G7X Mark III vs Smartphone

Lovely shots you got there and you are right, not too easy to answer.

Found this video on youtube which is swaying me towards the camera.

Apparently it says the P30 night mode is not so good specially when zoomed in.

Take a look and what do you think of the comparison results? Fair results?

Cameras are still better, but only 1" and higher. Night mode on phones is overrated. You can only do so much with processing and image stacking. I am still trying to find a smartphone significantly better than my two year old galaxy note 8. Neither the pixel 3 nor p30 pro impress me. The only time I feel like upgrading to a newer phone is when I hit a high contrast scene that requires advanced HDR my older phone lacks. Otherwise, smartphone cameras have barely improved in the last two years.

1. Resolution. Dedicated cameras are 20mp and up. You at most get 12mp from a smartphone. The p30 pro only saves 10mp and they are oversharpened to hell and back to mask the low resolution. The 40mp is a marketing gimmick. So are the 48mp ones. The latter in particular appear on cheaper Chinese phones. They all use "quad bayer" meaning they clump four pixels together for a single color. The effective resolution is really only a quarter of the listed mp. Resolution may not be everything, but if you are zooming and cropping, it makes a huge difference.

2. Optics. Better lenses need space. That's why thin pancake lenses and kit zooms are often not very sharp and rather distorted and flare a lot and have weird fringing colors. The good ones are huge and heavy and expensive. Smartphone lenses are usually made of plastic (most elements anyway) and aren't very sharp and have heavy distortion and softness in the corners and edges. If you take a group photo you will notice how skewed looking and blurry some people's faces are at the far left or right.

3. Image stabilization. It's actually a very big deal for both low light and for good video without a stupid gimbal or tripod. Canon has really good stabilization because their camera bodies are bigger. Smartphones usually have a limited amount or completely none at all like the zenfone 6 and most midrange phones. You can shoot at lower shutter speeds and get results matching much bigger cameras that don't have stabilization without upping the noise. A lot of my night shots get ruined because my hands are shaky when holding the phone or tapping the screen. A bigger camera body (not TOO big) with more weight really cuts down the shakiness. For video, most phones utilize heavy software stabilization that crops the video, creates stuttering during fast pans, causes jello effect at the edges, degrades image quality, looks unnatural, and in low light causes a double image jitter that can be almost unusable (huawei phones in particular). My note 8 has pretty good optical stabilization and I have the software stabilization completely disabled.

4. Noise. Bigger sensors in dedicated cameras can handle higher iso levels with less noise for low light shots. Smartphones are really smart in that they can stack multiple shots to reduce noise. But there is a limit. You can't create something from nothing. Processing can only go so far. Some dedicated cameras have this too but it's really crude and slow.

5. Zoom. You can go from 3x all the way up to 125x if you don't mind the size. A good compact like the g5x ii can go 5x while still maintaining a wide aperture and pocketability. Smartphones can't zoom (not counting that one old samsung) . They have telephoto lenses, some reaching up to 5x, but the quality is really poor and the sensor is even tinier than the main camera. If you want 4x or 6x, you will be cropping from either the main or telephoto camera. There is no real zoom lens to move.

6. Miscellaneous. No flippy screen for selfies like dedicated cameras. Front facing cameras are universally bad on phones. A few have rotating cameras (zenfone 6, galaxy a80) but they are very iffy, both image quality and durability of the mechanism. No higher bitrates for video recording. Limited manual controls. No physical controls whatsoever. No shaded viewfinder for bright sunny days or ND filter. All the Pro features like RAW and log profiles, etc.

I almost never use my G7X. There are some situations where it would be the better choice, but generally, top smartphones are going to take better looking straight from camera pics, as they hold many software tricks that modern standalone cameras foolishly don't incorporate.

Hublot wrote:

Hi everyone, i am planning to do more photography and am considering to buy the G7X Mark III vs a new smartphone.

I already have a working phone so its more for photography.

But i am wondering, with Smartphones photo quality nowadays, is a compact camera like the G7 relevant anymore?

Specially when compared to phones that is marketed as high photo quality smartphones like the Pixel and P30 Pro.

Many of the videos i found were of older models of cameras or smartphones.

Is there any comparison for the latest gear that can show if a dedicated camera still provides better quality these days? Or any insights or experiences to share?

