Blind camera shootout – Xperia Z5 vs LG G4 vs Galaxy Note 5 vs iPhone 6S

by: Nirave GondhiaOctober 15, 2015
4.7K
403 120 4215
big-smartphone-camera-shootout

Update: The poll is now closed!! The results are in: which smartphone took each image and which have you voted as your favourite device? Check out the results!

Original post: With every announcement of a new flagship, we hear companies claim that they have improved and advanced their camera and it is the best they’ve ever put, and there’s a good reason for that: for many people, smartphones have become the only camera they need.

These phones in detail...

In the case of Sony, LG, Samsung and Apple, each company has promised improved cameras in its latest flagship smartphones, but do any of them come close to matching a dedicated camera? Have we finally reached the stage where a smartphone can beat a DSLR camera?

To test this, we took our trusty Canon EOS 70D (with a 18-55m Sigma f/2.8 lens) into London along with the cameras found on the Sony Xperia Z5 (in full 23MP mode, not Sony’s preferred 8MP oversampling mode), LG G4, Samsung Galaxy Note 5 and the Apple iPhone 6S. Read on to find out who wins.

Like our previous blind camera shootout, we’re not telling you which smartphone took each image but this time, we have an image from the Canon EOS 70D as a control shot. When deciding which smartphone camera is the best, refer to the control image and vote for which you think is the closest.

N.B. As the Xperia Z5 comes with HDR turned on by default (and no way to turn it off unless you switch to manual mode), all phones had Auto HDR turned on by default. The EOS 70D images were edited post-capture to reflect HDR and are most representative of the scene. All the images captured have been cropped to 16×9 aspect ratio.

The cameras in numbers…

Before we run through the various galleries, let’s take a quick look at the various camera specs of each smartphone:

 Sony Xperia Z5Galaxy Note 5LG G4Apple iPhone 6S
Resolution:23MP (5520x4140)16MP (5312x2988)16MP (5312x2988)12MP (4032x3024)
Focus:Hybrid AFAutofocusLaser AutofocusPhase Detection AF
Flash:dual LEDdual LEDdual LEDdual LED
Manual controls?YesYesYespartial
Aperture:f/2.0f/1.9f/1.8f/2.2
Focal Length:24mm28mm28mm29mm
Camera Sensor Size:1/2.3"1/2.6"1/2.6"1/3"
Pixel Size:TBC1.12µm1.12µm1.22µm
Stabilisation:
Features:		Effective
Stabilisation		OISOIS
Colour Spectrum Sensor		Digital Image
Stabilisation
Front Camera5MP5MP8MP5MP

Numbers are only one part of the equation and while you could make a decision on which is best just based on the specs, we all know that cameras and images are about more than megapixels, and algorithms and processing play a large part. Clear your mind, settle down and let’s check out which smartphone camera really is the best.

Let the voting begin:

For each of the galleries below, you’ll find the EOS 70D image as the control shot beneath the gallery title and then you’ll find the four smartphone images in this order in the gallery beneath it: Phone A, Phone B, Phone C and Phone D. The same smartphone took each picture throughout the comparison; i.e. phone A is the same throughout all and so on.

Gallery 1

Blind-Camera-Shootout1-EOS

Taking a look at this image, we can see a contrast between the sky and the buildings. Do pay attention to the detail in the building on the left of the scene.

Gallery 2

Blind-Camera-Shootout2-EOS

For this image, the tree was the focus of every image but the real question was, how much detail could each smartphone capture in the sign on the left of the image and the sky. The results are certainly interesting…

Gallery 3

Blind-Camera-Shootout3-EOS

This test certainly proved interesting as it tested not only the ability of each smartphone to handle the myriad of colours in the shop front but also the reflections and, most importantly, the level of details and the colours inside the shop through the front door. Let’s see how the phones performed…

Gallery 4

Blind-Camera-Shootout4-EOS

This proved to be an interesting test, not only for the unique view but also the level of detail captured in the grille at the end, the apostrophe restaurant sign in the near background and the tree, sky and building in the background. Lots of details, which phone did best?

Gallery 5

Blind-Camera-Shootout5-EOS

From a shop that’s open for business to one that’s closed for the day and this is an interesting test as it reveals how each smartphone handles neon lights, contrasts and of course, reflections. Which do you think manages best with such a myriad of different colours and focal points?

Gallery 6

Blind-Camera-Shootout7-EOS

From outdoor shots to capturing the human face in all its detail and this is where a lot of smartphones can often be found out. After all, everyone likes to take images of themselves or their group so it’s definitely something that’s worth testing. Look, not only for colours and facial features but also the detail in the background and in the mirror.

Gallery 7

Blind-Camera-Shootout8-EOS

Another test and this time, questioning how each handset handles the varying lighting in the sky coupled with the level of detail in the buildings. Which phone blows out the sky and which captures the scene in stunning detail?

Gallery 8

Blind-Camera-Shootout9-EOS

It wouldn’t be a camera shootout in London without an iconic photo of a London phone box and there’s nothing more to say other than look, not only for details and colours in the phone box itself but also the background and the Itsu restaurant details on the left.

Gallery 9

Blind-Camera-Shootout10-EOS

Another stapleton of the upper echelons of London society and the iconic Claridges. As you can see this image was captured at a distance so look for details in the buildings and particular, details on the various flags. Which do you think handles this shoot best?

Gallery 10

Blind-Camera-Shootout12-EOS

From daylight to low light and a test of handling different colours; this is Selfridges on Oxford Street at night and there’s a lot of detail on show in the various columns and the iconic design itself. Look for which smartphone handles the detail in the buildings coupled with the colour the best.

Gallery 11

Blind-Camera-Shootout13-EOS

Another low light shot and this one looks at handling the contrast between black and light, with the Adidas store sign lit up and the building above it quite dark. Which phone over compensates the darkness and which comes closest to the EOS 70D?

Gallery 12

Blind-Camera-Shootout14-EOS

To our last two galleries and these are linked. First, we’ve got an image captured in almost darkness without the flash on and we’re looking at detail in the two statues as well as the cement bricks, fence in the background and the overall scene. The results are definitely interesting…

Gallery 13

Blind-Camera-Shootout15-EOS

The final gallery brings you the same exact scene as the previous gallery but this time we’ve fired up the flash to test how each smartphone’s reflective flash works in almost darkness. Again, look for clarity and detail in the overall scene as well as colours in the statues, cement bricks and the fence. Which smartphone will reign supreme as the king of darkness?

Which do YOU think is the best?

We could reveal which image took each picture but to ensure there is no bias, we want you to look at each image and then decide which you think is the best. Once you’ve decided, vote for your favourite in the poll below and be sure to let us know which you voted for (and why) in the comments below.

Like the last blind comparison, you’re welcome to guess at which phone is which but of course, we won’t confirm which is which until the results in roughly a weeks’ time. Get voting guys and why not share this using the links at the bottom so we can get more opinions on which is best!

Next:

Posted In
Features
Tags
Apple, Apple iPhone 6S, Camera Shootout, LG, LG G4, Samsung, Samsung Galaxy Note 5, Sony, Sony Xperia, Sony Xperia Z5
, , , , , , , , ,

  • C in most, D in others. Wonder which is which!

    • Stay tuned, we’ll be revealing all in a weeks’ time!

  • ggwp

    Phone A = Xperia Z5

    Phone B = LG G4

    Phone C = Iphone6 S

    Phone D = Galaxy Note 5

    • ggwp

      btw it’s not just a guess, they forgot to delete the exif informations of the jpg’s

      • coldspring22 .

        Wow, then it’s already clear which camera is the winner judging by the comments.

        • Svnjay

          The Z5?

          • 私たちの

            WRONG WRONG WRONG

        • that Nick guy

          VERY FUNNY, MATE. I do hope we’re thinking about the same thing (hint: not phone D)

      • aba

        the Blind-Camera-Shootout14-PhoneC-150×150 has been edited with adobe photoshop lightroom…u can see at details…and u are right about the exif infos. Why the iphone has Lightroom as program?

        • Bull Winkle

          I noticed the same thing. The iPhone image “C” was edited

        • AA

          wait, does this mean AA deliberately edited the iphone 6S shots to rig the results? wow! never thought that AA is an apple lapdog.

        • zac

          Maybe because Phone C has ridiculous 4:3 aspect ratio and needs to be cropped

          • That’s exactly it. The images had to be cropped.

          • Uzicopter

            Ok, but for the sake of consistency can you go ahead and also post the unedited, uncropped photos from the iPhone?

          • Sure, when we announce the results, I’ll upload all the images from each phone in full resolution :)

          • Techist

            I thought you were going to announce the results yesterday! Where are they?

          • Sorry for the delay – the results are now in: http://www.androidauthority.com/blind-camera-shootout-winner-650299/

        • b

          to change aspect ratio.

        • Soul

          Thank you for sharing this info.. now i know :)

      • Liel Pires Ribeiro

        Are you sure?

    • Tangent Lin

      C impossible to be an iPhone. C should be Z5. Brightest in dark area with high ISO produces lot of noise is always Sony style.

      • ClikFire _

        agreed.

        • Svnjay

          The Z5, is actually phone A.

      • momo

        i donwloaded a phone A pic, and under properties it showed that it was the z5. Downlaod this extension and it will show you which phone is which: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/exif-viewer/mmbhfeiddhndihdjeganjggkmjapkffm/related?hl=en

        • S.Yu

          lol a tech site should’ve done better to conceal that info.

      • momo

        phone c is the iphone because it is the only one left when checking properties

      • momo

        as much as i don’t like iphones, it is phone C. Don’t now warp your mind into thinking phone A is the best. If the photographer used manual modes and tried to capture the best possible image from each camera, then it mightve been a different story, but this test was measuring auto mode.

        • hoggleboggle

          Why? C was the worst in colour accuracy and dynamic range

          • momo

            that’s why C is leading right? On an android website

          • madcanada

            colour accuracy could be argued, but HDR is clearly the best on Phone C, look at how every other phone overblows the highlights in the sky so there are no details there at all.

          • alex27$

            A good dynamic range and means capturing all the details, which includes making skies look real, not whited out

        • Jon

          Yeah, I liked some of the pictures from A and D better, but when comparing to the DSLR shots, phone C came closest in reproducing the lighting and looked most like the DSLR shots.

        • S.Yu

          I’m forced to use the crash-prone FV5 on my S6E now because I’m highly dissatisfied by the lack of features and the lack of RAW in the native camera app. Now at least I could use bracketing and get decent pics for landscape.

          I tried manual bracketing before, that is, shooting consecutive images while changing the exposure compensation using the touch controls, but the exposure compensation in the native camera app was far from accurate at 0.6-0.7 stops according to PS for every full stop according to the camera app, and the camera app applied a tone curve to the JPGs that messed up the curve of a resulting hdr, and of course it was slow to shoot 3-5 pictures manually resulting in more artifacts.

      • NBMTX

        IMO the iPhone 6s looks like it has a yellowish cast at times, and a bit more noise [along with more details] than the 6 (maybe due to smaller pixels?) and it’s usual flooding flash… oh, and iPhones tend to capture the blue in skies, sacrificing dynamic range elsewhere, whereas the Android devices seem to go for DRO for details at the cost of an overexposed (washed out) sky…

    • motoridersd

      Interesting. Phone B had a lot of high contrast issues that I have seen other people complain about. I have never seen those in my photos taken with a G4, so there must be production/quality issues with some variants

      • Weneklek

        I agree. Gallery 3 was really bad and never would have expected that result.

