The Sony Xperia 1 II is my phone of the year so far, and before we fly to Miami to review the new Pixel 5, iPhone 12 Series, Xperia 5 II etc, we wanted to throw together a nice Macro Photography special for you.
In this video we see how good the Macro photographs are on the Xperia 1 II and… the Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra, the Huawei P40 Pro and… the Sony A7 III Mirrorless Camera..
We’ll compare all of the photographs and we’d love your opinion too.
This is also a bit of a tutorial in…
Sony Xperia mobile come to TURKEY millet marka görsün bekliyoruz seni sony türkiye pazarına geri dön #sonyXperia
Great review as per usual. I'd say the huawei has less compression in the macro shot compared to the Sony. So, maybe the focal length between all lenses are slightly different in this test. But, all phones did well, we have to remind ourselves these are phone cameras. It is insane what we can do nowadays. I was down Dorset and Dartmoor last week, I took my Nikon D800 and Sigma 35mm f1.4, I used it once, for the whole trip I used my Sony Xperia 1 ii. That speaks volumes how great this phone is.
My own personal feelings on this phone: It kind of disappoints me that even when the situations are pointed out that in some cases the 1 mark 2 is not as good as the P40, die-hard Sony fans will still say it does better. Personally I don't get it and yes the xperia 1 ii is much better than other Sony phones of the past and yes it does indeed trump products in SOME situations, but not all of them. Yes I am a die-hard Sony enthusiast, however I like to think that one has a touch of realism here.
Sony phones have drastically improved and the overall quality are orders of magnitude over the p40 and Samsung, however there are areas where Sony needs to improve, Dynamic Range (night mode I do not care about) and macro. But here is the killer, whilst Huwae and Samsung have remained pretty much static -making only improvements upon existing technology, whilst Sony radically innovates. It is ok to like Sony a lot but one must be realistic of where Sony need to improve-otherwise they will NOT improve!
Just bought my wife and I the Sony Xperia 1 ii after watching your reviews. Thank you! Can't wait to get my hands on it.
I seriously don't know what's the deal with a very jumpy video.
You naughty man. Great video.
I preferred the Xperia 1 mkII on the dolls. Even more than the mirrorless camera. The phone had nice balance of colour and the right amount of background blur – the mirrorless camera had too much. Huwaei too saturated but still good, Samsung was average.
On the Sword, the Huawei did the best I think. The Sony was terrible on this.
I did notice however that the focal point on those doll photos varied – the Sony more towards the top, the p40 pro at the neck/chin, and the Samsung at the belly. The A7 also at the belly.
You are blind?In Samsung the face of bigger doll was blurred 😳
Probably not the most relevant question for the video, but I picked up the 1 ii after watching through all ypur coverage and I'm loving the phone, but I'm a bit unsure when watching hdr content like YouTube or Netflix. Do i have to manually set the brightness to max to get the hdr picture? Apart from that can't wait to start messing around with the photo pro app. Thanks for the coverage
Can you make a short video over 135mm zoom quality of Xperia 1 ii cause it is helpful. Thank You ☺️
Nice video btw😉
Sony 1
did you use the pro mode on s20u?
Which lens did you use on the mark 2?
The best unbiased reviewer ever! Always telling honest opinions! As always a great video Tom!
From Philippines 🇵🇭
I am a macro photography lover and I think very few people do compare macros shot by mobile camera like you did! Fantastic one Tom. Can't wait for the rootftop review at Miami btw 😁
I feel the Xperia 1ii still looks the best for me, and I find the s20u a tad bit blurry. I guess it depends where my eyes focus on and my preference. I love how the face looks on the Russian dolls looked, the lines were very clear, which would be the image that I would go for. The huawei also did a good job with that. The s20u was blurry.
For the sword, I loved the how the detailing on the sword was on the x1ii whereas the others were a bit washed out. The sword looked better as a whole and not just parts here and there being clear.
I'm really glad you took these shots! Now I really feel I made a bad decision with the s20u. Hahahaha
Sony colors is superb close to the original subject.. Loving the phone more now. Haha
Hey thanks for a nice video and a useful trick. But I have a question, did u also try the superwideangel lenses of these phones for getting really close to take pictures?
Samsung: hi Sony how much pixels do you have?