The phones are good in their specific dedicated modes. Cameras will be praised on their night modes but that does not mean they are good in low light.

If you look at pictures taken indoors on cameras in poor light of a subject there is only so much that can be done from the low output from these sensors and they are not good.

If you are only interested in automatically getting results without any input on your part phones are good. I find with my images many of them will be embarrassingly inferior to the output of my family's phones but when I can get it right there is a special shot that cannot be bettered.

If you enjoy setting up the parameters for the photograph yourself and do not just want automatic best results the camera is still the way to go.

siberstorm27 wrote:

Cameras are still better, but only 1" and higher. Night mode on phones is overrated. You can only do so much with processing and image stacking. I am still trying to find a smartphone significantly better than my two year old galaxy note 8. Neither the pixel 3 nor p30 pro impress me. The only time I feel like upgrading to a newer phone is when I hit a high contrast scene that requires advanced HDR my older phone lacks. Otherwise, smartphone cameras have barely improved in the last two years.

1. Resolution. Dedicated cameras are 20mp and up. You at most get 12mp from a smartphone. The p30 pro only saves 10mp and they are oversharpened to hell and back to mask the low resolution. The 40mp is a marketing gimmick. So are the 48mp ones. The latter in particular appear on cheaper Chinese phones. They all use "quad bayer" meaning they clump four pixels together for a single color. The effective resolution is really only a quarter of the listed mp. Resolution may not be everything, but if you are zooming and cropping, it makes a huge difference.

2. Optics. Better lenses need space. That's why thin pancake lenses and kit zooms are often not very sharp and rather distorted and flare a lot and have weird fringing colors. The good ones are huge and heavy and expensive. Smartphone lenses are usually made of plastic (most elements anyway) and aren't very sharp and have heavy distortion and softness in the corners and edges. If you take a group photo you will notice how skewed looking and blurry some people's faces are at the far left or right.

3. Image stabilization. It's actually a very big deal for both low light and for good video without a stupid gimbal or tripod. Canon has really good stabilization because their camera bodies are bigger. Smartphones usually have a limited amount or completely none at all like the zenfone 6 and most midrange phones. You can shoot at lower shutter speeds and get results matching much bigger cameras that don't have stabilization without upping the noise. A lot of my night shots get ruined because my hands are shaky when holding the phone or tapping the screen. A bigger camera body (not TOO big) with more weight really cuts down the shakiness. For video, most phones utilize heavy software stabilization that crops the video, creates stuttering during fast pans, causes jello effect at the edges, degrades image quality, looks unnatural, and in low light causes a double image jitter that can be almost unusable (huawei phones in particular). My note 8 has pretty good optical stabilization and I have the software stabilization completely disabled.

4. Noise. Bigger sensors in dedicated cameras can handle higher iso levels with less noise for low light shots. Smartphones are really smart in that they can stack multiple shots to reduce noise. But there is a limit. You can't create something from nothing. Processing can only go so far. Some dedicated cameras have this too but it's really crude and slow.

5. Zoom. You can go from 3x all the way up to 125x if you don't mind the size. A good compact like the g5x ii can go 5x while still maintaining a wide aperture and pocketability. Smartphones can't zoom (not counting that one old samsung) . They have telephoto lenses, some reaching up to 5x, but the quality is really poor and the sensor is even tinier than the main camera. If you want 4x or 6x, you will be cropping from either the main or telephoto camera. There is no real zoom lens to move.

6. Miscellaneous. No flippy screen for selfies like dedicated cameras. Front facing cameras are universally bad on phones. A few have rotating cameras (zenfone 6, galaxy a80) but they are very iffy, both image quality and durability of the mechanism. No higher bitrates for video recording. Limited manual controls. No physical controls whatsoever. No shaded viewfinder for bright sunny days or ND filter. All the Pro features like RAW and log profiles, etc.

Wow! Thanks for the valuable insights!

I am also currently using the Note 8 thus am at the crossroads of P30 Pro vs G7X Mark III. But after what you mentioned.....no wonder the video shows P30 photos being quite sharpened....almost HDR-like.

I guess why people is thinking of the P30 Pro was the power of marketing and fake moon shots of the P30 Pro? 

redtailboas wrote:

I almost never use my G7X. There are some situations where it would be the better choice, but generally, top smartphones are going to take better looking straight from camera pics, as they hold many software tricks that modern standalone cameras foolishly don't incorporate.