        • Jakob Jørgensen

          What about gallery 12? The G4 is great when there is low or nearly no light, I’ve taken picture with my G4 in those low light conditions and they is not dark at all…

          • Weneklek

            No, I agree and ive said something similar on another comment thread somewhere else. In fact I would have expected the G4 to excel on the low light shot.

    • Weneklek

      so disappointed by the G4 being B.

      • that Nick guy

        I’m curious, why?

        B was only one that made me second guess picking D (twice).

        • Weneklek

          to be honest, gallery 3 and 12 threw me off completely. The other ones were actually good but i guess i was swayed away when i saw 3 and 12 specifically. Looking at the photos again (and with a much better monitor) I can see that B actually has good photos overall lol

    • Panino, o Manino

      Exactly my guess. You can not mistake that shitty noise/artifacts so characteristic from Xperia Family.
      Note 5 and G4 are even, the difference is that G4 has a tendency of presenting more “flare”, the sunlight invading the frame, and a bit of sharpening while Note 5 have almost zero.

    • sym

      Wow interesting, I actually liked D most, followed closely by A. C I didn’t like at all, actually, I thought it was the only camera that produced consistently poor shots.

      I thought the iPhone would be better.

    • Jena Troelsgaard

      Ah.. Now I understand WHY phone C is in ahead.. It looks awful in my eyes. The worst one! I’m surprised I actually picked the G4, it was a toss up between that and phone D (Sammy’s Note 5 I suppose). I had thought I would have picked the Note 5 as the best camera. Samsung may have stinky touchwiz but their cameras have always been good.

      • alex27$

        I’d say the iPhone does the best here because of its exposure (gallery 8) in real life I’d rather have the Samsung or Sony because I always tap to expose pictures.

    • psychok9

      Phone D is really impressive :o
      The night image where you see some greek pillars is more “colorful”.

  • blakehaas

    I vote phone D. Its obvious C is the G4.

    • momo

      C is the iphone

  • Jay

    Gold – D
    Silver – A
    Bronze – B
    DNF – C

    • wicketr

      This is how i’d rate them as well…except C above D. I really like the way that C can seem to pick up the clouds in some of the pictures (Gallery 8 & 9) when none of the other cameras can. For that reason alone I’d rank it higher. It seems pretty blurry otherwise.

      • Jena Troelsgaard

        You are looking at the photos on your phone or something cos pretty much all the photos from phone C are filled with noise. You can fix colours yourself, the noise makes them worth nothing but thumbnails.

  • Carlos Sanchez

    phone C dealt the best with wild variations in contrast and brightness

  • ramuk

    Although I hate blind camera comparison I have to say this is may be the closet it can get to have a “fair” comparison. I still don’t recommend people to decide your buying decision based on blind camera comparison. But This is the best style of all the comparison I have seen on the net.

    I really hope that you guys reveal which phone takes the best image in each picture when the result is out.

    • Thank you, we’ve tried to make this as fair a test as possible! We will of course reveal the results, I will say that looking at the comments, they will certainly be surprising!

      • Paulo Lin

        Blind shoot is biased since apparently this is published on some pro Apple sites, that phone C is iPhone. I can’t confirm however since people in this big have confirmed this.

    • that Nick guy

      If only they really were blind. Well, I did it blind. But my ‘eyes’, which were supposed to be ‘opened’ next week, were opened soon after I picked ‘D’ – in the comments area, where the Z5, G4, 6s and Note 5 were revealed like a window behind a curtain. Without the curtain.

  • Slick Master

    C is probably the G4, what other phone handles low light situations crazy well but has some exposure problems in some cases. D is either the 6s or the note 5. It’s a draw between the two for me.

    • Stay tuned for the results in a weeks’ time ;)

    • momo

      lemme spoil it for you. By donwlaoding the pics and looking at the properties, C is the iphone, g4 is B, note is D, and sony is A

  • plm

    C is Iphone 6s and also the best.

    • Matt

      The colors and natural tones in C are the best. D is also very good, but a bit superficial on the sharpening

    • RiTCHiE

      D is the iphone,

    • ClikFire _

      That tells me that you are a fanboy that only chose it because you thought it was the iphone

      C Is horrible by the way its over saturated and looks the worst.

      • Matt

        C didn’t win in every category, but overall it was the best because of the reasons I mentioned above. For example, look at the outside shots in Gallery 8 and 9. Phone C is really the only one that doesn’t over expose the sky and still maintains a natural color.

        Just because I thought the best overall didn’t align to what you thought was the best overall doesn’t make me some crazy fanboy. Honestly, the best way to have done this was to provide a control photo (from a DSLR, etc) and then have the other images to come to that.

        • That’s exactly what we did. Control shot from a DSLR to see which comes closest :)

          • Matt

            Haha. That’s what I get for not reading the preface and going straight for the images.

          • Techist

            Kudos to you guys for doing that! Keep it up!!

      • momo

        You’re also a fanboy because ur only hating on it cuz it’s an iphone. The iphone pics look the best because the software and the sensor knows when to lower the iso and when to raise it. Like look at the many pics with the sky, phone C(iphone) is usually the only one where the clouds are actually visible, while all the other ones have just bright white.

      • Blazer990

        What are you talking about? Phone D is the only phone that over saturates from the looks of it. Phone A and C are able to keep everything natural and Phone B is doing great in some pics while struggling in others.

        Admitting that something is better does NOT make you a fanboy. All 4 of these phones struggled in some cases and excelled in others. Putting down the iPhone just because it’s an iPhone makes YOU a fanboy lol. See the irony?

        • momo

          preach

        • R2-D2

          The picture taken by Phone C in Gallery 5 oversaturates, you can see it by the yellow color. Pictures by Phone C in Gallery 4,8,9,10,11 is also darker than the reference picture.. The picture in Gallery 13 also goes to Phone D, looking at the color of the wood, it is more similar to the one in the reference picture. Close call, Phone C wins 6/13 while Phone D wins 7/13.. This is probably the reason why I think the Note 5 is better. The only time where the iPhone 6S truly shines is in the picture from Gallery 12, where the iPhone captured a lot of detail even in low light, while all of the other phones didn’t..

    • Jena Troelsgaard

      You must be looking at the photos on a little 4.5″ iphone display or something. All of the pictures from phone C are filled with noise. It is unsightly! Camera on the iPhone is only good for taking thumbnails, now we know.

  • Sherpa

    Wouldn’t 6S Plus be a better comparison to Note 5 and G4?

    • Sadly we only had the 6S to hand, not the Plus. Aside from OIS, the cameras are very similar so the iPhone 6S is an interesting competitor.

    • coldspring22 .

      Puzzling why Apple left out OIS on $700 flagship phone. Obviously profit for Apple is huge on iphone 6S when manufacturing cost is only ~$200. Maybe bean counter is running the Apple to squeeze last penny of profit?

      • Diego

        1. An iPhone will last me longer.
        2. better support then most android phones.
        and
        3. grate battery life

        • R2-D2

          ‘Grate’, definitely can see how smart this guy is.. And as far as I have seen, iPhone battery isn’t that good, you usually have to charge it 3x until 100% in a day.. I used an iPhone 5 and an iPhone 4 before.. A few times, I experienced my phone shut down even when it has enough battery.. Once it shut down when there was 21% remaining, and also at 11%.. Most of the time it shuts down at 8%.. Better support is true in some cases, like when comparing OS updates from Apple and Samsung or Sony.. I definitely won’t say it would last long.. Probably going to last 2 years like every other phones..

          • Diego

            I charge my 6plus every 3 days

          • R2-D2

            I believe every phone in the world requires charging after at least 15-24 hours of use.. Even the phone with the best battery, which is the z3 compact, couldn’t last 2 days long without charge.. Those things are all BS. Of course, unless people only use it for texting a total of 30mins/day and calling 10mins/day, then yeah, a z3 compact could last for 2 days full, and your 6S plus could last for 3 days full..

          • Diego

            iPod touch 5g wich is an iPhone 4s with no phone or data.
            is running fast with iOS 9.1
            its 4 years old now.

          • Techist

            Galaxy S2 which was widely voted the best phone of 2011. Still worked flawlessly when I had international guests 2 months ago.

          • R2-D2

            I certainly do not know why you replied about iPod Touch 5G.. Just to let you know, iPod Touch 5 is using A8 chip, while iPhone 4S uses a A5 chip.. I am also confused how you say it’s the same.. And i had an iPhone 4 before, it lags with iOS 7.. I’m pretty sure 4S isn’t a huge leap from 4.. And to tell you the truth, I also had an iPod touch 4.. But after iOS 6, it lags too.. And it was also about 2 years since the day I bought it..

            And btw, i said phones, not iPods.. And phones consume more CPU power. You also have to reconcider that the phone will continuously search for cellular signal, and etc, while the iPod doesn’t.. Phones also have to use RAM to keep track of incoming SMS’, and iPods doesn’t.. So it also debunks how you said that iPhone 4S should last approximately 4 years..

          • Diego

            You must be talking about the iPod touch 6g that has the a8 chip.
            Now I am talking about the 5g a5 chip.
            Iphone 4s with iOS 9.1 runs faster then with iOS 8.
            And before you ask I tested it out with a friends iPhone.
            That was the Focus of iOS 9.1 improve performance of older devices.
            About iPhone using more ram then iPod I can say that they use about the same.
            Do you still have that iPhone 4s?

          • R2-D2

            I certainly do not know why you replied about iPod Touch 5 when I am making comments about smartphones.. iPod Touch 5 also uses A8 chipset, while iPhone 4S uses A5 chipset. If you don’t know what it is, look it up online.. That definitely debunks how you said both devices are the same.. I also used an iPhone 4 before for a few months running iOS 7, and it lags.. Pretty sure the 4S isn’t a huge leap from the 4.. I also used an iPod Touch 4 before for almost 3 years. After 2 years, running iOS 6, it lags.. Debunks your theory too how an iPod would last 4 years..

            An iPhone will also use more RAM and CPU power than an iPod.. Phones will do more than an iPod when searching for cellular signal, notifications when receiving SMS, switching between WiFi and 3G/4G/2G, etc. This part debunks how you expect an iPhone to last as long as an iPod..

          • Diego

            turns off at 21%?
            hm all look in to that.

      • Blazer990

        Manufacturing, RND, Import costs, Raw materials, and Transportation costs aren’t cheap. I wouldn’t take the $200 cost as face value of the product.

      • Diego

        That alone with better performance then most android phones works for me.
        have a 6 plus

      • Sherpa

        Probably because they care too much about the thickness (or, should I say the thinness) of the phone.

  • Tangent Lin

    Photo A capture more contrast picture.

  • Tuan Do

    Phone A gotta be Sony, because it took me ages to load the photos :)) I guess phone C is G4, I own one.

    • LastKings31

      C is the iPhone

      • Mohamed Shamil

        Nope G4

        • that Nick guy

          lol

  • Adobo King

    The only good thing going for C was the low light shot. I am anxious to know what Phone D is.

    • Note 5

    • Techist

      In my judgement, D was by a wide margin the winner of that test. I am also very keen to learn which phone it is.

  • Lio

    you should have put a voting poll in each of the type of shots as one phone that’s best in shot type A may not necessarily be the best in shot type B.

    • We did consider it but it makes it a lot more difficult to understand we’ve found. Feel free to take a tally and Base your decision on that :)

    • motoridersd

      Agreed. They were all over the place for me.

