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How good are modern smartphones cameras compared to m43?

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Serguei Palto

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Just for info.

Below is an example where I compare G9+ Oly Pro 12-100 f/4 at f=12mm with LE2110 camera of OnePlus 9 smartphone (LE2110 sensor is two times less compared to m43 and holds 12M pixels), which has a lens f/1.9 f=6.1 mm, so the angle of view is the same.

In both cases I have processed raw files with no lens corrections applied, so one can see how good is LE2110 lens compared to Oly Pro 12-100. I would say it is very good. Actually, LE2110 lens is sharp over the whole frame with well optically corrected chromatic aberrations and geometry distortions.

LE2110, of course, can not replace m43 in all situations, but now we have very good time for the photography with wide choice of cameras.

G9+Oly Pro 12-100, f=12mm

G9+Oly Pro 12-100, f=12mm

LE 2110

LE 2110
 
This kind of topic comes up once in a while.


Phones offer convenience and in good light, can deliver colorful results that can be satisfactory at a glance. And if you live online, you can share easily.


But if you start pixel-peeping, shoot in more demanding conditions and require creative controls...


I don't particularly like shooting with phones overall. It feels sluggish and imprecise.
 
Last edited:
Serguei Palto said:
...

In both cases I have processed raw files with no lens corrections applied,
Click to expand...
That is a very perverse choice! Not a single one of my thousands of MFT images is uncorrected and I dare say I am not alone in that.

It would be a whole lot more useful to see a comparison of the corrected images.
 
Fascinating to look at the differences and speculate as to the causes.

Good post.

Andrew
 
I have found the main camera of my Samsung Salaxy S21 Ultra (or even my old S9+) to be very good in good light.

It's part of the reason I stopped shooting consumer kit zooms on m43. At least the ones I had were softer across the frame compared to the phone, and I did not see the point of carrying a dedicated camera to have softer images than what my phone could do. (Shooting primes and pro zooms on m43 yields results noticeably better than phone cameras in my experience, which is what I do now.)

However, this trend apply only to the main phone camera sensor and not all of the other cameras that's on the phone. S21 Ultra has a tele-lens with good reach. But the sensor on that tele lens is smaller than the main camera, and the image quality is far worse than cropping 12-45 at tele end on 20mp m43 sensor.

Low light is another situation where m43, at least the newer models, have advantages. For high ISO shots, OM1's SOOC jpeg at ISO12800+ is much better than S21 Ultra's high iso (max ISO3200) images which helps freezing the motion.

For extreme low light, some people think that smartphones with its night mode can be superior to MILC if you don't use a tripod. That is not true at all when it comes to modern m43. Higher end m43's stabilization can rival and surpass night mode on phone cameras in terms of handheld exposure time.

Of course, this might be different if someone was shooting MILC/DSLR without IBIS or lens stabilization. (This is a good example: https://petapixel.com/2019/11/05/bl...ght-sight-vs-canon-eos-rp-low-light-shootout/ )

In the end, it's a "right tool for the right job" situation. I'm a hobbyist and my primary goal is to have fun. OM System suits me the best for this purpose since it seems to deliver the best compromise between image quality and hassle-free shooting.

S21 Ultra, night mode on main camera.

S21 Ultra, night mode on main camera.

This is the same scene as the one above, taken minutes apart. OM1 handheld SOOC jpeg. I used a prime here, but even an F4 lens would perform better than the phone.

This is the same scene as the one above, taken minutes apart. OM1 handheld SOOC jpeg. I used a prime here, but even an F4 lens would perform better than the phone.
 
Last edited:
Tom Axford said:
Serguei Palto said:
...

In both cases I have processed raw files with no lens corrections applied,
Click to expand...
That is a very perverse choice! Not a single one of my thousands of MFT images is uncorrected and I dare say I am not alone in that.

It would be a whole lot more useful to see a comparison of the corrected images.
Click to expand...
Are the images bad? If you think they are bad then, please, show your examples at close settings and conditions to know what is good :)

Have in mind that the images have been taken against the sun light, which makes, for example, the chromatic aberrations more pronounced, which is very important in testing.

Also it is not always usefull to compare corrected or AI-processed images. I want to remind that this is a technical forum, and what is indeed useful that is to know true optical performance.
 
The answer to your question is absolutely useless if you use your camera for the me subject matter as me.
 
Serguei Palto said:
Tom Axford said:
Serguei Palto said:
...

In both cases I have processed raw files with no lens corrections applied,
Click to expand...
That is a very perverse choice! Not a single one of my thousands of MFT images is uncorrected and I dare say I am not alone in that.