Hmm, in your experience. would you feel that after taking the photo using the G7 and transferring them over to a phone to process them will get better results than just a smartphone photo?

Hublot wrote:

Hi everyone, i am planning to do more photography and am considering to buy the G7X Mark III vs a new smartphone.

I already have a working phone so its more for photography.

But i am wondering, with Smartphones photo quality nowadays, is a compact camera like the G7 relevant anymore?

Absolutely.

Specially when compared to phones that is marketed as high photo quality smartphones like the Pixel and P30 Pro.

IQ is still not going to be as good as a compact with a 1" sensor, particularly in lower light levels.  And while there are accessory add-on lenses for smartphones, they won't be as good as the zoom on the G7x iii.

Many of the videos i found were of older models of cameras or smartphones.

Is there any comparison for the latest gear that can show if a dedicated camera still provides better quality these days? Or any insights or experiences to share?

You could peruse the samples provided here, and then look for sample photos from the smartphones you're looking at.

Hublot wrote:

siberstorm27 wrote:

Cameras are still better, but only 1" and higher. Night mode on phones is overrated. You can only do so much with processing and image stacking. I am still trying to find a smartphone significantly better than my two year old galaxy note 8. Neither the pixel 3 nor p30 pro impress me. The only time I feel like upgrading to a newer phone is when I hit a high contrast scene that requires advanced HDR my older phone lacks. Otherwise, smartphone cameras have barely improved in the last two years.

1. Resolution. Dedicated cameras are 20mp and up. You at most get 12mp from a smartphone. The p30 pro only saves 10mp and they are oversharpened to hell and back to mask the low resolution. The 40mp is a marketing gimmick. So are the 48mp ones. The latter in particular appear on cheaper Chinese phones. They all use "quad bayer" meaning they clump four pixels together for a single color. The effective resolution is really only a quarter of the listed mp. Resolution may not be everything, but if you are zooming and cropping, it makes a huge difference.

2. Optics. Better lenses need space. That's why thin pancake lenses and kit zooms are often not very sharp and rather distorted and flare a lot and have weird fringing colors. The good ones are huge and heavy and expensive. Smartphone lenses are usually made of plastic (most elements anyway) and aren't very sharp and have heavy distortion and softness in the corners and edges. If you take a group photo you will notice how skewed looking and blurry some people's faces are at the far left or right.

3. Image stabilization. It's actually a very big deal for both low light and for good video without a stupid gimbal or tripod. Canon has really good stabilization because their camera bodies are bigger. Smartphones usually have a limited amount or completely none at all like the zenfone 6 and most midrange phones. You can shoot at lower shutter speeds and get results matching much bigger cameras that don't have stabilization without upping the noise. A lot of my night shots get ruined because my hands are shaky when holding the phone or tapping the screen. A bigger camera body (not TOO big) with more weight really cuts down the shakiness. For video, most phones utilize heavy software stabilization that crops the video, creates stuttering during fast pans, causes jello effect at the edges, degrades image quality, looks unnatural, and in low light causes a double image jitter that can be almost unusable (huawei phones in particular). My note 8 has pretty good optical stabilization and I have the software stabilization completely disabled.

4. Noise. Bigger sensors in dedicated cameras can handle higher iso levels with less noise for low light shots. Smartphones are really smart in that they can stack multiple shots to reduce noise. But there is a limit. You can't create something from nothing. Processing can only go so far. Some dedicated cameras have this too but it's really crude and slow.

5. Zoom. You can go from 3x all the way up to 125x if you don't mind the size. A good compact like the g5x ii can go 5x while still maintaining a wide aperture and pocketability. Smartphones can't zoom (not counting that one old samsung) . They have telephoto lenses, some reaching up to 5x, but the quality is really poor and the sensor is even tinier than the main camera. If you want 4x or 6x, you will be cropping from either the main or telephoto camera. There is no real zoom lens to move.

6. Miscellaneous. No flippy screen for selfies like dedicated cameras. Front facing cameras are universally bad on phones. A few have rotating cameras (zenfone 6, galaxy a80) but they are very iffy, both image quality and durability of the mechanism. No higher bitrates for video recording. Limited manual controls. No physical controls whatsoever. No shaded viewfinder for bright sunny days or ND filter. All the Pro features like RAW and log profiles, etc.