  • Marten van der Meer

    D wins for me because it takes the sharpest and most colorful pictures in all situations except for low light. None of them perform brilliantly in low light, but camera B and A do slightly better than C and D. I don’t know what is going on with the HDR situation on phone C, but some of the pictures are good and others are downright terrible.

    • ClikFire _

      I completely agree. Shocked people are even saying C is the best.

      • Gustavo

        me too

      • Jena Troelsgaard

        I think anyone saying C is the best might be looking at the pictures on a very small screen (probably phone) so they can’t see all the noise. lol

        • TheDude

          That level of noise is horrible and present nearly in every picture with a little darkness.
          The best looking one is D which appears to be the note 5.
          According to someone here phone A is the Z5 and the photographer didn’t use the default mode and didn’t adjust for FOV so it was at a disadvantage, would be nice if they could do a proper reshoot.

    • Beem Keeratithananun

      Completely agree with you too. I Think C is the worst and D is the best.

    • Mohamed Shamil

      Look at the sky and lights in those pictures of Phone C. Other phones have replaced with white space for sky while phone C has captured the real sky

      • Marten van der Meer

        But pictures of phone C are often very noisy (look at the shop signs for instance) and are very dark in situations with lots of shadows. Yes, colors are mostly accurate but sharpness and detail is lacking compared to phones D and B.

  • Mike Fox

    IMO

    A= Z5

    B= G4/6S

    C=Note 5

    D= G4/6S

    On A you can see defocus around the corners of the image, this happens with small lenses on big sensors

    C looks oversharpened on the back camera and looks astonishing on the front facing so I’m calling in Note 5 on C

    G4&6S because I can’t pinpoint those.

    I’m betting on B being the 6S and D G4

    • momo

      C is the iphone 6s, downlaod the photos and look at properties

  • Daniel Moraru

    In my opinion, Nubia Z9 should be in this tests. That phone has an impressive camera, better than at least 2 phones in this test.

  • EQ

    The test has some major flaws. For one the Xperia Z5 is not on “Superior Mode” which can be enabled even at 23MP. Hence since they took the photos in manual mode the ISO is capped at 1600 like on all previous Xperia Z models in manual mode. In “Superior Mode” it can go as high as ISO 12800 which would give the most lit up and detailed photos in low light situations by a large margin. Also “Superior Mode” does automatic scene correction and allows for different more ‘to-the-scene’ balanced exposure rates thus giving better photos and more detail. In short the test is making the Xperia Z5 underperform. Also exif data is visible in photos.

    • The Xperia Z5 actually WAS on Superior Auto mode for every shot. No photos were taken in manual mode on any phone.

      • EQ

        But then there are limits when using Superior Auto and max MP setting becouse the the ISO was capped as seen in the exif (1600) when it should have been for that scene atleast 6400 and upwards 12800 depeding how the camera chooses. I have taken photos of similar and even worse lit objects and all those samples look bad compared to my photos (1/16, 3200-6400 ISO). And that is with a Z1 (Max 8MP in Superior Mode for Z1). And the most advanced BIONZ algorithms to improve image and reveal detail in the dark kicks in at ISO 3200-6400. So as the other user said this camera is made to take photos at default SM 8MP to get the most benefit from both ISO, exposure rates and so on. I think I read somewhere that Sony in an interview or article also recommended the SP 8MP mode to take full advantage of the camera as you still dont “loose megapixel” detail inte the sense that the 8MP image looks far better than if it would have been a 8MP sensor. This since it supersamples from 21-23MP.

        • Tim Austin

          I can confirm that SA does not enable all modes at 23MP: I’ve only managed to get it to fire up Landscape, Gourmet and Macro at 23MP but never Night Mode. It does not apply night settings at full resolution.

          You are correct: Sony advises that the phone is used in 8mp because the camera is designed to supersample. This test makes a fatal error in deliberately taking the Z5 out of it’s default setting. This has been pointed out to AA and I hope that they acknowledge this when they release the results.

  • ClikFire _

    Shocked by everyone saying C is good its the most inconsistent and the most over saturated with inaccurate colors.

    • Schneider Ákos

      and god damn foggy all the time…

    • momo

      bias

    • momo

      thats why C is leading on an android site

      • Tim Austin

        C is leading because it is saturated to look “pleasant” not real and the FOV means that without zooming in it looks like it’s picking up more detail. It isn’t. Phone C is only superficially good: look at the details – the errors, the noise, the exposure and the colours – and it’s objectively no where near as good as the others.

        • momo

          wow, you’re a bigger dumbas than i thought, my bad. Aren’t images suppose to look “pleasant” fucking retard. And not “real” as in natural. Right, cuz whenever you look at the sky with clouds all you see is blinding white? (that was sarcasm, in case you didn’t know fucking dumbass) Superficially good? wtf does that even mean, photos are suppose to look good, why the fuck would you even take them then. Who, whenever they look at images, looks at every single detail. No one fucking does that. All that matters is that the image looks good.

          • Tim Austin

            What a pleasant and witty response. Your mother must be so proud.

            What I am saying is that they ALL look good zoomed out, generally. Even a 3MP image from my old K800 looks good superficially when zoomed out. This test is about which camera is objectively the best quality: the iPhone does not win this.

            You look at detail if you want to crop the image after you’ve taken it: lots of people do that. If the crop you take looks like shit then you’ll be annoyed, surely? Not everyone JUST posts to Facebook, you know. You might: I don’t.

            I put “pleasant” in quotation marks because there’s a huge difference between a photo that comes out of a camera looking like a filter has been applied by default and a photo that is accurate. With the former, you’re stuck with the choices Apple has made about the colour of your image, with the latter, you’re free to enhance the image IF you choose and you’re starting at the correct baseline to do so.

            Pointing this out, as many others have done (much to your annoyance – might I suggest anger management counselling?), doesn’t make me a dumbass: it makes me objective.

          • Paulo Lin

            Momo is an Apple fanboy that’s why.

    • momo

      i luv android more than ios and apple, but in this test C was the king

  • Umut Aydin

    I hope ‘B’ is not the G4 as I’m about the get one today!

  • Mohamad Fawzy

    Phone c is the best

  • Webbmeat

    The Brunswick!

    • Indeed, The Brunswick! Hello fellow Londoner!!! ? ?

  • momo

    if you download the pictures, you can see the properties of phone a,b, and d, which are z5, lgg4, and note 5 respectively. That makes the iphone 6s phone c

    • wicketr

      Why spoil the fun of this test? Do you just like being an ass?

      • momo

        well i wasn’t the first one, and you guys probably voted before going to the comments section.

        • Jena Troelsgaard

          Yeah, I voted first and then looked at comments. If you look at comments first you will see people screaming for their favourite anyway and that may affect you too. So do test first before looking at comments regardless.

      • Andreas Larsson

        People where already doing it without telling, he just pointed out an obvious flaw in the “blind” test

    • lawliet

      the fuck is wrong with this guy? we know it can be found in the JPEG properties but choose not to look at it because it’ll consciously put a bias on which one to pick. the purpose of this blind camera test is for folks to decide which is the best without knowing what phone took the shot. now, because of your unnecessary know-it-all shit, people who come here will definitely pick based on which phone they’re leaning towards getting, not based on independent, blind picking. way to go, ass! thanks for ruining the test for everyone else.

    • coldspring22 .

      This blind camera test should be scrapped and redone. Images should not have exif information. Now everyone knows which image is from which phone, it’s just what’s your favorite phone contest.

      • momo

        preach, thats the problem i have with auto tests, they don’t show the full potential. However, the majority of users just want to snap a pic quick without having to go to settings.

        • The Z5 had Superior Auto on (its best auto mode) while the others all had HDR Auto on to match the Z5’s Auto HDR photos. We kept to auto for the reasons you’ve mentioned above – most people keep the cameras in auto.

          • momo

            i was talking about manual settings, like the g4 had an iso of 0 for it’s low light image, when it could have been much higher

          • Again, all shots were taken with all settings on auto. If the phone chose an ISO of 0, it wouldn’t be a fair test if we tweaked the settings on one but not on the others. Hence why no settings were changed.

          • momo

            i understand, but perhaps in the future you guys could make a test using the best possible settings for each camera for each situation, that would be something that a lot of people would like to see

          • le_lutin

            “best possible settings for each camera ” will also be subjective and have people b*tching: “Why did you prioritse brightness?? NOW THE IMAGE IS NOISY AS HELL AT FULL RES”

            etc etc etc

          • Kalen G

            What’s funny is that, with my Z3, Superior Auto is vastly inferior to Manual mode with auto settings and highest resolution. Every picture I’ve tried has worked out better this way with exception to low light situation.

  • Siralf

    1st …… D
    2nd ….. C
    3rd …… A
    4th …… B

    • momo

      D and C are tied for me

      • Siralf

        Agreed, it is very close. I’d say overall is D but I had to take Gallery 12 out of the equation I don’t understand what happened there.

        • Jon

          I thought C was much more representative of the DSLR photos. D was very unrealistic in that it illuminated things a lot differently than the DSLR in many shots.

    • Monica Rodriguez

      Those are my results too!
      I got:
      A: 2
      B: 0
      C: 3
      D: 8

    • Techist

      1st….. D (50pts)
      2nd…. C (28 pts)
      3rd …. A (27 pts)
      4th….. B (26 pts)

      Winner: D by a wide margin.

      • Rowlin

        Agree, D clearly in almost every photo

  • s2weden2000

    aijphoney = n0 n0

  • phonester

    C or D.

  • Soredawg

    Haha I think most will be surprised with results, but I think the low light and image processing is a give away.
    C is the Z5 typical sony sharpening of details in low light
    D is the Note 5 very good detail
    A is the G4
    B Iphone 6s

    • momo

      c is the iphone 6, download the pics and go to properties

      • Soredawg

        I think AA can’t be silly enough to leave the details of the photos. Might be playing with everyone. There is no way in the world the 6s can take that photo in almost darkness when its ISO levels never past 400 from what I’ve seen, when everyone else is black. Only phone capable is the Z5.

  • 404

    iPhone has the biggest pixels out of the 4 (including Sony; no way you can have big pixels with 23mp).
    They should do a shootout for the Nexus 6P too, with its fat 1.55um pixels.

    • Unfortunately the Nexus 6P wasn’t available when we conducted this test.

      • 404

        Aw ok. What about 5X? Same camera right?

        • Indeed, same camera on the 5X I believe (there may be slight differences). I wonder how well it’ll perform.

  • Bull Winkle

    Clarity + color production = D. Distant second C.

  • Amine Boucherit

    B is so bad ,and C & D are miles better than both A & B !

  • Andrew Tan

    Exactly correct as user mention, all camera Exif is intact!

    Phone A = Xperia Z5 (It actually good)

    Phone B = LG G4 (As usual some yellowish in certain situation, I am using it right now, but overall is satisfied)

    Phone C = Iphone6s (Edit at Lightroom for changing to wide? – I can’t believe so many votes this, output is not good, the sky is so faking taken out, yellowish and blur, not enough sharpness)

    Phone D = Galaxy Note 5 (Undeniable the best! I am changing over pretty soon)

    • momo

      ur biased

    • HanzyHaze

      I agree with you, i took my own tally and D performed better in 8 out of 13 galleries.

      • that Nick guy

        Thanks for sharing. 9/13 here. B got two votes from me.