It would be a whole lot more useful to see a comparison of the corrected images.
Click to expand...
Are the images bad? If you think they are bad then, please, show your examples at close settings and conditions to know what is good :)

Have in mind that the images have been taken against the sun light, which makes, for example, the chromatic aberrations more pronounced, which is very important in testing.

Also it is not always usefull to compare corrected or AI-processed images. I want to remind that this is a technical forum, and what is indeed useful that is to know true optical performance.
Click to expand...
Rubbish! The optical performance is of no relevance to the majority of MFT photographers. What is relevant is the overall performance including software corrections done in camera or when processing raw images.

The image quality of the final image is what matters.
 
As long as you shoot in good light, do not need to crop, as long as you don't need special lenses (12 mm or 300 mm or 500 mm) or very bright and very sharp lenses (e.g. the 45/1.2 from Oly), as long as you don't need a flash system that can cooperate with your camera-system with 2, 3 or more flashes, as long as you don't need 60 fps in RAW, HHHR, ad-on-flash, macro, filters like polarizer or ND-filters, as long as you don't want to play with DOP, as long as you don't need real good AF-tracking or manual focus, as long as you don't need livetime or livecomp, as long as you don't need highresolution, you don't need a viewfinder, a real good sensor-stabilisation or something a modern camera-system (not only one camera with one lens) can offer, as long as you do not need all this features, than a phone will do a really good job.

And if you are satisfied with all the features and the IQ and the speed a phone offers, a phone is the right solution for you!

I've got a camera system with 2 bodies, 10 lenses from 17 to 150 x 1,4 mm and macros, 6 flashes with 3 commanders, filters, tripods, much power-capacity (many accus) and some additional accessories that I can't compare with a camera-phone, even it's a good camera-phone.

you can compare a good camera-phone with a good point-and-shoot-camera .... but not with a whole system .....

But if a phone is right for you, than it is o.k. It has one advantage: it is always with you ;-)
 
AlmostDoctor said:
I have found the main camera of my Samsung Salaxy S21 Ultra (or even my old S9+) to be very good in good light.

It's part of the reason I stopped shooting consumer kit zooms on m43. At least the ones I had were softer across the frame compared to the phone, and I did not see the point of carrying a dedicated camera to have softer images than what my phone could do. (Shooting primes and pro zooms on m43 yields results noticeably better than phone cameras in my experience, which is what I do now.)

However, this trend apply only to the main phone camera sensor and not all of the other cameras that's on the phone. S21 Ultra has a tele-lens with good reach. But the sensor on that tele lens is smaller than the main camera, and the image quality is far worse than cropping 12-45 at tele end on 20mp m43 sensor.

Low light is another situation where m43, at least the newer models, have advantages. For high ISO shots, OM1's SOOC jpeg at ISO12800+ is much better than S21 Ultra's high iso (max ISO3200) images which helps freezing the motion.

For extreme low light, some people think that smartphones with its night mode can be superior to MILC if you don't use a tripod. That is not true at all when it comes to modern m43. Higher end m43's stabilization can rival and surpass night mode on phone cameras in terms of handheld exposure time.

Of course, this might be different if someone was shooting MILC/DSLR without IBIS or lens stabilization. (This is a good example: https://petapixel.com/2019/11/05/bl...ght-sight-vs-canon-eos-rp-low-light-shootout/ )

In the end, it's a "right tool for the right job" situation. I'm a hobbyist and my primary goal is to have fun. OM System suits me the best for this purpose since it seems to deliver the best compromise between image quality and hassle-free shooting.

S21 Ultra, night mode on main camera.

S21 Ultra, night mode on main camera.

This is the same scene as the one above, taken minutes apart. OM1 handheld SOOC jpeg. I used a prime here, but even an F4 lens would perform better than the phone.

This is the same scene as the one above, taken minutes apart. OM1 handheld SOOC jpeg. I used a prime here, but even an F4 lens would perform better than the phone.
Click to expand...
Sorry.

Not a good comparison:) 15 seconds in case m43 is not the same as 0.5 seconds in case of smartphone, and f/1.4 apperture in case of m43 is not equal to f/1.8 . ISO 4000 in smartphone cannot compensate the mentioned dramatic difference in exposure and f-number. Why you did that?

m43 does not need any defense.

Goodbye!
 
Serguei Palto said:
Tom Axford said:
Serguei Palto said:
...

In both cases I have processed raw files with no lens corrections applied,
Click to expand...
That is a very perverse choice! Not a single one of my thousands of MFT images is uncorrected and I dare say I am not alone in that.

