Are the trees really that blurry or is it just horrible jpeg compression? Nevermind, I think I see compression artefacts all over the image…
Nice scene though. As usual, it looks like the white balance is off though. I can’t say for sure without seeing it with my eyes but everything looks too yellow. “Too yellow” is the first thing I noticed when I went out in the artificial light after dark with my FP5 and compared to old phone.
EDIT: this is a little closer to the result I’d expect, just a quick poke of color temperature, yellow hue & saturation and contrast in gimp (I hope you don’t mind me posting this edit, let me know if you want it gone). The sky still feels off but I’m not sure what to do about that
I’ve seen the discussions about the Discourse compression, but I don’t think we can blame that. I’ve also shared Pixel pictures in the past, Discourse does a good job preserving the quality.
You’re right that the pictures are still blurry and there is room for improvement. But coming from the FP4 it’s already a major leap forward. I at least can take these pictures and for me the quality is worth sharing with others.
It makes me happy to see what progress the camera of the fp5 has made to the fp4 so far. Bigger question is, how far will they upgrade/improve the software to get even better pictures on that hardware.
Like in example the wide angle camera. Will they improve software to get sharper images, because the hardware seems capable to me to do so!
The super wideangle-camera has a way smaller chip. Lenses normally are darker at the edges. Additionally, the light hits the chip at the edges in a very unconveniant angle, that gets worse, the wider the angle of the picture.
In the pictures there do not seem to remain any much details in the data of the corners (if not in sunlight) that could be enhanced (compare the leaves on the lower right to those at the upper left). I have the feeling, that improved Software could sharpen bright parts (like the slightly blurry tree on the upper left, but parts like the lower right are a lost case, unless the Software starts to invent details (like Samsung does on the moon), so it looks good, but is not veridic anymore.
On the FP5 I use Android 13 (September update) and on the Pixel 6a I use Android 14 (October update). The FP camera release number is v6.00.04.0037.47.0
Regular snaps
Every picture on the left is from the FP5, the second one is from the Pixel 6a.
I think the FP5 was a major improvement in terms of the camera. Exactly what I was hoping for, it’s actually better than I hoped for. You can still see that the Pixel has often sharper images with more natural colors and better HDR/dynamic contrast. But the Pixel 6a fails at macro pictures (it doesn’t have that feature). Night mode pictures are for both very decent, but in very dark environments the FP5 still lacks (not included in this comparison). But, I’m not dissatisfied. It may even come down to your preference of the post-processing done in the software. Although, the Pixel takes the most color accurate pictures.
Interesting that the FP5 camera for Wide angle is worse in day-mode than in night-mode.
Seems to be over-smoothing the image horribly, especially the grassy areas (image set 5).
The good news is that the HW is still capable, the GCam versions of daylight wide angle look decent. While FP5 camera wins in the night modes by a small margin.
If you take two images in daylight with FP5 Camera in normal- vs night-mode, are the differences still that big?
Could you force the better performance in wide angle by always running night mode with FP5 camera…
To me this looks like the lense is not clean (fingerprints?). The Pixel didn’t have the light shining directly into its direction (different perspective, but did the lights change their direction, too?). Those two points together probably make the biggest difference.
Sure, things are not exactly the same. But I think everyone can agree the FP5 night mode has improved. But that there is still some room for improvement. We can of course have a long discussion about the details (not really interested in that though). But I think this general conclusion applies. Of course I took more pictures over time and use that for this conclusion as well. The FP5 improved surprisingly well. Other brands and more modern Pixels do better of course. But this is just to show the progress on the FP side.
I think it’s called resistance to flare, in photography.
Doesn’t look like a dirty lens.
But even some Zeiss lenses are not perfect at flare resistance, when you point a direct light source.
So, I agree that in the pixel picture the perspective and direction of light is different.
A more realistic scenario is a FP5 picture without those flares.
But even with flares the details are good.
Better than FP4 night mode and for sure it has been improved.
What is a good photo anyway? I feel that smartphones often make the colours richer than they really are, but I am not sure if that is good or bad. On the one hand, a small screen probably needs richer colours to have a similar effect to reality. On the other hand, especially if overdone, I think it leads to unrealistic expectations and tempts us to prefer the artificial to the natural. In that it aligns with the cosmetics industry, ultra-processed foods and photoshopped models.
Natural pictures are best IMHO. But this depends. Pixels make natural images, unless you use the portrait/night mode. iPhones create a yellow warm glow. Samsung devices create overall saturated colors. I prefer Pixel quality, and according to blind tests, most people do.