      • Jena Troelsgaard

        I forgot to count the votes I gave. lol It was between B and D for me and I just went with a feeling and picked B. Maybe if I had counted my votes I would have ended up with D too. Most of them I couldn’t decide between B and D though, I gave them a tie. The phonebooth I gave to A. It seemed the one picture somewhat in focus coming from A and the others did poorly there.

    • Akira Tabuchi Yagui

      I’ll assume that most of the people voting here are using their smartphone/tablet to see the pictures or a crappy low res monitor/laptop (with TN panel), so they can’t see the differences. Maybe if they have a UHD monitor (I think even a FHD), they would notice the big problem with most of the pictures (blur, lack of sharpness, bad color, etc).

      The only gallery were Phone C got better results is the Gallery 12 (Darkess + no flash) and is the most noticeable because you don’t need a good image size to see the problem.

      • Beem Keeratithananun

        My PC screen is good too and I completely agree with what you said. Photos from C look the worst. They are noisy and muddy.

      • S.Yu

        I’m on a TN panel…that covers 95% AdobeRGB…I think it’s a TN panel because the manufacturer never said otherwise.

  • Tim Austin

    A couple of REALLY important things to mention here regarding Phone A – test things that unfairly place it at an immediate disadvantage.

    Firstly, it’s clearly got a very different field of view: it’s taking in a far wider shot than all of the others. This is a lens thing and means that, effectively, the scene is “Zoomed Out” for the sensor – IE, if you crop to the same depth as all of the others without correcting for this, you’re effectively zooming far further in. This immediately pixelates the results. It also means that less light from each object is hitting that sensor, which is why things seem darker and less clear in some parts of each image.

    The ONLY way to fairly correct for this is to step closer to the subject when taking the shot so that the field of view for each is identical. As much as I love ya, AA, you didn’t do that and it heavily biases the result.

    Secondly, Phone A is clearly the Xperia Z5. The camera on the Z5 is not designed to work at 23mp, it’s designed to supersample 23mp down into a low-noise, high-detail 8mp image. That’s what it does. It took the best part of a year for Sony to apply ANY kind of processing algorithm to 20mp images on the Z1 and clearly they have done only the bare minimum to the 23mp images of the Z5 for the same reason: that’s not how they want you to use it. It’s not what it’s designed to do. It’s also not how Dxomark reviewed it: they used it at 8mp, which is the default setting.

    At 8MP, Z5 images are brighter and much, much cleaner than at 23.

    I’m going to be the first person to say that clearly phone 4 is the best on test – I don’t think that re-shooting this will leapfrog Phone 1 over Phone 4,… and I OWN a Z5! But, as with just about every comparison I’ve seen so far, the Z5 is being placed at an automatic disadvantage by the conditions of the test. It would be nice for that to be recognised, hence my comment.

    • leavesremix

      Right off I could also tell phone A was the sony because of the wider angle. What I cannot understand is why Sony chose such a wide angle lens for their camera? It’s so wide I would not consider it as an everyday shooter.
      Also others mentioned Android Authority left the exif info in tact, which was silly.

      • Indeed we did, a mistake on our part. Something we’ll keep in mind for the future. Thanks.

    • As mentioned elsewhere in the comments by myself, we’ve left every setting on automatic as that’s exactly how the average consumer is likely to use their phone. Yes, we could have used manual mode and supersampled the Z5 image but that wouldn’t be a fair test to other devices. It’s like putting the a 5MP image from the Lumia 1020 (which supersamples the 42MP image into a 5MP high-res image) against a 5MP from another phone, it’s not a fair fight.

      That being said, we’ll keep your comments in mind for any future camera shootouts. Thanks!

      • Tim Austin

        A little disingenuous, there; you did not leave all settings on auto; those are 23mp images and you had to select that option; the default setting is 8mp. That’s not leaving it on auto – that’s a choice you made.

        Also, that’s not addressing my point about field of view at all. If you’re taking that shot in day to day and you want a closer image, you’d step nearer. To do so so that all phones are reading the scene identically is not biasing anything, it’s making it fairer. DxOmark do this; it’s good practice.

        • With the first point, you are indeed correct. The Z5 was changed to 23MP as we were testing all the cameras as their full resolution in 16×9. Your second point is certainly valid, we’ll keep this in mind for future shootouts.

          • Tim Austin

            Thank you for your replies. I would be interested in seeing a re-shoot with FOV accounted for, at the least – any chance? There really is a huge disparity there.

            ALSO, as I have discovered, not all Superior Auto corrections are available at 23mp. Low light scene correction is not applied at that resolution. Nor is stabilisation

            As mentioned, it’s not designed to be used at that resolution and the software reflects that.

          • Techist

            Thank you for your informative contribution to this discussion. I still don’t know which phone is which, but I agree with your points about the Xperia Z5.

          • Daniel Lawrence Fernandez Viva

            Hi. First of all, thank you, Tim Austin, for taking us to school with all that Xperia Z camera tips and tricks! Awesome! I’m just wondering if the camera on M5 is as good as the one on the Z series. M5 camera sure looks good on paper.

          • Tim Austin

            If I may, here is an example of what I’m talking about and it couldn’t be more dramatic: On the left we see the camera used as you use it. On the right, a step forward has been taken to simulate an adjustment for the differing FOV and the resolution has been dropped to 8MP. With this, I am doing nothing more than giving the Z5 a level playing field.

            https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e55b978b3a63a8e556b4f2959ec8d13e2683f5fdbc84e2de21e014cc0e7fabc1.jpg

            For a full res shot-by-shot example, please see https://flic.kr/s/aHskmx3AzK

            I encourage you to re-shoot this test.

          • Matt

            This sounds like an issue that Sony needs to address.

          • Tim Austin

            Not at all: the lens is a perfectly okay choice – they choose to give a wider FOV. Valid decision. But side by side comparisons must take this into account for any comparison to be fair. The onus is on the PHOTOGRAPHER to do that. And Sony have always been clear that 8mp is the correct resolution for their Z range: it doesn’t need a fix, that’s what they’re designed to create – super high definition 8mp images.

          • Matt

            A image down sampled to 8MP shouldn’t be of better quality than a 23MP image from the same exact source. Sony is screwing up and shouldn’t be defended for it.

          • Tim Austin

            Nonsense. Supersampling gives a raft of advantages; it builds detail, reduces noise, improves low light fidelity and brightens the image. A supersampled image can be objectively better than a higher res image from a competitor even if it’s not got the same resolution.

            8mp shots from the Z5 adjusted for the FOV will have detail that’s comparable but cleaner than the other phones on test -that’s the theory and that’s what DxOmark found when they tested the camera.

          • alex27$

            Is that the same as what the 1020 did?

          • Tim Austin

            Yes, it’s exactly the same as what the 1020 did :-)

          • Lio

            thanks, tim for clearing this out.

            i was really inclined to get the Z5 premium after dxomark proclaimed it as the best camera phone there is at the moment. but after seeing the results here in AA’s blind camera test, i said, “well, looks like z5 is not the best camera phone after all.”

            and then you did a re-sampling above and i was like, “okay, it seems that AA did the z5 a disadvantage here. i’m not sure if it was intentionally done and whether AA is just biased towards the other more prominent brands.”

            but yeah, faith in sony restored. i will definitely push through with my z5 premium pre-order. thanks again, tim!

          • Tim

            Tip: You don’t need to buy the Z5 premium if you just want its camera. It’s the same in the Z5 Compact, Z5 and Z5 premium.

          • Lio

            i fell in love with the mirror-like back of the green z5 premium so i’m getting that instead of the regular z5 and z5 compact. plus, i’m kind of intrigued how they’re pushing for this 4K technology. so yeah, z5 premium it is!

          • Tim Austin

            You’re very welcome. For the record, I don’t think that AA did this deliberately – it’s just a matter of not thinking the test through in advance. All camera quality comparisons, if you’re checking resolution and detail reproduction, should adjust for FOV. To point out “check the lower left side”, as AA does to, I’m sure, highlight that Phone A has done a poor job, is pointless because you’re looking at an image made of a much smaller section of the sensor than the others. If the FOV is the same then it’s fair. Anyway, I’m glad I could help: I’m very happy with my Z5 camera experience, so far. For shots taken by me, check https://flic.kr/s/aHskn4W5uU

          • Lio

            you seem to know a lot about photography. are you a pro photographer? i just wanted to ask for your advice if it’s better to use superior auto mode downsampled to 8MP or take shots using manual mode at 8MP?

          • Tim Austin

            Hi Lio – no, not a pro: just an enthusiastic amateur :-) To answer your question, though: In good light (IE, a sunny day) it’s okay to actually leave it in 20mp 16:9, if you want the extra detail. As others have pointed out, and I agree, however, Sony have only done the barest post-processing to these so that detail is messy. Sony are still working on the final firmware for the camera – it’s expected that this will add Bionz processing to the full resolution, something it clearly lacks, currently.

            Generally, in good outdoor light, you can leave it on Superior Auto. For ALL other uses, 8MP Manual is better: the ISO is better controlled and images generally seem to be sharper for it. This is especially true of low light shots: SA has a nasty habit of ramping ISO to high heaven when it’s dark and it adds too much noise for my liking. At night, the best thing to do is stick it on Manual 8MP. For even better shots, hit up the dedicated night modes: they’re surprisingly good. I say surprisingly because I didn’t think much to them on the Z1 but here they do a much better job.

            Hope this helps.

          • Lio

            thanks for these tips, tim!

            two last questions (sorry, i just wanted to maximize my xperia’s camera capability):

            1. “for ALL other uses, 8 MP manual is better.” do i leave the ISO to auto?
            2. also under 8 MP manual (with the scene selection off), there’s an additional setting for both HDR and image stabilizer where you can only enable one but not both. what’s your advice on enabling either of them? does it make any difference or do i just leave them off by default?

            thanks again for your insights!

          • Tim Austin

            1. Yes: Manual with all other settings at auto produces great results: the ISO on Manual is better than the ISO on SA. Even the auto White Balance is good.
            2. I’ve not tried the image stabiliser on Manual yet. On the Z1 it hurt the quality of the image badly and I never used it. On the Z5, however, it may be much better, as the 5 has a hybrid lens stabilisation system. It certainly make night mode better. Personally, I’d leave them both off. HDR is okay but doesn’t make a vast difference.

          • Vojta Hanuš

            Hi Tim, I really love your photos. I have Z5C for 4 days and im a little bit disappointed about camera, but as i can see, Z5’s are able to shoot much better photos than I have taken so far. So the problem is me :D.. i had iPhone 4 for 5 years before that, so im not used to Android API.. can you give me some tips & tricks to shoot better on my Z5C? Thank you

          • Tim Austin

            Sure: First up, switch to Manual instead of Superior Auto. Superior Auto occasionally sets the ISO way too high, especially in low light. This adds noise and reduces sharpness in an attempt to artificially brighten the image. It’s a trade off I don’t like: I want the scene reproduced as it is not brighter than it is. No need to tweak any other settings, if you don’t want to: auto white balance in this mode is generally good. There are exceptions – more of that in point 3.

            Second: You can confidently use 20MP in good daylight – it produces more detail than the S6: I’ve tested the two side-by-side while correcting for FOV. BUT the detail is scrappy at pixel level: the processing is basic. Sony will address this in time, I’m sure. In all other light, put it in 8MP. Indeed, it’s probably best to just leave it there all the time, unless you’re desperate to blow the image up big enough to cover the side of your house or crop to the Nth degree later.