It would be a whole lot more useful to see a comparison of the corrected images.
Click to expand...
Are the images bad? If you think they are bad then, please, show your examples at close settings and conditions to know what is good :)

Have in mind that the images have been taken against the sun light, which makes, for example, the chromatic aberrations more pronounced, which is very important in testing.

Also it is not always usefull to compare corrected or AI-processed images. I want to remind that this is a technical forum, and what is indeed useful that is to know true optical performance.
Click to expand...
Yes, the image from the phone is considerably worse.
 
Serguei Palto said:
AlmostDoctor said:
I have found the main camera of my Samsung Salaxy S21 Ultra (or even my old S9+) to be very good in good light.

It's part of the reason I stopped shooting consumer kit zooms on m43. At least the ones I had were softer across the frame compared to the phone, and I did not see the point of carrying a dedicated camera to have softer images than what my phone could do. (Shooting primes and pro zooms on m43 yields results noticeably better than phone cameras in my experience, which is what I do now.)

However, this trend apply only to the main phone camera sensor and not all of the other cameras that's on the phone. S21 Ultra has a tele-lens with good reach. But the sensor on that tele lens is smaller than the main camera, and the image quality is far worse than cropping 12-45 at tele end on 20mp m43 sensor.

Low light is another situation where m43, at least the newer models, have advantages. For high ISO shots, OM1's SOOC jpeg at ISO12800+ is much better than S21 Ultra's high iso (max ISO3200) images which helps freezing the motion.

For extreme low light, some people think that smartphones with its night mode can be superior to MILC if you don't use a tripod. That is not true at all when it comes to modern m43. Higher end m43's stabilization can rival and surpass night mode on phone cameras in terms of handheld exposure time.

Of course, this might be different if someone was shooting MILC/DSLR without IBIS or lens stabilization. (This is a good example: https://petapixel.com/2019/11/05/bl...ght-sight-vs-canon-eos-rp-low-light-shootout/ )

In the end, it's a "right tool for the right job" situation. I'm a hobbyist and my primary goal is to have fun. OM System suits me the best for this purpose since it seems to deliver the best compromise between image quality and hassle-free shooting.

S21 Ultra, night mode on main camera.

S21 Ultra, night mode on main camera.

This is the same scene as the one above, taken minutes apart. OM1 handheld SOOC jpeg. I used a prime here, but even an F4 lens would perform better than the phone.

This is the same scene as the one above, taken minutes apart. OM1 handheld SOOC jpeg. I used a prime here, but even an F4 lens would perform better than the phone.
Click to expand...
Sorry.

Not a good comparison:) 15 seconds in case m43 is not the same as 0.5 seconds in case of smartphone, and f/1.4 apperture in case of m43 is not equal to f/1.8 . ISO 4000 in smartphone cannot compensate the mentioned dramatic difference in exposure and f-number. Why you did that?

m43 does not need any defense.

Goodbye!
Click to expand...
Your question was if modern smartphones are as good as m43, so the answer given to you demonstrates why they arent. It just goes to show that smartphones simply cant compete. They are ok for catchy Instagram pics, that is true.
 
Tom Axford said:
Serguei Palto said:
...

In both cases I have processed raw files with no lens corrections applied,
Click to expand...
That is a very perverse choice! Not a single one of my thousands of MFT images is uncorrected and I dare say I am not alone in that.

It would be a whole lot more useful to see a comparison of the corrected images.
Click to expand...
most people who use phones ( nothing wrong with that ) generally want instant photo gratification with their photos and have no real interest in PP. I have no issues with that , why not , I do it on occasions.

There are photographers who have won awards using phones and have Photographic organisations accreditation.

But why you would want to compare the phone photo to a camera photo is beyond me. They are different, live with it.
 
tintifax said:
As long as you shoot in good light, do not need to crop, as long as you don't need special lenses (12 mm or 300 mm or 500 mm) or very bright and very sharp lenses (e.g. the 45/1.2 from Oly), as long as you don't need a flash system that can cooperate with your camera-system with 2, 3 or more flashes, as long as you don't need 60 fps in RAW, HHHR, ad-on-flash, macro, filters like polarizer or ND-filters, as long as you don't want to play with DOP, as long as you don't need real good AF-tracking or manual focus, as long as you don't need livetime or livecomp, as long as you don't need highresolution, you don't need a viewfinder, a real good sensor-stabilisation or something a modern camera-system (not only one camera with one lens) can offer, as long as you do not need all this features, than a phone will do a really good job.

And if you are satisfied with all the features and the IQ and the speed a phone offers, a phone is the right solution for you!

I've got a camera system with 2 bodies, 10 lenses from 17 to 150 x 1,4 mm and macros, 6 flashes with 3 commanders, filters, tripods, much power-capacity (many accus) and some additional accessories that I can't compare with a camera-phone, even it's a good camera-phone.

you can compare a good camera-phone with a good point-and-shoot-camera .... but not with a whole system .....