Sony: I have 12 pixels
Samsung: :-O
it would be good to focus all your shots on the same place (on the head of the doll) and do not crop the photo in order for us to see the true magnification ration of each phone. BTW thx for the video
Perfect channel for Sony lovers ❣️❣️
I am having a hard time getting the xperia to focus for macro shots. It seems the phone just cannot get up close and keep focus like my old iPhone 7 plus, and the closest I could manage with my own test is about 8-10cm with the16 and 24mm lens and much longer, may be 50cm or more for the 70mm.
How far were you shooting the macro shots from the objects?
This channel is sponsored by Sony for sure. I did buy a Xperia 1 II based on those videos, but I had to send it back. This phone is absolutely bad: picture quality is bad (a lot of noise), very hard to get good colors (almost impossible with some backlightning), the default photo app is a joke (laggy.. I mean a lot laggy! … crashes, switching between portrait and landscape as it wants, sometime unable to switch to the gallery app to check the photos you just took, …)… but what's bothering the most is: I took this phone, a iPhone XR, a iPhone 11, a P40 Pro, and took the same pictures: the Sony is really the worst and by far! I asked a bunch of friends and family to check the results, no hesitation for all of them, the Xperia is the worst. Furthermore, this phone simply cannot record 4K 60 fps videos. I mean I understand now why it's not enabled within the default camera app, if you use a third party camera app which allows this, the result video is trash: between 20 and 35 fps in 4K (variable bitrate!). Really!? On a $1300 phone!!? For the record I get a perfect 4K 59.99 fps on a iPhone 11 Pro (constant bitrate). For a phone identified as a professional photo-phone, not being able to do some basic stuff is a shame. I just bought a S20 and believe me, the pictures and the videos ARE WAY SUPERIOR to this Xperia, for half the price. And yes there is the Photo Pro app, but honnestly, there isn't as such settings as tthat and the results still are average. I'm very disappointed, and I'm done with Sony and with Btekt.
Really nice video! Love the presentation style and photos. As always 😎 P40 best on the sword, no doubt, but actually felt the the xperia focused better on the Russian dolls 🎎 and the highlights helped better contrast. Perhaps? Bring on your new reviews for 2020!
Thanks for the review. Downloaded the files. They were all fairly close. I actually preferred the depth of field of the 1 ii GOT(sword) picture. That one, however, seems to have been the 70mm lens. The others used the main lens. Also, it seems the 1 ii 70mm sensor might be a crop of Samsung sensor. If you do any more tests, one test I would be interested in is a 'quick draw' test. Playing frisbee with my son I have pulled the phone from my back pocket and using the shutter button to start the pro app taken a picture of my son catching the frisbee. It seems that the auto exposure is actually slower than the focus as I can see the exposure change at 10 frames per second (using the 70mm lens).
The Xperia 1 II looked the best with the sword. The highlights look worse on the other two phones. If you look at the tip of the sword at 6:03, the Samsung and Huawei are over-blown (tons of white) but Sony isn't.
Finally Sony phone is raising and getting attentions. They should drop the price though
You are the best person who talks about Sony in all honesty
I own the Xperia 1 II and I have to say I think it loses every challenge. For me the color accuracy can be adjusted. You can't adjust a blur or lack of detail which is the fault in each of these examples. I love the 1II, just my thoughts. Hope they push another update to improve camera quality
I like this stylle of video. No rush, No flashy shots. Very good and pleasing to my eyes. Keep up the good work
Greetings from the Netherlands.
For many years already, smartphone manufacturers have been putting "macro" cameras in the phones, some were giving macro mode for their ultra-wide angle lenses.
Question:
Is it really just me who gets triggered because they are not giving the macro mode for the telephoto lenses?
Most proper macro lenses for proper cameras are 50-100mm on average. Why do smartphone manufacturers think people want macro mode on 15 – 25mm lenses? Going a little off topic, but I also don't understand why are they prioritizing ultra-wide lenses over telephoto? Telephoto is much more useful most of the time, yet we get some 5-megapixel shitty-shooter in our flagships… In my opinion, all lenses on a phone should be of equal quality, because that gives it flexibility. If I knew that I had a superb 25mm main lens, and a shitty 50mm lens, even though I would want to take a zoomed in photo, I would most probably use the main one. Anyway, I like the way they are going with the bigger and bigger sensors, because ultimately: hardware >> software. Also, you can just get Gcam on any phone, if you want those fancy HDR photos.
Rant over.