            Third: Don’t be afraid to apply one of the scene modes, if you want to. Night modes are particularly good if you want no noise at all in your image,…. and I mean NO noise. Example: https://flic.kr/p/zuSFhU. You have to keep your hands extra-steady to do that but I was not using a tripod (Hint, steady your elbows on your ribcage – that helps).

            That said, you don’t have to: manual with no settings applied works FINE.

            Hope this helps.

          • Vojta Hanuš

            Thank you for you reply.
            Btw thats why im a little bit disappointed, it has really bad details compared to other phones and i doubt sony will do something about it even though ist caused by post-processing. They could have done it months ago, Z3 has samae problem.

          • Tim Austin

            Be careful about attributing noisy pixel-by-pixel detail to lack of detail. I’ve tested it against the S6 at full resolution and it’s clear that the Z5 does pick up more information and detail. Indeed, if you download the full-sized versions of the pictures above and inspect certain areas, like the windows on picture 1 where the blinds are clearly visible on the Z5 and absent on the Note 5, you can see this too – even with a considerable difference in field of view. Trouble is, that detailing is noisy and poorly processed currently so it looks soft when you jump back a few steps.

            Sony has already said that there will be new camera software released in November and it’s hoped that this brings better processing alongside a new interface.

            But Sony clearly do not intend for 23mp to be the default mode: all that the sensor is supposed to do is super-sample all that detail detail into 8mp shots which contain less noise. In many cases, they succeed – especially in low light, as I discovered myself. I have seen for myself how 8mp shots I’ve taken retain similar detail to the 23 while being cleaner and sharper for it. Indeed, some of the results I’ve had in poorly-lit indoors scenarios are quite extraordinary. Significantly better than Samsung’s devices? Difficult to say. But I’ve had badly lit indoor and night-time shots from this thing that have had virtually no noise at all and that’s quite a feat for a camera this small.

          • fredphoesh

            Yes, but how would you do that with phones which have digital zoom only? You could move further and closer to the subject to TRY to capture the same content, but would not because some objects are closer and some further from the lens, so things would change dramatically in most shots. Another way would be to crop the photos, but that would not be fair as you’d be comparing part of one sensor with the entire sensor of another camera. Without optical lenses this kind of comparison is imperfect… has to be.

          • Tim Austin

            I’m not sure what digital zoom has to do with anything. I’m talking about correcting for FOV by physically getting closer or stepping back from your subject – this would be a fair way to test detail reproduction as it means that an identical image is hitting the sensor of each phone: same light, same image.

          • EQ

            Now I do own an Xperia Z1 but I believe it is the same for newer Z models in that manual mode and/or max MP setting limits the ISO. Manual mode at 21MP gives me a max ISO of 800 (1600 if digital stabilisation is enabled) and in Superior Mode upto 6400 (12800 for Z3-Z5). In low light conditions Superior mode thus is greatly superior. I can even read text of fairly close proximity objects I barely can read or see with my naked eyes and my vision is fault free and been acustomed to the dark shooting environment. In manual 21MP mode barely anything is visible and in line with for example I6S that I have from work except Z1 still gives a noticably cleaner and natural photo (either mode). I hope though they improve the algorithms for Z5 as my Z1 has gotten better software processing with 5.1.1 update for the BIONZ chip (both modes) and the images are better looking when viewing 1:1 vs images I’ve seen from Z5 (same ISO, same shutter speed). I am reffering to side bluriness, edge jittering and surface detail aswell as how noise is used to improve detail as in a more uniform image. Z5 images look more like what I would expect if it was a RAW image output with no processing at 23MP.

          • Tim Austin

            You are correct about ISO – above 8MP, the ISO is heavily limited. This is partially responsible for the disparity I noted on my 20 vs. 8mp shots. In murky dull lighting, limiting the ISO is often a good thing, I’ve found, as sometimes SA pushes it up and sacrifices detail to do so. With that in mind, I generally prefer to keep the camera in Manual at 8MP in anything but ideal lighting.

            Sometimes, however, the SA can really surprise you: in virtual darkness, it can pick out an image that your naked eye can’t. It is also better at booting up Gourmet mode – even when looking at a cup! These results are especially good. One thing I HATE about SA is it’s insistence on artificially softening faces to smooth out blemishes when it detects eyes, noses and mouths. No, Sony: I want a detailed picture, not a smudged and prettified one. If I’m taking pictures of face, I turn SA off.

          • EQ

            Yes manual mode in 8MP gives the best and lets you avoid face detection focus mode becouse that one is nasty aswell as the front cameras “smooth skin” mode which can be toggled off but if camera app has to be reloaded into RAM then that setting gets reseted to enabled, atleast on Xperia Z1. Oh well cant have it all right? Haha! By the way have you found the camera to give slightly better low light photos in SA 8MP, 16:9 vs 4:3? I ask becouse I found it to be less sensitive to movements and gives brighter image with more balanced WB in some situations despite 16:9 being a crop of 4:3 (although 16:9 gives 8.3MP and 4:3 gives 8.0MP)..

          • Tim Austin

            Oddly, I have! I agree, it’s very strange. Overall though, while SA night shots are a huge improvement over the Z1’s, I find that going into Manual and selecting the dedicated night mode from there does a better job anyway – probably an ISO thing. When doing that, I’ve ended up with night shots with zero noise. Actual zero, as far as I can make out. Not something you see often from a smartphone camera.

          • EQ

            Well I played a bit more and it regarding SA 8MP mode when using the lossless zoom 4:3 provides a much cleaner image at same ISO and shutter speed. I tested in low light scenario shooting text on an object. 4:3 gave noise free, clean letters while 16:9 had noise and jitter along edges. So SA 4:3 and manual on 21MP, single autofocus and face metering (Seems good enough middleground between center and frame average/multi). 8MP in manual and high ISO or nightmode depeding on scene and stability (these modes also use face metering). Nightmode on manual gives an almost noise free image and lits the scene much better and natural comapred to high ISO mode in bad lighting but stable hands are needed else despite looking nice will lack finegrain detail when zooming in on final photo. Wide flash photos, just normal or to center detail and mute exposure -0,7 to -1 EV. Pretty much done here with testing and optimising for best photos my phone can make! I’ll uppgrade to next Z mobile to get more juice in the camera when they skip S810.

          • Lio

            hi tim! i checked your flicker album and those were amazing pictures you took! just a quick question, were those taken using your z5? if they were, then i am definitely sold!

            EDIT: indeed, they were! amazing shots! wow!

          • inspire

            Then why are you lying in your comment above that “every phone is in it’s default setting”, when clearly phone A (a.k.a. Z5) is NOT in default 8mp mode! Then this whole “auto”, “unchanged”, “as most users will use” blah blah is nothing but biasing to whatever brand(s).

            The point is, you should stick to at least what you’re claiming! And please it’s not blind, anyone can make out that phone A is Z5 given its wide FoV, not to mention the attached EXIF info.

            Really, what a joke this whole post is! Camera C is visibility most atrocious (even after AA’s LR editing) and it’s still winning! Amazing AA!

          • Malih

            I think it would be nice if you also post an updated note in the article, that you changed the default intended megapixels. That some manufacturers may not optimise their phone’s camera for full megapixels or something like that.

            Mainly because some readers use you for their reference before buying a phone.

          • tabby

            I agree with Tim Austin’s second point. The way you cropped the image instead of walking closer makes the test extremely disingenuous.

      • Dominic Afonso

        I can understand the argument for shooting with default settings as this reflects a certain type of user, nut this doesn’t mean I think it is a valuable comparison. Wouldn’t the type of user interested in a blind shoot-out want to see the best results possible from each device, super-sampled or not. To use your example, if a 5MP image for the Nokia 808 (which supersamples the 42MP image into a 5MP high-res image) is superior to a 5MP image from every other phone, then it is a better camera phone. We don’t want the fight to be so fair that we exclude the best fighters.

        • Tim Austin

          Quite right. People viewing this want to know which has the best camera. To say that using the Z5 at it’s optimum ability would be unfair on the competition misses the point: if it’s better than the rest,… it’s better than the rest. Period.

        • Piyush

          I think every test will get criticisms like this. Some want “absolutely” out of the box settings test, because that’s how most of the users are going to use it. Some want the max capacity test, as they want to know if they are a power user, how great can it get after changing the settings? The only solution is doing multiple series of tests to answer all these questions.

          • Andy

            yeah but the whole point is they lie in their article about using default setting. That would be the biggest criticism about this test

      • S.Yu

        Isn’t that called downsampling?

      • ack

        Nirave, after this hatchet job on the Z5, please use the 8 MP mode when you guys get around to doing the full review of the Z5. And also use Intelligent Active mode (i.e. hardware stabilizer) for 1080p video. I can’t believe you guys made the #1 ranked camera phone look as bad as the iphone! :(

      • Tsoa Tsyfatatra

        “Yes, we could have used manual mode and supersampled the Z5 image but that wouldn’t be a fair test to other devices. It’s like putting the a 5MP image from the Lumia 1020 (which supersamples the 42MP image into a 5MP high-res image) against a 5MP from another phone, it’s not a fair fight.”

        Would you test 4 cars, and put one of them in eco mode because it’s more powerful ?
        Maybe that’s how average consumer will use their car, who knows.
        This is not to contradict your review but it’s a bit unfair

      • Techist

        Can you please announce the results as promised?

      • Kaan Aysel

        So, Tim Auistin is Right and Maybe you will be try it on Default Settings 8MP and you have to Release a new Review About a Z5 Camera or Compare. Thank you…

    • steedsofwar

      A is Z5, B is 6s, C is Samsung and D is G4. BTW, that sample you shared below is just awesome. I’m a Z3 owner.

      When you say you’ve adjusted FOV, how is this done? Stepping closer?

      • Tim Austin

        Indeed, just step a little nearer. And thankyou – I took it as an experiment to make sure that what I was saying about the difference FOV and super sampling make wasn’t just the academic in me talking. I was surprised at how dramatic the difference was – it really shows how tests like the one above put the Z5 at a disadvantage and don’t give a clear impression of the capabilities of the device. Sadly, this biases peoples purchasing decisions unfairly.

        To be clear to all: all I did was use the device in the default mode and default resolution and step forward to correct for the field of view being different to other devices.

      • k12333

        Based on the jpg embedded info,
        A is Z5
        B is G4
        C is 6S
        D is Note 5
        :)

    • Jonathan Koscik

      After following this thread, I tip my hat to you Tim. I’m by no means a brand whore when it comes to products, but I do disagree with the easy button approach, which most popular phones employ. I was pretty surprised with the discrepancy between photos taken in the post. Until this thorough read. I’m really looking forward to my Z5 now :) Such a shame to Android Authority as the comment to to easy-button everything made no sense, and this article could really have put a proper comparison together. The audience of this article are people that know something about settings ore may surprise you if taught how to work with different conditions (we’re not talking about 30 settings.. 2-3 tops). I don’t understand why this article try’s to simplify life further instead of educating the users…

      Sony is definitely doing something right… I was surprised to see myself in their product line again. I own a Sony DSC TX10 and 30 for the reason that they managed to create high quality photos from an ultra compact and waterproof camera. And a Sony TV, to which I compared against all top brands to find the tech to properly work with images unparalleled. Anyways, always looking for the next big thing that is fun and enjoyable to use!

      • Tim Austin

        Thank you Jonathan. As ever, you have to work to get the best from Sony phones’ cameras. When you do, you find them very much at the head of the table. They’re just not really of the “simple point and shoot” mould but if you’re into your photography, you don’t care.