Wow! Thanks for the valuable insights!

I am also currently using the Note 8 thus am at the crossroads of P30 Pro vs G7X Mark III. But after what you mentioned.....no wonder the video shows P30 photos being quite sharpened....almost HDR-like.

I guess why people is thinking of the P30 Pro was the power of marketing and fake moon shots of the P30 Pro?

One thing with the Canon if you keep off Wif,i which you can without any great problems with a camera, there are no security problems. My Huawei T3 tablet has not had an Android security update since Sep, 2018. Possibly Huawei are supporting their phones but can you rely on it. I would go for a Samsung whatever the camera situation as the updates even on my humble Samsung A-5 and an old tablet I have are exemplary.

redtailboas wrote:

I almost never use my G7X. There are some situations where it would be the better choice, but generally, top smartphones are going to take better looking straight from camera pics, as they hold many software tricks that modern standalone cameras foolishly don't incorporate.

If you never want to do any PP on your photos, and only look at the photos on a smartphone or tablet I can see how most people would be happy with smartphone images and that's fine.

It MAY be possible to at least equal the phone's SOOC output if you process the G7X images, and in some cases the G7X will be superior. For the majority of stuff, people are just not going to notice the difference too much in either case, so for me it comes down to ease of use and portability. Also, the corners are really bad on G7X compared to top phones, but this isn't too important.

The Mark III does have the benefit of automatic transfer to phone. Not sure how easily this is set up though. If it's a "set it and forget automatic bluetooth connection" with press of a button or if it's some other process (check the user's manual for Mark III). For me, that would be critical info if I was really considering getting it.

There's also considering the feel of a real camera with physical controls in your hands that just can't be replicated with a phone. So image IQ for some is just part of the equation.

All wifi and bluetooth implementations I've used are complete trash on cameras. Apps will freeze or not connect. Even if you establish a connection the fastest you can transfer is 1MB/s but usually much slower. Your phone is basically held hostage at this point. You can't surf the web or even open a game or read a downloaded pdf because most transfer apps die immediately once they get pushed to the background. All cameras act as access points and make your phone connect to them exclusively, so you will have no internet at all and can't even switch to your cellular network's 4G/3G (besides basic phone calls). Some apps don't even have a select all function. You have to tap every single photo and wait for every single photo to load before you can tap it and transfer. Some let you pick from the camera playback menu, which is also very slow and prone to failing to establish a connection. I just don't bother with this crap anymore. The Ricoh GR3 didn't even have a working firmware or app for its wifi/bt function until a month after release. It's all a big fat joke.

I use a usb-c SD card adapter instead to transfer photos to my phone. At 100MB/s it's way faster and doesn't lock up my phone's functions. If camera companies were actually trying even the slightest to make this camera/smartphone synergy a reality, they would all come standard with at least two wifi antennae and dual band support using direct wifi. It doesn't need to be powerful. It only needs to connect a few feet away. With no stupid protocols and overhead it could easily get to 100MB/s or higher. It would also be a boon for data redundancy. But camera companies all still live in the dark ages. Even Sony. Their smartphone division is suffering because their camera division doesn't want to play nice. Old anachronistic businesses models and mindsets.

siberstorm27 wrote:

All wifi and bluetooth implementations I've used are complete trash on cameras. Apps will freeze or not connect. Even if you establish a connection the fastest you can transfer is 1MB/s but usually much slower. Your phone is basically held hostage at this point. You can't surf the web or even open a game or read a downloaded pdf because most transfer apps die immediately once they get pushed to the background. All cameras act as access points and make your phone connect to them exclusively, so you will have no internet at all and can't even switch to your cellular network's 4G/3G (besides basic phone calls). Some apps don't even have a select all function. You have to tap every single photo and wait for every single photo to load before you can tap it and transfer. Some let you pick from the camera playback menu, which is also very slow and prone to failing to establish a connection. I just don't bother with this crap anymore. The Ricoh GR3 didn't even have a working firmware or app for its wifi/bt function until a month after release. It's all a big fat joke.

