then the Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra and vivo X70 Pro+ must be the best choice, and the latter performance is more satisfactory to me in the case of more backlit shooting scenes.
If you don't care about telephoto lenses, but prefer delicate picture quality performance, then one plus 9 is a good choice; if you like a plain leather feel and want a more realistic color performance, then OPPO Find X3 Pro is worth considering; users who are slightly under budgeted and don't like Snapdragon 888, then the True Self GT Master Discovery Edition may be your only choice.
The remaining HUAWEI P50 Pro lacks 5G and the price is high, the current weakness of the hardware can not be completely compensated by the algorithm, can only say that the future can be expected; Meizu 18 Pro gives people the impression of no highlights, these two mobile phones I really can not recommend.
As we mentioned earlier, different manufacturers will explore the possibilities of imaging in different directions from 2021, and we hope to see the birth of a true image flagship with a comprehensive shooting experience, optical components, and computational photography in 2022.