        That said, when it’s in 8MP mode, I’ve found Superior Auto to be more reliable than I found it on the Z1. In sunny light, it’ll do a grand job, as it does if there’s no light at all. It’s when the lighting is kinda in between and the auto mode can’t exactly match the settings where I’ve found it a little hit and miss.

        That said, I generally prefer to set my own parameters anyway and so Manual is my default. When taking wide, open shots in daylight – where I like that extra resolution – I put it in 23MP but at all other times I leave it in 8MP.

        If you’re willing to learn the camera’s eccentricities, it’s a top cameraphone. But that’s the thing to take away from it: you need to work things out more on the Z5 than on the competition and that could, legitimately, be seen as a weakness by some, if other phones just point and click.

        Not by me, however: I’ve found this to be a very good camera, if you like to tinker.

        • EQ

          Btw try the FV-5 camera app. You can set custom shutter speed or choose “Long” or “long+” and it actually works at all resolutions. I got in a low light scene exposure rate of 763ms, ISO 50 at 21MP. Amazing detail and clarity with minimal noise.

    • Rensis Amiel Claus

      To me, taking the z5 closer than its competitors would be unfair as well. The ideal test is to keep everything, in the examiner’s perspective, equal. If the examiner has to tweak some of its criteria for one of the competitors, that is NOT fair. It is the competitor that has to adopt to the test, and not the test adopting to the competitor(the z5).

      If each device yields different results(as expected) in terms of detail, field of view, etc. then that’s the whole point of keeping everything in default (which AA failed with z5 set to 23mp)

      REMEMBER: This is “default setting” test

      NOT: “optimum performance” test.

      HOWEVER: it’d be perfect for Tim to do the latter since it looks like he knows the optimum settings for cameras (for z5 at least). To me, that would be a better test than what AA just did. Afterall, you want to use your camera at its best, not default. Especially for a pricey device.

      • Christian

        well, it’s also stupid to compare a cropped image (same area and size) from a wider lens, to a cropped image of the narrower lens. So, as I understood it, Tim’s point is valid. Like what he said, you are “zooming farther in”, putting Z5 at a disadvantage.

    • Agree. I used 8MP on my test for low light and night shots and on day light i use 23MP to get max details. It is proven in our NOTE 5 vs XPERIA Z5 comparison that latter is superior in camera. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSp6d2JzHhk

    • mitch

      I couldn’t disagree more. I use my camera in social and spur of the moment settings where setting up the perfect distance is not always gonna happen.

      I am grateful AA performed the test the way the did. They leveled the playing field with their approach of maximizing the pixel resolution and pointing and shooting all cameras on auto mode from the same distance.

      Great job AA. Please do not start making exceptions in your testing for one camera or the other; otherwise the test results will become meaningless for most people.

      Great job AA on the way you performed the testing.

      • Tim Austin

        We must agree to disagree: to me, this is not a technically accurate test: the iPhone, with its spectacularly narrow FOV, has an advantage on the others that has nothing whatsoever to do with the quality of the sensor or optics: all you’re doing here is looking at a a picture that’s much closer to the sensor, which gives the sensor more detail to record. A comparison like this is not telling you about the quality of the camera: it’s telling you that some phones are zoomed in further than others: no more, no less.

        You could argue that adding in a wider angle lens is a mistake on Sony’s part and I’m not going to disagree with that. But to take a 24mm lens and pixel peep to the level of a 30mm lens is ridiculous: an object captured at a distance on the Z5 will take up 33% less of the sensor than that image on the iPhone. All the megapixels in the world won’t fix that disparity.

        You say that the test is equal because people would take the same shot,.. well they wouldn’t. If you want to take an image of a certain item and frame it so that you fill the image, you would step toward or away from it as needed. That is dependent on the lens you have. If I was taking, as I have, a full length snap of Buckingham Palace on the Z5, you would need to take two steps backwards at the very least to capture an identical image on the iPhone. If that was the shot you wanted to take, that would be the action you would need to do to take it.

        If you’re testing the fidelity of the sensor on a camera, you have to account for the lens or you’re learning virtually nothing ESPECIALLY in low light.

        • mitch

          You’re making the test results meaningless as soon as you start babying the results for wide angle lenses. Stepping closer to make your wide angle lens more competitive in the test will change the lighting, reflections, shadows and a whole slew of other variables. It wouldn’t be fair to the other cameras to make an exception and step closer to the subject just for the Z5.

          Also, when I go to a party and ask someone to take a picture of me and some friends using my phone camera, they will stand a typical distance away from us (perhaps based on what they are accustomed to with their phone camera) and then take the picture. In this situation most people, especially in a fast moving social environment, will not say “wait, this is a wide angle lens let me step closer to take the picture.” They will just point and shoot figuring that’s how your camera takes a picture.

          And here’s another example. If I take a picture from across the street to capture something spontaneously occurring on the other side of the street are you going to run into the middle of the street with cars buzzing by you just so you can have the same field of view as me to get the same quality picture as me?

          AA did real world, real scenario testing and I appreciate that they did not skew the results for one camera or another.

          Wide angle lenses do have a purpose, but people need to see what they are getting into when they buy a phone camera with a wide angle lens vs one with a more so typical phone camera lens.

  • MKA_TR

    And, winner is C/G4..

    • momo

      C=6s B=G4, check properties

  • Roco

    I have a feeling that the exif data was edited so people will be more blindsided.

    • momo

      no, i already knew that C was the iphone. It just looks iphone. I wasn’t sure abbout the other three. The reason why C looks so iphone is becasue iphone’s picture quality isn’t that sharp but it looks very natural

  • S c

    D and C were close but overall D was better. A was third best. B didn’t do too great compared to the others. Decided this before i read the comments so i got a fairly unbiased look. Though i personally chose what i thought looked best than what was closer to DSLR

    • Sergio A Guzmán

      I took the same approach, in my internal tests D was the winner except in 4 images.
      But, finally, I chose C because it’s closest to D, and in superheros (dark) image C took more detail.
      C and D the winners.

  • 私たちの

    i think blind comparisons should be shuffled for every scene.
    once viewers see patterns, they start voting according to their brand favorites and that does not really represent good judgment3.

    • Techist

      Agreed! That is the best way to eliminate bias.

  • Jared Andrada

    Felt like it was between B and D most of the time with D being a little more consistent. A results seemed very inconsistent and C seemed like everything had a washed out looking haze.

    • momo

      dont let the bias get to you

      • Jared Andrada

        How is it biased if I made that decision before reading the comments? Don’t be such a tool. You’re going through every comment posting on anyone who dislikes the iPhone quality with your dick hard for Apple. Get a life.

        • momo

          You’re completely misinformed. I hate apple and their iphones a lot, but one thing i can’t stand is when people hate on apple just because it’s apple. If you’re going to hate on it, hate on it for a legitamate reason, but the majority of android fanboys hate on apple for the wrong reasons and very stupidly. And you saying C was the worst out of them all shows that you’re letting your bias get to you because anyone with eyes could see that C was not the worst. I’m not saying it’s the best, I’m just saying it is definetly not the worst. And check my other comments, you’ll know that i’m no apple fanboy.

          • Jena Troelsgaard

            Are you retarded? He said he made his mind up before looking at the comments. As did I and the noise on phone C is fucking horrible. At least colour inaccuracy you can tweak, the noise just makes it useless.

          • Jared Andrada

            You’re still an idiot for wasting your time to tell people they’re biased when you don’t know whether or not they made their decision about the quality before actually knowing which was which from the comments. Like I mentioned before, I had NO idea C was Apple before I decided I liked it the least… and having been a photographer for the past 8 years of my life I feel like I have a pretty good grasp on quality of an image.

          • momo

            i figured out that C was the iphone before i even looked at the exif because iphones have this weird advantage of having the most natural looking images. Maybe not the sharpest and cleanest, but very natural. And i think a lot of other people figured it out to and ur unconscious bias made you automatically dislike it. I’m not entirely saying that’s what happened, but there are way too much of our android brothers who bash apple just for being apple.

  • abdel

    So many idiots posted some spoilers about which and which phone .. THE RESULTS ARE NOW BIASED !
    I HOPE A.A DOES ANOTHER TEST

    • momo

      but how come C is winning on an android website, which prolly has mostly android users

  • Beem Keeratithananun

    Is it just me thinking that Phone C is the worst? Why do most ppl vote it the best? =__=

    • momo

      its ur bias

    • R2-D2

      Ignore momo.. He’s one of the apple fanboys who comes to an Android website to bash Android and support Apple.. He is an example of a pathetic species in this generation..

    • Jena Troelsgaard

      Because they are looking at the pictures on their phones and can’t see all the noise on the pictures from phone C. :S

  • s3oodan

    I want the camera on the number 4 phone

  • Alex capo

    Note 5 is the best no more talking about it.

  • confused

    I don’t get it. According to DXoMark, Z5 is currently the best camera phone right now. But based on the sample pictures here, it clearly is not.

    • Tim Austin

      Click on “Best first”, above, and read my comments on the matter. Those comments accepted, phone D clearly wins this. Were phone A to be used correctly, it would come a clear second, however – with night shots superior.

  • Horong

    D or A. Xperia never performed best in the dark. Just fact.

    • harang

      seriously? look at gallery 12. obviously, phone B (LG G4) and phone D (galaxy note 5) were the worse under dark conditions.

      • Guest123

        I’m surprise Note 5 auto mode didn’t enhance the brightness to see the objects. I used my Note 5 under Pro mode and i could snap a photo in near complete darkness for objects i couldn’t even see with my eyes but the photo could show them.

  • Liel Pires Ribeiro

    C has the shitty images, i don’t know how it’s winning

    • momo

      because theres bias in ur head, and u need to flush it out

    • R2-D2

      Ignore momo, judging by his replies, he is one of those apple fanboy who comes in and vote for apple all the time.. He is also a butthurt to come inside an Android website..

  • mrjayviper

    why not a 6s+ since we’re talking about the best available?

    • EQ

      Becouse the only difference between 6s and 6s+ is that the plus has OIS (Optical Image Stabilisation) instead of DIS. And 6s still has DIS (Digital Image Stabilisation) so the difference would be barely non unless the tester has tourettes.

      • mrjayviper

        that’s like comparing digital zoom vs optical zoom? gotcha

        • EQ

          Nope, optical zoom means that the camera lens goes out physically as in it extends out of its frame. I think the only phone to do this was the Galaxy S4 Zoom. The difference I am talking about is one is using software coupled with smart ISO and shutter speed calibration based on movement and the other has a physical component in the camera that tries to balance out your movements. If camera is still when taking a shoot either method will give equal image but in shaky situations the OIS will be a tad better than DIS. And DIS depends on the phones software as in how good it will be.

        • EQ

          Nope, optical zoom is a lens that can physically extend beyond its frame. Only phone I know that does it is the Galaxy S4 Zoom. What I mean is OIS has a mechanical feature in the lens that tries to counter your movements and DIS has software algorithms that changes ISO and shutter speed and more to counter movements. If both phones are still when taking photo they give equal image else the more the movements the better OIS is.

  • Qbancelli

    The Apple guys would cry foul no matter what.

  • Rob Norris

    There is no way these low light iphone shots are better than the g4. I returned my iPhone 6 for a g4. Android authority i bet you enhanced the i6 shots because they aren’t congruous with my experience. I have lost trust in aa.

