Can a Pixel phone outresolve a G9ii with a Pro lens?

Intrigued by the other thread's mentioning of the Vivo x200, I decided to test my Pixel 9 Pro's main camera (24mm equiv) against the G9ii with the 12-45/4 Pro at 24mm equiv.

I've always believed that phone cameras don't hold up to pixel peeping when it comes actually resolving real details. I thought they only appeared sharp when viewing small, but under heavy pixel peeping, the real details are either not there, or completely made up. I was very surprised to see that the phone is actually resolving more real details than the G9ii's single shot at the same equivalent focal length. Even compared to the HHHR shot, it's a bit of a toss up, depending where you're looking.

And...this isn't even the best phone on the market today when it comes to camera performance. This is no Vivo x200 Ultra. I certainly feel less bad now when I'm out and about without my camera. There are still distinct advantages to the G9ii, but this is an amazing result for a phone that doesn't even have the best camera. It adds literally no weight to my existing EDC (literally 0 grams, as I would carry a phone regardless), and it took me much less time to take the photo, not waiting forever for HHHR to process...and having to turn the dial to HHHR mode because the G9ii can't access it with a function button...

M43 is still a better overall performer, primarily because of the colors. The Pixel phone can get colors completely off sometimes because it's trying to make the image pop more, but it just looks fake. If it never messes up the colors like that, I would be happy to only travel with longer focal length lenses on my M43 cameras, and just use phone for 24mm and wider.

The original JPG from the Pixel photo stalls during the upload on DPreview. Not sure if exif from geodata is causing issues - if someone knows a better workaround I can upload the better quality version. I had to export a JPG off a JPG with PS (hence watermark) on my phone to remove the exif to get it to upload. The original file has even better IQ, but the difference is very very small.


G9ii+12-45/4 Single Shot

View attachment bcddd00ab3ff491a8660e56003299ac3.jpg
Pixel 9 Pro

View attachment 893545b733af452c927d6f8560265255.jpg
G9ii+12-45/4 HHHR

I know this isn’t going to play well, but I’ve been very interested in following the G9ii as a possible long-term OM1 backstop.

In several samples, I’ve had doubts about the detail in G9ii images compared to say the G9.

A 3-way comparison of your Pixel, the G9ii and a 20Mpix MFT body both using your second copy of the 12-45/4 would be interesting. I would suggest how to do the test, but you know what you are doing.

A

PS I’m also thinking about my next phone.

--
Infinite are the arguments of mages. Truth is a jewel with many facets. Ursula K LeGuin
Please feel free to edit any images that I post

ahaslett said:

I know this isn’t going to play well, but I’ve been very interested in following the G9ii as a possible long-term OM1 backstop.

In several samples, I’ve had doubts about the detail in G9ii images compared to say the G9.

A 3-way comparison of your Pixel, the G9ii and a 20Mpix MFT body both using your second copy of the 12-45/4 would be interesting. I would suggest how to do the test, but you know what you are doing.

A

PS I’m also thinking about my next phone.

Click to expand...

I find the G9ii stills to be quite good so far. Having an entire stop more DR without increasing sensor size is impressive. Panasonic did a great job!

I don't have the bad copy 12-45/4 anymore.

No it can't. Details get lost. It comes close though. This is a really huge zoom factor:



I think you need to treat a modern flagship phone, as if it had 12.5MP resolution in real world ILC camera terms. Not the absurd fantasy resolutions quoted by phone marketing. After pixel binning, the Google Pixel8 captures and saves 12.5MP from it's 50MP sensor. That is what matters to you in real life.

That is also what the first m43 cameras had to offer. Like the G1 from 2008 had 12MP. And I think that is on average and realistically, the IQ you can expect from the latest and best phone flagships when you shoot raw files. It's about half what modern m43 cameras with 20MP do. It's about 3/4 of what the first 16MP sensors like in the G5 of 2012 could do.

12MP is always enough to print an A3 paper, and often an A2 paper too. And if that is all you need, and the provided lens FL's are what you need without digital zooming, why not use the phone in your pocket?

But if your expectations are more than 12MP to begin with, you will likely be disappointed with a phone.

cba_melbourne said:

No it can't. Details get lost. It comes close though. This is a really huge zoom factor:

Click to expand...

...I think the photo on the right is the Pixel photo.

Check out the diagonal lines under the hand. The single shot from the G9 just shows a mush - you can't even make out that the pattern are diagonal lines.



This is the last (bottom right) tile in the photo.


G9ii single shot




Pixel 9 Pro




G9ii HHHR

Crazy impressive!

I don't think this is very useful comparison because the lighting seems to vary significantly and that changes the details in the background. I notice some very weird things.

For example near the bottom middle, there is a person in the window under the clock. In both G9M2 pictures, to the left of the person, there appears to be a black thumb, but in the Pixel 9 picture in the middle that is not there. The face details on the lady on the bench on the two G9M2 pictures are also not there in the Pixel 9 one, and the details on the dress also are completely different.



