Smartphone camera vs Canon 650D with shocking result

Clara May wrote:

I compared photos from my smartphone Samsung Galaxy Note 5's camera against my Canon 650D with Tamron SP 17-50 mm F2.8 and was blown away by the smartphone doing significantly better.

First of all, the Note 5's camera on Auto seems to be able to get the correct exposure the first time while I often have to fiddle with the Canon 650D's exposure compensation to prevent over-exposure.

Then, I notice that the Note 5's camera has a wider dynamic range than the Canon 650D. Its tiny lens also gives far better detail than my Sigma lens.

Compare the two photos I took of a morning scene. The sky was bright and I aimed just away from the sun. The Note 5 photo was taken on Auto. For the Canon 650D, I had to step down the exposure by -4/3 in P Mode to get some detail into the sky. If I step it down further, the rest of the scene will be too dark.

I am thinking of upgrading to the Canon 80D in the hope that it give me a big boost in picture quality but what do you guys think?

Image taken by Galaxy Note 5 smartphone on Auto

Image taken by Canon 650D with Tamron SP 17-50mm f2.8

no, I don't think you will get such a huge "boost" in IQ going to the 80D, though the 80D is better.

A direct comparison between smartphone and a dSLR is also comparing apples and oranges. The smartphone will apply a lot more processing than what you get from the Canon out of the camera.

First exposure: take the image with the 650D, adjust exposure for the sky, and lift shadows in PP. In fact, I don't know if the Galaxy even applies some kind of HDR to capture the dynamic range?  P&S cameras and smartphones in general also apply more sharpening and saturation than dSLRs to generate more pop in the images. Then there is the difference in optics. The smartphone has a small lens with a very short focal length. This gives it more DOF at the same angle of view than a dSLR lens. Hence, a lot more landscape will be within DOF and therefore sharp. This is of course part of using a dSLR, that you have more control over your DOF, and you can get nice background blur with fast and/or long lenses. In order to compare this better, you would have stop down and use, for example, f11 or 16. Of course, that would require a longer shutter time.