    • momo

      its your bias

    • momo

      why would a.a do that, look at their name

    • Guest123

      I think they have to edit it to match the 16:9 ratio else everyone would know right away it’s an iPhone but otherwise, that’s how i remember iPhone handle the photos. But these are auto mode so while it’s not a good representation of the potential of the camera, the average people usually just use auto unless they are desperate enough to have to use manual mode.

  • Guest123

    C & D definitely have better photos overall

  • HanzyHaze

    Ok, so according to my observation D performed better in 8 of 13 galleries.

  • Billy P

    I was really leaning towards B in the first half but D took it for me.

  • I was torned between Phone A and C til I’ve read the comments. So I’ve checked the EXIF data myself and well all C photos were Lightroomed :| I don’t know if it’s legit anymore so I voted for A, but D is also good :)

  • The best camera by provided photos is D then C

    And by my experience i think

    A : Note 5

    B: Lg G4

    C: iPhone 6s

    D: xperia Z5

  • Paulo Lin

    That’s crazy, I had “C” as the worst pictures most of the time and “D” as the clear winner! Did people actually look at the pictures?!?! I took my time, rated each picture and clearly “C” was by far most of the time the worst and “B” was a close tie. My order from best to worse, D,A,C,B (C & B tied). Come on guys, look at Gallery 10, “C” is super dark, how can anyone pick that one!! Look at the phone booth in Gallery 8, seriously “C” is the winner, what a joke, “C” is the worst one there. In Gallery 6, the guys face and writing on the wall in “C” is blurry! How can 35% of viewers have voted for “C”, it’s completely ridiculous.

    • R2-D2

      I think most of the voters are biased.. They instantly knew that Phone C is the iPhone and chose it as a winner.. However, I had phone C as my 2nd winner, so it is plausible if phone C fell behind phone D by a small percentage.

  • Bruce

    I didn’t have time to go through all of them. Picked a few at random. And I’d say from the ones I compared, D is the clear winner.

    Gallery 1
    A – Sky is washed out with no detail. Color Reproduction poor.
    B – Sky is washed out with no detail. Color Reproduction poor. Overexposed.
    C – Sky is washed out with no detail. Color Reproduction poor. Yellow Cast.
    D – Sky is washed out with no detail. Color Reproduction poor. Slightly overexposed.

    Winner D – All the smartphones were bad. Poor contrast in all of them. But because of the detail of the creeper on the grey building on the left. And best exposure of the gray building.

    Gallery 2
    A – Sky is washed out with no detail. Color Reproduction of building is reasonably good.
    B – Sky is washed out with no detail. Dull.
    C – Better detail in the sky. Color Reproduction poor. Completely overexposed.
    D – Good detail in the sky. Color Reproduction is easily the best. Best Exposure.

    Winner D – By a wide margin.

    Gallery 3
    A – Color Reproduction is very good. Good detail.
    B – Once again poor contrast. If I adjust levels, in Post Processing, it has the best reproduction of the 4.
    C – Pretty decent default contrast. But inaccurate color reproduction. Especially of the Vodafone sign. Lot more noise and lack of detail in the gray structure above the Vodafone sign.
    D – Good default contrast. Good detail. Hardly any noise. No overshapening.

    Winner D straight out of the camera. B with post processing – by a long shot.

    Gallery 7
    A – Underexposed. Hardly any detail.
    B – Awful. Shadows have no detail at all. Completely underxposed. No detail anywhere.
    C – Reasonably exposed. Not a lot of detail. Huge noise. Look at the itsu sign. Or the white cover to its left.
    D – Outstanding!! Absolutely perfect exposure. Practically no noise. Look at the itsu sign. The text Telephone on the phone booth is sharp. Bravo. This was a really tricky shot with a really big dynamic range.

    Winner D by a long shot.

    Gallery 12

    Winner C. Not even close. The only one with half way decent exposure.

    Gallery 13

    A – Color tint is awful.
    B – Color tint is awful.
    C – Neither the stone, nor the figurines have much detail. Color reproduction not accurate.
    D – Excellent detail and sharpness. Color reproduction is excellent.

    Winner D. With Flash, it’s a different story.

    • Marian

      D is Note 5

  • momo

    I feel like if no one knew that phone C was an iphone, not even by exif just in general, then there would be no posts criticizing phone C.

    • Marten van der Meer

      No, I think most of the people in the comments are correct: the iPhone had the most noise in a lot of the galleries (especially in the street pictures, look at the skies and shop signs), was often much darker than the control photo and color correctness was all over the place, especially in the low light shots.

      While the iPhone did take some great shots, it’s inconsistency is what made it leave a less good impression than the Note 5.

      Honestly, what disappointed me the most was the poor performance of the Z5. I expected so much more of that camera!

      • momo

        it was the only one that was bale to take a low light shot, and it was the only one that could adjust is iso correctly. It was the only phone where you could actually make out the clouds

    • Jena Troelsgaard

      I didn’t look at comments or in any way cheated. Most of the photos from phone C are filled with noise. They are very bad. I couldn’t decide on a winner but I was absolutely sure which phone did the worst. And that was phone C. The iPhone.

      • momo

        that’s why the iphone is leading, right. On ANDROID authority, and android devoted website, which i would expect mostly android users to be on

  • Akira Tabuchi Yagui

    Most people must have terrible monitors… how in the sake of god the C have more votes than the others… only in the “low light + no flash” conditions got better results. Other than that, those pictures are terrible…

    So, to be fair, the one who got the best “overall” results is phone A (under all conditions got average or over average results), but there are few pictures from phone D that were exceptional, so that’s why I chose Phone D.

  • Mohamed Shamil

    Phone C : LG G4 for sure! it has performed good with light exposures and in low light pictures. which phone do you think can do it?

    • momo

      wrong

  • hoggleboggle

    Why on earth would anyone vote for phone c? Aside from shoot 12 where it outdid the others by a long shot it produced some of the worst images out of the lot, with poor dynamic range, colour reproduction and lack of detail

    • momo

      majority rules

      • Paulo Lin

        Not when iPhone users know it’s the iPhone and purposely vote for it. Clearly apart from Gallery 2 and 14, “C” sucked. I’m guessing iPhone is “C” however we may be surprised in the end.

        • momo

          yes, because there will be a lot of iphone users and fanboys on an android devoted site

          • that Nick guy

            Yes, there are. Wolves among sheep. Whichever way you interpret it.

  • Bustier Bras and Cake!

    Actually for me on a well calibrated IPS LG panel.. They all trading blows.. But even before exporting data, phone D stood out too strong.. Its saturation and white point was far off and it was using contrast/gamma to make uo for its loss.. Doesnt look bad but stands out on a well calibrated display a bit too strong with color pallet. As for oversharpening.. I wanna say the sony has more aliasing, and that means it was a downsampled (not resized) image. But i dont see any camera standing out for oversharpening.. As for dynamic range they all trade blows with C/D and “Control” being on top.
    I also decided to export all exif data.. And both control photo and phone C has the same Exif… Exactly the same.. Only differance is the name.. Adding Eos to the name isn’t hard.. My guess is the results aren’t spoiled and the Control is actually phone C and phone C is actually the control pix. That’s my guess.. Not every picture… But randomly swaped it around. I think a DSLR in auto mode with post editing will generate similar results to a phone with automode. A DSLR with good lens and someone that can work manual mode and camera body, will always produce better shots.. But automode/semi auto mode like apeture priority/shutter priority/etc I think its on level with phones in auto these days..surprised by the Sony phone.. Can’t really say wat it really is, but most annoying image set… I think the LG did God job then all sudden it forgot it was a camera or something and was super inconsistent.. The Samsung was very consistent quality but just not good with colors or dynamic range.. Over and underexposed at same time in one of the shots… But over all it was a toss up.. Expect for the LG G4.. By far more ADHD camera ever in auto mode..

    I have ADHD BTW…so im an expert

  • Stephen Fox

    How is Phone C leading the polls? I think it had the worst match to the control photo EVERY time. There was a few photos near the end where it was most “color accurate”, but the quality was always the worst.

  • Wozn2

    A looks the best overall

    B is the worst overall

    C seems to overexpose a lot of shots, but that pays dividends in the low light shots

    D is a probably joint second with C, best colour and best flash

    I would gladly take A, C or D on holiday with me.

    I would leave B in the shop.

  • Rick

    how the heck is B the G4. even if you are going by just the low light picture which from every other camera test out there the g4 is usually the brightest not the absolute darkest… android authority must have a broken g4 if this is the case. maybe the exif data is to trick folks lol.

    anyways i voted D, but C was alright too.

  • Philip N

    I don’t know how people thing C is the best I found for me that D and B were the highest scoring for me then A. C came least for me. I genuinely didn’t cheat by looking which phone was which and I viewed all the photos on a iMac.

    • momo

      subconscoius bias

  • daniel carrillo

    Phone c is not the iPhone, the iPhone is phone b it has that green hue in low light which has been known to show up with its camera, and it’s the worst at lowlight again some hunt that has showed up in other low light test, and most android phones have qhd displays so we are able to see good detail

    • momo

      hey idiot, donwload the image for phone b and go to properties, thats lg g4

  • Gadgetonomy

    I had no hesitation in selecting Phone D for all but 2 of the images, so I was surprised that voting shows it in second place.

    • that Nick guy

      You want a hint? ;)

  • Борис Михаилов

    In the night image without flash the Sony has an iso of 1600, but it can go up to 12800. I’ve taken night shots with the Z3c and this doesn’t seem fair to me. I think that with the higher iso (and a steady hand) it can show the object way more well lighten.

  • S6EdgePlus IsBoss

    Note5 and S6Edge+ pimp slaps all of them so easily it’s comical.

    • Gary W

      I bet you don’t know which picture is taken by Note 5.

    • squiddy20

      And it’s so “comical” that you say the exact same canned response day in, and day out. You’re such a fanboy, that you can’t even think up anything new to say in several years.

  • Phil

    The new Blackberry Priv should do well then. With a Sony sensor and a Schneider Kreuznach lens (as used by LG).
    The Priv gets the best of both!

  • Rick_Deckard

    I have seen videos on Youtube… The LG G4 is coming first in low light performance when it’s used the manual controls + F1.8… Although, I believe the Z5 is the best nowadays…. Using a newer sensor…. :-) Who cares…. They are all good… They all use Sony sensors anyway….

  • pretty sure phone A is the sony, ite pictures are the widest

  • Thomas

    Well I have wrote down my first 2 picks for all the pics, I cant believe how could Phone C be the number one???
    For me its: D,A,B,C…
    (D,D,D,A,D,B,D,D,D,D,D,A,A)#1
    Also I wrote down my second choices: B and C the same,D,A
    (B,C,A,D,B,D,C,B,B,C,B,C,C)#2
    So as a result:
    D looks like a winner (for me)
    B and A are close, so both 2nd)
    And C… well… I’m not satisfied….

  • Amir

    For me, accurate colors and more capture of the scene>rest. That is why overall phone A wins. Most voted phone c with the disneyland colors. facepalm.

  • What about the Droid Turbo which has a 21MP Rear Camera and 4K Video?

  • Lakhveer Aulakh

    Phone a had a lot of glare. Phone good but just a bit blurier than phone d in brighter locations. Phone c too dark in brighter locations but night pics were very nice. I chose phone d best pics in bright locations and sharp pics at night.

