G6 and Lumia 950 Camera Comparison

[belodion]

Some of yous guys may be interested in this. I don't have either phone myself, but have done my own comparisons of the G3 and G4 with the Lumia 1020, so I was interested to see how LG's latest iteration fares against a current Lumia. The results here are broadly similar to those that I found between the 1020 and G4.
Camera head to head: Lumia 950 XL vs LG G6

 

[dov1978]

I have the G6 as my main phone and the Lumia 950xl as my work phone. I carry both almost everyday and I've done a barrel load of comparison shots between the 2. I can safely say the G6 blew the 950xl camera out of the water for me on almost every photo. You won't get an ounce of bias from me either as I love my Lumia phones over the years, especially the cameras.

 

[Fred98TJ]

Would you post up a few?

 

[dov1978]

Of course. I'll get some up tonight after work

 

[Fred98TJ]

Thanks.

 

[dov1978]

Ok maybe I was a little hasty. I just grabbed a few snaps after work when walking my dog and daughter around the park. It's pretty dull and wet (also know here is Scotland as 'Summer'). All just snapped in full auto with HDR off. Both in 4:3 and their highest resolution/MP as for me this is how I normally judge a camera and I just want to get the best possible photos from my current phone. I just linked to my OneDrive as uploading here was subject to compression so you may have to download them to get full quality at your end.

https://1drv.ms/f/s!Aq6MxsEMwbIahew_RKhLhwxg5sYLog

 

[Jazzamuffin]

Ok maybe I was a little hasty. I just grabbed a few snaps after work when walking my dog and daughter around the park. It's pretty dull and wet (also know here is Scotland as 'Summer'). All just snapped in full auto with HDR off. Both in 4:3 and their highest resolution/MP as for me this is how I normally judge a camera and I just want to get the best possible photos from my current phone. I just linked to my OneDrive as uploading here was subject to compression so you may have to download them to get full quality at your end.

https://1drv.ms/f/s!Aq6MxsEMwbIahew_RKhLhwxg5sYLog

I like the LG pic!

 

[dov1978]

Yeah me too. I just thought the LG was miles better in my head from doing some comparison shots since getting it. It's a lot closer than I imagined

 

[kurtd]

Ok maybe I was a little hasty. I just grabbed a few snaps after work when walking my dog and daughter around the park. It's pretty dull and wet (also know here is Scotland as 'Summer'). All just snapped in full auto with HDR off. Both in 4:3 and their highest resolution/MP as for me this is how I normally judge a camera and I just want to get the best possible photos from my current phone. I just linked to my OneDrive as uploading here was subject to compression so you may have to download them to get full quality at your end.

https://1drv.ms/f/s!Aq6MxsEMwbIahew_RKhLhwxg5sYLog

Both look great but the G6 does look a bit better in this comparison. However, the one feature that I'm going to miss from the 950 is the living photos. It takes a 5 second video with each photo and you can save a photo from the video if you wish. I've gotten lots of good shots that way. You can view the living images on Windows 10 as well. Is there anything like this on the G6?

 

[dov1978]

I was about to say "yes of course" regarding the Living Images as I assumed it did given that it's on my Lumia and was on my Galaxy s8 Plus and iPhone 7 Plus I had before hand. But I've just checked and strangely it doesn't. You can capture photos whilst recording video though. But not in 4k as the camera shutter button vanishes when recording in 4k. Don't ask me why? Lol

 

[kurtd]

I was about to say "yes of course" regarding the Living Images as I assumed it did given that it's on my Lumia and was on my Galaxy s8 Plus and iPhone 7 Plus I had before hand. But I've just checked and strangely it doesn't. You can capture photos whilst recording video though. But not in 4k as the camera shutter button vanishes when recording in 4k. Don't ask me why? Lol

That stinks. Even though the S8 and iPhone has it, I doubt they show as living images on Windows 10 when auto uploaded through onedrive, do they?

I've heard there's a burst mode on the G6 and once enabled, it'll take a bunch of shots which you can then convert to an animated gif. Doesn't seem as good as the living images but sounds neat, have you tried it?

 

[Jeremiah Bonds]

That stinks. Even though the S8 and iPhone has it, I doubt they show as living images on Windows 10 when auto uploaded through onedrive, do they?

I've heard there's a burst mode on the G6 and once enabled, it'll take a bunch of shots which you can then convert to an animated gif. Doesn't seem as good as the living images but sounds neat, have you tried it?

I love making gifs. haha

 

[Fred98TJ]

Thanks for posting up those photos. It would be even more interesting to see them shot with 8mp resolution, that would put the 950 in its PureView, oversample mode.
Anyway, I'm not dissing the G6, it's right up there with the other big players today (Samsung, Google, IPhone). All do pretty much about the same. There has been a shift though to over sharpen the photos and that often produces a lot of artifacts and often smears away detail and it shows in the photos you took. The over sharpening is probably to make the photos appear "crisper" when viewed on the small screens of phones, but any screen much larger or zoomed in and it shows. There is also a trend to oversaturate the colors sometimes, I assume to give more pop to the photos, but sometimes at the expense of details and a natural color. That's ok, though, some people like the oversaturate look.
I'll just use one of the photos as an example, though all of them are doing the same.
Zoom in a little on the childs face and the G6 shows the effect of the oversharpening. The face has the "watercolor painted" look to it (as some here call it). The 950 looks very natural.

G6

950

In the same photo the G6 sort of crushes a lot of the subtle shades of green together as one shade. The 950 does a better job of showing those subtle differences.


G6

950

Here the G6 has smeared the details of the fence with its oversharpening. The 950 did a much better job in not smearing away so much detail.


G6

950

So again, my thoughts are not dissing the G6, it's certainly on par with the other big names, Samsung, iPhone, Google, but rather to comment on how good those Nokia Lumia were/are. Even the 950 has started following the crowd some with a little oversharpening compared to the older 808's and 1020.

 

[Fred98TJ]

A couple more to better show the fence.
The wire between the post is all smeared on the G6 by noise reduction. The 950 is better. Also the trees at the far end are all smeared on the G6 and the colors are lost, much better on the 950


Again, please don't misunderstand, not dissing the G6, more just showing how great those nokia cameras were/are.


G6

950

 

[dov1978]

Hey, thanks for taking the time to show and explain the differences there. You're absolutely right and I have to admit I was a bit quick to judge. I think my only complaint with the Lumia and all the Lumia's I've owned over the years including the 1020 you mentioned is the post processing they apply and often leave a slight yellow hue or warm skin tones a little too much at times. Even using ProShot seems to yield the same results. Apart from that they're right up there and always get ignored in camera shoot outs for the supposedly best smartphone camera. I do miss my 1020 though with that lossless zoom and the zenon flash. Mine just became pretty unusable after updating to W10m and having young kids and pets it was just too slow. I never tried the 808 but know it was much the same beast but a bit faster and better optimised?

 

[dov1978]

I never really fully understood the oversampling feature of the Pureview cameras until now either. I've just had a good read online about it and gonna try it in 8mp jpeg for a while and see how they fair. Thanks for the heads up