But if a phone is right for you, than it is o.k. It has one advantage: it is always with you ;-)
Click to expand...
The first point is that you can crop up to a pixel level, because the lens is sharp and resolves the pixel size .

The second point is that you can shoot even in bad light, because of the low lens f-number (the size of the sensor is only 2 times less than in m43).

The third point is that the smartphone can be OK for everybody, who understands what he needs and what he is doing ...

I do the photography more than 50 years and in my scientific work used very wide range of imaging equipment , but I do not hesitate using the smartphone if its optics demonstrate excellent results.

About: "It has one advantage: it is always with you", I have to correct you - It has at least one advantage....:)

And, of course, I must repeat what I said in the original post- smartphone can not replace m43 as well as any other system.
 
Peter Budd said:
Tom Axford said:
Serguei Palto said:
...

In both cases I have processed raw files with no lens corrections applied,
Click to expand...
That is a very perverse choice! Not a single one of my thousands of MFT images is uncorrected and I dare say I am not alone in that.

It would be a whole lot more useful to see a comparison of the corrected images.
Click to expand...
most people who use phones ( nothing wrong with that ) generally want instant photo gratification with their photos and have no real interest in PP. I have no issues with that , why not , I do it on occasions.

There are photographers who have won awards using phones and have Photographic organisations accreditation.

But why you would want to compare the phone photo to a camera photo is beyond me. They are different, live with it.
Click to expand...
Why I compare? Because I like optics and I was impressed by this particular lens performance in comparison with Pro Oly lens. So I just decided to share my impressions....

Optics is Optics independently on camera or system you prefer. Also, our knowledge came from comparisons…There is nothing wrong in comparison of different systems.
 
Skropi said:
Serguei Palto said:
AlmostDoctor said:
I have found the main camera of my Samsung Salaxy S21 Ultra (or even my old S9+) to be very good in good light.

It's part of the reason I stopped shooting consumer kit zooms on m43. At least the ones I had were softer across the frame compared to the phone, and I did not see the point of carrying a dedicated camera to have softer images than what my phone could do. (Shooting primes and pro zooms on m43 yields results noticeably better than phone cameras in my experience, which is what I do now.)

However, this trend apply only to the main phone camera sensor and not all of the other cameras that's on the phone. S21 Ultra has a tele-lens with good reach. But the sensor on that tele lens is smaller than the main camera, and the image quality is far worse than cropping 12-45 at tele end on 20mp m43 sensor.

Low light is another situation where m43, at least the newer models, have advantages. For high ISO shots, OM1's SOOC jpeg at ISO12800+ is much better than S21 Ultra's high iso (max ISO3200) images which helps freezing the motion.

For extreme low light, some people think that smartphones with its night mode can be superior to MILC if you don't use a tripod. That is not true at all when it comes to modern m43. Higher end m43's stabilization can rival and surpass night mode on phone cameras in terms of handheld exposure time.

Of course, this might be different if someone was shooting MILC/DSLR without IBIS or lens stabilization. (This is a good example: https://petapixel.com/2019/11/05/bl...ght-sight-vs-canon-eos-rp-low-light-shootout/ )

In the end, it's a "right tool for the right job" situation. I'm a hobbyist and my primary goal is to have fun. OM System suits me the best for this purpose since it seems to deliver the best compromise between image quality and hassle-free shooting.

S21 Ultra, night mode on main camera.

S21 Ultra, night mode on main camera.

This is the same scene as the one above, taken minutes apart. OM1 handheld SOOC jpeg. I used a prime here, but even an F4 lens would perform better than the phone.

This is the same scene as the one above, taken minutes apart. OM1 handheld SOOC jpeg. I used a prime here, but even an F4 lens would perform better than the phone.
Click to expand...
Sorry.

Not a good comparison:) 15 seconds in case m43 is not the same as 0.5 seconds in case of smartphone, and f/1.4 apperture in case of m43 is not equal to f/1.8 . ISO 4000 in smartphone cannot compensate the mentioned dramatic difference in exposure and f-number. Why you did that?

m43 does not need any defense.

Goodbye!
Click to expand...
Your question was if modern smartphones are as good as m43, so the answer given to you demonstrates why they arent. It just goes to show that smartphones simply cant compete. They are ok for catchy Instagram pics, that is true.
Click to expand...
You have demonstrated nothing. You have made misleading post, which is evident from EXIF data of your images!
 
The dynamic range of the phone image is crushed. The darker parts have been made less dark. The 3D depth is also flat.
 
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