I use a usb-c SD card adapter instead to transfer photos to my phone. At 100MB/s it's way faster and doesn't lock up my phone's functions. If camera companies were actually trying even the slightest to make this camera/smartphone synergy a reality, they would all come standard with at least two wifi antennae and dual band support using direct wifi. It doesn't need to be powerful. It only needs to connect a few feet away. With no stupid protocols and overhead it could easily get to 100MB/s or higher. It would also be a boon for data redundancy. But camera companies all still live in the dark ages. Even Sony. Their smartphone division is suffering because their camera division doesn't want to play nice. Old anachronistic businesses models and mindsets.

Yeap, i tried the Sony app at a store once and it was quite bad and laggy.

But the Canon one seems to be ok when i tried it on the M50 at the store.

It will be much faster using the SD Card adapter on USB but that also means more money to buy a dongle.

Hublot wrote:

siberstorm27 wrote:

All wifi and bluetooth implementations I've used are complete trash on cameras. Apps will freeze or not connect. Even if you establish a connection the fastest you can transfer is 1MB/s but usually much slower. Your phone is basically held hostage at this point. You can't surf the web or even open a game or read a downloaded pdf because most transfer apps die immediately once they get pushed to the background. All cameras act as access points and make your phone connect to them exclusively, so you will have no internet at all and can't even switch to your cellular network's 4G/3G (besides basic phone calls). Some apps don't even have a select all function. You have to tap every single photo and wait for every single photo to load before you can tap it and transfer. Some let you pick from the camera playback menu, which is also very slow and prone to failing to establish a connection. I just don't bother with this crap anymore. The Ricoh GR3 didn't even have a working firmware or app for its wifi/bt function until a month after release. It's all a big fat joke.

I use a usb-c SD card adapter instead to transfer photos to my phone. At 100MB/s it's way faster and doesn't lock up my phone's functions. If camera companies were actually trying even the slightest to make this camera/smartphone synergy a reality, they would all come standard with at least two wifi antennae and dual band support using direct wifi. It doesn't need to be powerful. It only needs to connect a few feet away. With no stupid protocols and overhead it could easily get to 100MB/s or higher. It would also be a boon for data redundancy. But camera companies all still live in the dark ages. Even Sony. Their smartphone division is suffering because their camera division doesn't want to play nice. Old anachronistic businesses models and mindsets.

Yeap, i tried the Sony app at a store once and it was quite bad and laggy.

But the Canon one seems to be ok when i tried it on the M50 at the store.

It will be much faster using the SD Card adapter on USB but that also means more money to buy a dongle.

Its like $15 and will save you the frustration. Then again, having to physically remove and insert media between two devices feels extremely archaic.

I think this ultimately depends on a number of factors.

1) the types of photographs you take

2) your ability as a photographer

3) what you plan on doing with your photographs

As an example, if someone exclusively takes pictures of family at family gatherings and the odd scenery picture in the daytime, isn't that familiar with handling a camera (e.g. they're not that familiar with how to compose a shot and just shoot from the hip, so to speak), doesn't plan on post-processing, and only plans on sharing photographs with friends and families on their phone, then there is absolutely no reason to get a camera. A smartphone will perform very well in these types of situations and, very often, will look better than if you took the same picture from a camera.

If you plan on taking more difficult shots, say in low light, action shots, like of moving kids or pets or sports, portraiture, or you plan on blowing them up for prints, or whatever, then yes a camera will definitely be the better option.

Just keep in mind though, that if you invest in a camera, you also need to invest in learning how to use that camera. Don't buy an expensive camera and expect that the pictures that come straight out of it as jpegs will turn out beautifully. Practice your composure, learn what all the settings do, and perhaps get a free piece of software from the internet and learn how to adjust your pictures to make them look better.

For everyday/vacation photos, go with a mid-range or flagship smartphone.   I have come to realize there is one thing that smartphones can do better than any dedicated camera and that is be "quick on the draw".  Usually, you just need to double click on the sleep button or do a swipe and you are ready to take a picture. When you are done, just push the sleep button again and slide phone right back into pocket - very fast process that allows one to not miss any shots.  With dedicated cameras, you have to push the power button, wait for the lens to extend, take picture and push power button again, wait for lens to retract - becomes very tedious when repeated many times.  Use dedicated camera for special purpose like zooming.