I think the standard test chart or newspaper test (perhaps in long range to reach the limits of the resolution) is going to be a more consistent test of details.

I would say the 50MP vs 25MP does obviously have some advantages (the base 25MP can't resolve some fine lines at the limits of its resolution), but it's not really clear how much of the Pixel 9 details are real (given Pixel phones are famous for the advanced processing that goes into making their photos so good for the hardware) vs the actual source given the test conditions seem to vary significantly.

JakeJY said:

I don't think this is very useful comparison because the lighting seems to vary significantly and that changes the details in the background. I notice some very weird things.

Click to expand...

The Pixel outputs a file with wider dynamic range, like most cellphones. That's what's tricking you into thinking the lighting is very different.

HicHic said:

JakeJY said:

I don't think this is very useful comparison because the lighting seems to vary significantly and that changes the details in the background. I notice some very weird things.

Click to expand...

The Pixel outputs a file with wider dynamic range, like most cellphones. That's what's tricking you into thinking the lighting is very different.

Click to expand...

I don't think that is the sole issue. If it was WDR, then the Pixel 9 should retain the same details, and perhaps even show them even more clearly. However, as per the explicit parts I pointed out, it was almost as if those details in the Pixel 9 were blown out or the background behind the glass changed (perhaps due to a subtle shift in viewing angle).

Again a more conventional test would avoid these issues, as the actual details in the source would not change.

JakeJY said:

then the Pixel 9 should retain the same details, and perhaps even show them even more clearly.

Click to expand...

I recall photographing inside church with my Fuji S2 pro dslr, E-P1, Nex5, back in the day, their shutter sound echoing.

Yikes .

Would been glad to have such a decent silent shutter phone then.

Nowadays electronic shutter on various mirrorless.

Still people tend not to bat an eyelid inside a church or temple photographing with a phone.

I'd feel uncomfortable photographing with a large camera as G9ii inside a church, mosque, synagogue, temple. E-M10mk2, Gx7 I'd gladly photograph with.

--
Photography after all is interplay of light alongside perspective.

SeeingSomeThingsMissingMany said:

Still people tend not to bat an eyelid inside a church or temple photographing with a phone.

I'd feel uncomfortable photographing with a large camera as G9ii inside a church, mosque, synagogue, temple.

Click to expand...

That's a great point!

HicHic said:

cba_melbourne said:

No it can't. Details get lost. It comes close though. This is a really huge zoom factor:

Click to expand...

...I think the photo on the right is the Pixel photo.

Click to expand...

And you are right. I mixed them up. Very embarrassing....

Question now is, it the Pixel that good, or is the G9ii that bad? Is the extra detail shown by the pixel real, or did it invent it?

HicHic said:

JakeJY said:

then the Pixel 9 should retain the same details, and perhaps even show them even more clearly.

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

Right, that shows the limits of 25MP vs 50MP, but that doesn't change the point I made, there are other areas (which I pointed out explicitly) where the Pixel 9 is clearly missing details that both G9 ii examples capture. So the results are highly inconsistent, likely due to the test method (unless the Pixel is doing some processing and making up details in some areas).

Honestly quite impressive.

There's a reason why stopped shooting with m43 kit lenses. It was being out resolved easily from cell phones from a few generations ago in the frame corners.

Seems that with newer generation of cameras, even the pro lenses (and by extension, primes since 12-45F4 resolves as well as consumer primes.)

At this point, it's a given that in some instances, phones will give better result than a dedicated camera.

The important question is, "Is it still worth buying/carrying/using dedicated cameras?"

There are things I photograph that still requires dedicated camera (e.g. indoor martial arts footages).

My brother uses his Em5III for photographing his art work. Color accuracy of a dedicated camera is something that is quite important for that type of work that you just can't get easily from cellphone cameras.

Beyond that, sometimes the questions isn't always about more details. It's about getting more pleasant output.

As a dreaded iPhone shooter(I absolutely loathe it and it is vastly inferior to Samsung flagship imo) I am never happy with the quality of portraits from my phone due to its ugly processing.

I have been quite pleased from SOOC jpeg outputs from my OM3, as are my friends.

Same applied to my old Lumix S9 video footage vs OM3.

I used skin-tone optimized lut for video for my S9 vs OM3's OM Cinema 2 profile.

Every girl I've showed the OM Cinema 2 footage was incredibly pleased with the way their skin looked in the footage. Lay people don't care nearly as much about details and resolutions as we the gearheads think. But they can perceive colors, rendering, composition, and actually capturing the decisive moments. These are the things my camera does allow me to do easier than the phone camera.

With that said, I hope some of these technologies trickle down to the next generation of OM cameras. A single-shot HDR raw would be a dream. Make it happen OMDS!

