Usually, when we discuss mobile phone images, we will always selectively ignore the video shooting ability of mobile phones, after all, in our cognition, taking pictures is all about mobile phone images. But in fact, from the mobile phone conference in the past two years, we can see that almost all mobile phone manufacturers will spend half or more time to explain how strong their products are when shooting videos, and even be able to "hang the industry benchmark iPhone" when introducing the image part.
As a shoveler, I like to use video to record the cat's every move, so I also pay more attention to the performance of the mobile phone when shooting the video when choosing the mobile phone, at least the picture quality can not be too paste, the picture shake will not be too serious, and the circle of friends will not be said "You are shooting by landline, right?" ”。
To this end, I have specially collected the four top image flagships of OPPO Find X5 Pro, Honor Magic 3 Best Edition, iPhone 13 Pro Max and Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra, and verified who is the real "image flagship" through multiple test environments.
Before the article officially begins, I briefly summarized the image configuration of these four mobile phones, although the video shooting ability is mainly linked to the software algorithm, but it must also be based on a strong sensor, the configuration information is as follows:
From the hardware configuration, the three Android flagship imaging systems are at the top level, almost every lens is a ceiling level, as for the iPhone 13 Pro Max, it is difficult for you to recognize from the hardware that this is actually a mobile phone that costs more than 9,000 yuan. However, just looking at the hardware is not enough, how the actual performance, we have to use the facts to prove.
Shooting experience: Not surprisingly, the iPhone is still the king
Before officially starting video shooting, I suddenly found a problem, that is, the four models in the video function when the time required to open the big gap, according to the actual measurement, from the desktop to open the camera and then switch to the video recording function, iPhone loading speed is still the fastest and smoothest, the remaining three Android flagship performance is slightly worse, the following is the actual data:
In addition to the loading speed, the real-time preview window quality of the video interface will also affect the actual judgment of the user, which also represents the importance of mobile phone manufacturers for video functions, if you give a 720P or even lower quality preview window, I believe that not many people are willing to pick up the phone to record the clip.
In the case of opening 4K and 60 frames at the same time, it is not difficult to see from the comparison chart that the Honor Magic 3 to The Best Edition is the closest to the iPhone 13 Pro Max in this link, which is not only very close to the naked eye in terms of color reproduction, but also the resolution is not low.
Up glory, down iPhone
As for OPPO and Xiaomi, although the picture quality in the preview window is still quite good, there is no exception to the case of color cast, rendering the original light blue Yida packaging into a light cyan.
Oppo on, Xiaomi on
In this link, the iPhone 13 Pro Max is undoubtedly the best performer, smooth animations, clear and unstained preview windows can really arouse my desire to record videos.
The other three Android flagships, although the overall work is not bad, but there are also many small flaws, from taking photos to video when there is a certain delay, may be this short half a second delay will let me miss a good piece of material.
Video Experience Section: How Far Is the Gap Between Android and iPhone?
Shot during the day
Of course, these are just my first impressions of these phones, and they don't mean that they will get good/bad results in the next few tests. First of all, in the case of daily and normal ambient light, the specific performance of the four models is as follows: (The following are all 4K video screenshots, and the picture quality may be compressed)
iPhone 13 Pro Max
Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra
Honor Magic 3 to Best Edition
OPPO Find X5 Pro
It is not difficult to see that the iPhone 13 Pro Max is still the best performer of the four models, and there will be no metering confusion due to the sudden addition of a part of the light source (referring to the ceiling lamp) in the lens.
The performance of the remaining Android phones is quite general, will be because of the intervention of the lamp source led to a sudden change in the brightness of the picture, the overall perception is a lot worse, and OPPO Find X5 Pro also appeared in the case of high color saturation, the overall color of the picture is red, giving people a rather unnatural feeling.
The second link is the complex situation of the light source, in this link, the iPhone has become the champion again, and there is no overexposure in the face of the noonday sun, and the color reproduction is also quite close to the naked eye.
The Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra did a decent job in this section, and while it had a little more noise in the shadows than the iPhone 13 Pro Max, it did a good job of color reproduction and exposure control.
As for the Glory Magic 3 to the best version and OPPO Find X5 Pro, the former is relatively poor in terms of picture quality, from the near grass and distant trees can find that its resolution is not enough, almost pasted into one, the latter is an old problem, the overall saturation of the picture is too high, the original light yellow paint on the ground has been restored to a dark yellow, the perception is poor. And the lens shake amplitude of the two is large, which is also deducted points.
Moving on to the next step, the sunlight in this scene is very strong, and such a large light ratio scene is a rather difficult challenge for mobile phones, and without further ado, we continue to see who performs best.
In this link, the iPhone 13 Pro Max is finally "defeated", although it is still excellent in color reproduction and automatic metering, but the 1200W pixel sensor can provide limited resolution, the nearby dead trees are almost all mosaics, and the "climbing tiger" on the building is also pasted into a lump.
What surprises me is that the Honor Magic 3 best edition performed well in this link, which may be due to the strong resolution of the main camera, after all, it is difficult to make up for the gap in hardware by software algorithms alone, which I hope all manufacturers can understand, of course, including Apple," the proud "player.".
So what about the Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra and OPPO Find X5 Pro, to be honest, their performance is indeed average, it is difficult for people to come up with words of praise, not to mention that OPPO Find X5 Pro still has a situation of excessive saturation.
So far, all the test links during the day have been told, it is not difficult to see that the iPhone 13 Pro Max is still the king of shooting video, whether it is the early experience or the post-shooting link, its performance is the most stable and the best, in addition to the resolution you can hardly pick out any shortcomings, if you really want me to say another drawback, that is, its high multiple shooting experience is really poor, more than 5 times directly paste into the mosaic.
The second place is Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra, which is mainly due to its exceptionally powerful hardware configuration, the third is honor Magic 3 to the best version, its performance in video can be said to be decent, although the hardware configuration is quite excellent, but its current software algorithm is obviously not worthy of this top imaging system.
The performance of the OPPO Find X5 Pro can be said to be a big surprise, in the most basic and important color reproduction stage without exception, it has turned over the car, but I can also understand, after all, this is a product that has been released for less than two weeks, and it will take some time to solve the existing problems with OTA.
Night scene shooting
The last link is the night scene, which is also the harshest scene that the phones will face, so I have specially filmed two scenes to simulate our use of the scene at night.
First of all, in the case of extremely dark surrounding environment, the performance of the four models is as follows:
It is not difficult to see that all four models have a lot of background noise and overexposure in such a harsh scene. Among them, although the iPhone 13 Pro Max has maintained a high level of picture quality and color, when the lens is pointed at the light source, the picture has a serious ghost, which greatly affects the overall picture perception.
The other three Android flagships are almost "rotten" into a level, the iPhone has problems they have, but in terms of ghost control is much stronger than the iPhone, it is worth mentioning that the Glory Magic 3 to the best version has a bellows situation, many times focus failure.
Honor Magic3 to best edition
The second is the scene that combines dense plants and strong light sources, which tests the resolution of the mobile phone and the control of the light intensity of the picture, and it is easy to overexpose part of the picture or the whole picture is too bright/too dark if you are not careful. The performance of the four models is as follows:
OPPO Find X5 Pro finally found the field in this scene, and the picture color reproduction is the closest to the naked eye among the four models, and there is no saturation overflow during the day. The color of the leaves will not be green or white, and the ghost phenomenon is also well controlled.
Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra and Honor Magic 3 Best Edition in this scene to play a draw, there is a serious distortion of the picture, the overall brightness is high leading to the scene is not real, and the shadow noise is also more, the only praise is that the ghost situation of the light source part is much better controlled than the iPhone 13 Pro Max.
As for the iPhone 13 Pro Max, there is not much comment, and the night view is not very good at whether it is taking pictures or videos. Of course, this also reflects that Android manufacturers have indeed made rapid progress in the past two years.
To sum up, in night mode, it is difficult for all four products to make me say the word "satisfied", either there is too much noise, or the ghosting is obvious, or the picture is color cast.
Conclusion: A combination of hard and soft is the truth
Through the above several scenes, it can be seen that although the overall progress of the Android camp is very fast, there is still a certain gap with the iPhone in terms of comprehensive quality. Some readers may be curious, obviously in the past two years, what super-large bottom sensors, periscope telephoto lenses, various radical self-developed algorithms and self-developed ISPs have been used in The Android flagship, why can't the iPhone be beaten in terms of video?
In fact, the main direction of major Android manufacturers is still the camera link, and the performance of these three Android flagships in my hand in terms of photography is indeed much stronger than that of the iPhone. But video is completely different, it needs frame by frame to record, it needs a processor that can provide powerful computing power to meet the higher sample rate, higher frame rate and better dynamic range required for video video, not to mention that the scenes I just tested are 4K/60 frames, which requires more chips.
We must first understand that when shooting video, mobile phones need the cooperation of sensors, mobile phone processors and algorithms to function normally, and the iPhone has unique advantages in this regard: customized Sony sensors, its own chips and its own intelligent HDR video algorithm. Apple can completely customize and adjust according to its own needs, which is completely incomparable to Android, which can only use Qualcomm, MediaTek and other integrated platform manufacturers.
Take the movie model on the iPhone 13 series as an example, Apple can specifically improve the NPU performance of the A15 processor to serve it, and Qualcomm MediaTek is also trying to improve its own computing power, but they have to face four or five mobile phone manufacturers and hundreds of models, Qualcomm MediaTek will not be able to spend too much time on adaptation. The same is true for the sensor side.
Therefore, Android originally lacks a leg in the dimension of video shooting than Apple, and the final result is of course that the overall performance of Apple's video shooting will be better. And Apple's strategy is also different from Android's side, Apple's focus on the development of the past two years is video rather than the field of photography, which can be seen from their focus on promoting HDR video, Dolby Vision, etc.
It is true that Apple is not the best one, but in fact, it is the most stable one, not everyone is a master of photography, they all go to get the mobile phone to take pictures, set up the scene, play the lights to take pictures and take videos, more is to shoot, easy to use quickly, do not need too complicated to study.
Apple has indeed done this, and can afford to pay us the simplest, most direct, and decent experience, which is one of the reasons why we subconsciously think that the iPhone's performance in terms of imaging is better than Android.
However, from a better point of view, in the previous article, we also saw that the performance of the iPhone in the night scene is almost at the bottom level, in addition to the rapid progress of Android manufacturers, hardware backwardness is also an important reason. 1200W pixels may be enough for Apple, but for today's consumers who are increasingly demanding mobile phone photography, Apple's advantages are no longer as great as in previous years.
In addition, today's Android flagship already supports 8K video recording, ultra-telephoto recording and provides a variety of video templates, which has far surpassed the iPhone in terms of personalization. It is foreseeable that in the short term, the iPhone will still be the king in the field of video, but with the acceleration of the pace of research and development of domestic mobile phone manufacturers, the advantages of the iPhone will become smaller and smaller, as to when it can be realized, it can only be left to time to verify.