JakeJY said:

HicHic said:

JakeJY said:

then the Pixel 9 should retain the same details, and perhaps even show them even more clearly.

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

Right, that shows the limits of 25MP vs 50MP, but that doesn't change the point I made, there are other areas (which I pointed out explicitly) where the Pixel 9 is clearly missing details that both G9 ii examples capture. So the results are highly inconsistent, likely due to the test method (unless the Pixel is doing some processing and making up details in some areas).

Click to expand...

You can cherry pick any part of the image you like. Some will show the HHHR to be better, some will show the Pixel to be better. But if you're comparing single shot performance vs Pixel, the Pixel outresolves the single shot G9ii in the majority of the parts of the image.

cba_melbourne said:

HicHic said:

cba_melbourne said:

No it can't. Details get lost. It comes close though. This is a really huge zoom factor:

Click to expand...

...I think the photo on the right is the Pixel photo.

Click to expand...

And you are right. I mixed them up. Very embarrassing....

Question now is, it the Pixel that good, or is the G9ii that bad? Is the extra detail shown by the pixel real, or did it invent it?

Click to expand...

I'm very impressed with the Pixel's results, and it isn't even the best phone out there for camera performance. The Vivo x200 sits at the top, and many other Chinese phones fill the performance gap between that and the Pixel.

The Pixel is just used as an example because it's the phone I have. It certainly isn't the best performing smartphone camera. The G9ii on the other hand, there's no dispute that it's the best M43 camera for resolving power.

I'm quite dumbfounded by how the Pixel is able to achieve such a result. The price I got for it new is pretty much the same cost as a new 12-45/4 Pro. Are the lenses in these phones that good? To imagine I had trouble finding a good copy of the 12-45 lens...with so much more glass, size and weight, only to be outperformed by some tiny lens in this phone. I don't see any decentering issues with my phone's images either. Is it easier to produce properly aligned lenses for phones? I just don't get how a package this small is outresolving my G9ii with a Pro lens.



I'm sure these phones do some degree of "guessing" to create details at the pixel level, but I honestly expected a ton of weird artifacts and errors. There are super tiny details in the scene where the phone couldn't just have guessed right without the sensor+lens combo collecting genuinely sharp and high resolution raw data to work off of. For instance, the "diagonal lines below the hand" section that I've highlighted in the previous posts, you can tell that the single shot G9ii is only resolving a mushy patch. One would think that, whatever the Pixel's raw data sees, it can't possibly be better than that. Yet, somehow, it correctly resolves the diagonal lines. The source data must be of genuinely high enough quality in order for it to get that result - that part I'm most impressed with.



I don't know anything about these phone sensors, but if it's anything like the OM-1's supposed "high resolution 80MP binned to 20MP", then maybe there is a lot of potential to be unlocked. Because my Pixel has the option to either shoot in 12MP or 50MP. Whatever the Pixel's 50MP actually resolves, it's certainly higher than 25MP.

AlmostDoctor said:

The important question is, "Is it still worth buying/carrying/using dedicated cameras?"

There are things I photograph that still requires dedicated camera (e.g. indoor martial arts footages).

Click to expand...

There are certainly many reasons to still use a dedicated camera, but I'd rather not open that can of worms. I don't think anyone here disputes that dedicated cameras are overall better, even if they perform worse than phones in some areas.

In this thread, I'm just focusing on analyzing and discussing the narrow topic of resolving power.

HicHic said:

I'm quite dumbfounded by how the Pixel is able to achieve such a result. The price I got for it new is pretty much the same cost as a new 12-45/4 Pro. Are the lenses in these phones that good? To imagine I had trouble finding a good copy of the 12-45 lens...with so much more glass, size and weight, only to be outperformed by some tiny lens in this phone. I don't see any decentering issues with my phone's images either. Is it easier to produce properly aligned lenses for phones? I just don't get how a package this small is outresolving my G9ii with a Pro lens.

Click to expand...

Phone lenses are made in the tens to hundred of millions of units, which means they can use processes to make molded aspherical elements that would not be cost effective in the relatively low volumes of ILC lenses. So it's not surprising for a phone lens to beat a lower/mid end ILC lens, especially in the corners/edges.

However, in the above images it seems the limits of the lens resolving power have not been reached, given the high resolution photo still shows the same details. Rather it appears to be the limits of 25MP of the sensor. MFT manufacturers however have resisted releasing high resolution cameras.

JakeJY said:

However, in the above images it seems the limits of the lens resolving power have not been reached, given the high resolution photo still shows the same details. Rather it appears to be the limits of 25MP of the sensor. MFT manufacturers however have resisted releasing high resolution cameras.

Click to expand...

Yeah, that 12-45 is definitely not a mere 25MP resolving lens. That would be quite atrocious. My first decentered copy though...different story haha!