  • that Nick guy

    Zoomed in each of the photos 100% on a viewer, and C gets wiped out immediately almost all of the time (C got my vote only on that low light gallery). The detail is nothing compared to the other 3. I am very surprised how it currently has the top vote. I was expecting a close fight between D and B – the latter made me second guess choosing D twice. The other two only got my vote twice.

    But still, C? So I had to take a look at what others thought in the comments, and oh – maybe that’s why.

  • minifi

    Could you explain why the image files for Phone C are significantly smaller than the files for the other three phones?

    For example, the Selfridge photos:
    Phone A: 5,5 MB
    Phone B: 6,6 MB
    Phone C: 866 KB(!!)
    Phone D: 5,9 MB

    Photos taken on my iPhone 6s usually have a file size between 2,2 – 3MB (depending of the complexity of the image of course).

    • ERYREB

      Part of the reason is that the iPhone doesn’t shoot widescreen like other premium phones, allowing them to use cheaper lenses. In tests like this, all their photos need to be cropped to 16:9. I’ve yet to see a tester who mentions that Apple phones capture far less of the scene and point out that this is a major drawback of iPhones.

      • Pawel Leszczynski

        What are you talking about? All phone and cameras around the world take native pictures of 4:3. It’s the software that crops it in your viewfinder.

      • minifi

        Even cropping a picture shouldn’t reduce the file size that much. I’d still like an explanation from AA, since file sizes this small usually stem from higher compression.

  • Paulo Lin

    I agree, phone C was selected because clearly the voters of C are iPhone users, they are obviously biased since “C” and “B” are by far the clear losers. “D” is the clear winner. BTW, I’m guessing that “C” is the iPhone based on the number of votes and comments but whatever phone “C” is, it sucks! If phone “C” is the iPhone, I confirm that people that own iPhones are Apple Minions.

    • momo

      rriight, because there will be more iphone users on ANDROID AUTHORITY than ANDROID users

  • daniel carrillo

    If phone c is the iPhone how come on all the lowlight photos it was the one with the least amount of detail trough all the ones taken in the city, but that one with out flash it shows so much it makes no sense at all its been proven by other test that the iPhone it’s not great at lowlight compared to the g4 or even the note 5 I call bullshit on that image

  • Pritam Das

    I m quite surprise about voting result, every voter arguing or voting about the base of the 4 phn pictures not on the basis of reference picture, i thik picture a is most close on reference picture 7 times of of 12 times colour lightning are most of the closet to reference picture from canon dslr, only gallery no 4,5,6 and 10,11 are not close to reference picture in terms of color and lighting, but in 7 times it actually did so my vote is for A, and request to the publisher kindly publish your own comment also at the time of result on the basis of reference picture

  • PETER VORDOS

    i have seen what G4 can do in night scenes, so the photo of the toy soldiers can’t be such dark. From this example i believe that the blind comparison is a clever (not such clever actually) one smartphone promotion…

  • Marcio Ruela

    I’m going to have to agree with the writer on this article. I sell phones (i work for verizon) and ill say about 90% of the users just take point-and-shoot photos. Hardly anyone cares about manually adjusting the settings. So… For the writer to just leave the settings alone, it’s pretty accurate on how the average person would use it and how their photos will be displayed. I have an LG G4 and love the camera. I think that the default settings are great but tweaking it in manual mode sometimes brings a photo more to life depending on the environment. Good job writer for doing this test as most people would use their phones. Someone who really is into photography can redo this test but tweaking each image and phone accordingly and that would be a test on each phone’s full capabilities. Well done!

    • Tim Austin

      I’d agree,… but phone A was not used in default settings at all. The default setting on Phone A (The Z5) is 8MP, where it supersamples the full sensor to create a superior-quality image. That’s what it’s designed to do. AA made a mistake in changing that.

  • Zabih Cino

    All are crap none compares to my Lumia 930

  • Jena Troelsgaard

    I don’t think I can pick a winner (maybe between B and D) but I can certainly pick the worst one. And that is phone C (or pictures C however you wanna put it). They are so noisy! It almost looks like it’s the “high quality” free backup on google photos. :S

    Either B or D are fine and I can work with those and adjust the colours myself afterwards as the detail is there. What I can’t do is get rid of the noise in phone C. It had ONE acceptable photo tops. Such bad.

  • pytajnik

    Phone B is a complete garbage, I liked phone A because of it’s very wide field of view and the overall image is the most pleasant for _my_ eyes but only when zoomed out, when zoomed in it’s kinda bad, can’t wait to find out which one is which.

  • Paulo Lin

    LOL, see all the iphone trolls voting for Phone C, we all know it’s the crappiest pictures of the lot!

  • Pompey78

    None of them are perfect imo but I’m certainly no expert. I voted d but thought it was close with phone a. D looked a little over exposed in a couple of the shots but was I thought most consistent. I thought c was terrible at night shots from the samples.

  • psychok9

    Phone D is really impressive :o
    The night image where you see some greek pillars is more “colorful”.
    Phone B is very near.

  • Houssem

    IPhone is activing nightmode…. Is not fair..

  • Nokia Rox

    1st: iphone, 2nd: g4, 3rd: xperia z5, 4th: note 5

  • Houssem

    King of extrême dark is the iPhone
    King of dark is the s6
    King of Light is s6

  • jcamachott

    I know this would have made the voting process more complicated but instead of voting for one phone at the end, you should have been able to vote for one phone for each of the 13 galleries.

  • Nodir Masharifova

    I voted D and thought its iphone lol, but I hate iphone, after reading comments and knowing that D is Note 5 wow <3

  • Nodir Masharifova

    Downloaded 4 pictures to be sure lol

  • NBMTX

    A: G4 B: GS6, C: iPhone 6s, D: Z5
    otherwise (but I really don’t think):
    A: G4, B: Z5, C: 6s, D: GS6
    I think phone A might have an the least optimized auto mode but showed promise at times, so I voted G4.
    Phone B seemed to have good exposure and details and natural looking results so I think it’s the Galaxy S6.
    Phone C had a yellow cast and flooding flash that reminds me of Facebook, and consistent blue skies, so I think it’s the iPhone.
    if the Z5 has HDR on automatically in auto mode, then I think it must be D

  • André On

    People are f* blind…..Phone C? hahahah

  • PETER VORDOS

    I think that the reason that C is winning, is that retained the blue in
    the sky and the other didn’t. But he could focus in sky and then edited (increased light in darker places)
    in Lightroom in a Macintosh as Exilf says. And LG G4 would not perform
    such in dark places. (I believe that shooting in such dark place is useless anyway). Either there is a fault in camera and should be
    replaced, either the photographer didn’t do his job. I am not an owner
    of an G4 but i’ve seen too many photos from friend’s G4s.
    By the way, i would expect more from a DSLR like 70D!!!

  • Nasif Ravenger

    voted for Phone D

  • sjoerd

    D is the only one looking like a real camera (dedicated compact)! great pictures!

  • ♜Donzzy™

    From highest to lowest: D, C, A, B

  • Putinthesictator2012

    C is the iPhone 6s

    • momo

      yes that has been proven and stated many times

      • Putinthesictator2012

        Gallery 1 Phone c. – iPhone 6S
        Gallery 2 Phone d. – Note 5
        Gallery 3 Phone a. – Sony z5
        Gallery 4 Phone d. – Note 5
        Gallery 5 Phone c. – iPhone 6s
        Gallery 6 Phone d. – Note 5
        Gallery 7 Phone c. – iPhone 6S
        Gallery 8 Phone c. – iPhone 6S
        Gallery 9 Phone – Not sure
        Gallery 10 – Not sure, maybe Phone b. Lg G4
        Gallery 11 Phone d. – Note 5
        Gallery 12 Phone a. – Sony Z5
        Gallery 13 Phone d. – Note 5

  • joeldinis

    Hmmm…. I don’t understand how’s C winning. It’s the worst on almost every shoot!?

    • momo

      probably cuz ur have a subconscious bias to hate on anything that might be even remotely apple.

      • Tim Austin

        No: it’s the worst in almost every image – objectively, that’s just true. At a glance, it looks “Pwetty” but the second you look deeper, it falls apart dramatically.

        • momo

          yes because normal people look super deep at images to find every single detail of it. All that matters is if it looks good

          • Tim Austin

            That depends on what you’re using it for. You seem to make the unusual assumption that no one ever wants to crop their photos or print large reproductions of them. Certainly, a good chunk of people don’t really care about this but not EVERYONE. For them, getting the best camera is important, not one that just looks “shiny” until you look deeper and discover it’s a mess of noise and chromatic aberrations. For those people, having to fix these errors in Photoshop afterwards is a pain in the ass.

            Should we just ignore the opinions of these people? Perhaps we should throw comparisons like this in the bin, throw our hands up and proclaim Apple the winner because you say so. Well I don’t say so and neither does DxOmark, who have rated the iPhone 6s below ALL of the others on this test (accepting that the Note 5 has the same camera as the Galaxy S6).

      • joeldinis

        Nah.. I think because they were dark and over saturated. But that’s just me. I usually apple phones take good enough photos. Maybe a bit yellow.
        I thought that was either the g4 or the Z5. But given the Z5 has wide lens it had to be the g4.
        But if you’re saying it’s an iPhone… Then Apple is jot doing a good job as far as I’m am concerned.

        • momo

          it’s the only one that took good low light images and retained the clouds

      • Paulo Lin

        No because pictures of C suck, period.

        • momo

          thats why its winning right?

  • stathis125

    i’ve got a tie between A,C,D, damn….

    • momo

      why not just add B in there since you already chose 3/4 of them. Make up your mind

  • Edward O’Connell

    On a per image basis this is my opinion. D,D,A,D,D,D,A,B,D,D,C,D
    There is now way phone C should be rated that highly.

    • momo

      but it is, because thats what the majority of poeople think. In this test, the majority think phone C had the overall best pics.

      • Paulo Lin

        LOOK AT THE PICTURES! We don’t know that “C” is the iPhone, people are presuming since the iPhone Camera is poor. Most of the “C” are poor in comparison to “D”. The iPhone camera used to be good, not any more.

        http://www.cnet.com/uk/news/iphone-6s-gets-middling-score-on-camera-test/

        • momo

          no, we do know that C is the iphone because of the exif data. And my arguments are for this comaprison only. I never have said that the iPhone 6s camera is better than the galaxy’s, but in this comparison, this specific comparison done by android authority, the iphone, which is phone C, is the winner. And the majority vote that the iphone wins in THIS comparison

  • ray444

    Most of these samples show just how far phone cameras have developed over the past couple of years. The vast majority of people would be more than happy with any of these phones. Just how such quality can be achieved for tiny lenses is quite frankly fantastic innovation. Choosing one versus another, is now mostly IMO subjective – maybe you like more contrast, saturation, or go for colour accuracy, or prefer physical camera button etc.

  • S.Yu

    The shots are too casual and I don’t think a fair comparison is possible. Obviously they’re not set on a tripod and nothing has been done to keep framing the same. It would have been better if at least the phones were rescrambled for every round and every round had separate polls.

    • momo

      yes because the average person carries around a tripod

      • S.Yu

        That’s no excuse not to control a variable. You’re ultimately comparing IQ here and without the same framing you don’t even know what the camera module is metering against, and when you’re comparing crappy OOC jpg files metering matters, a lot.

        • momo

          he’s testing how images would look when an average person takes it: just wanting to take the phone out and snap a pic

          • S.Yu

            It just wouldn’t work, it’s a flawed method. If he tripled the sample size then maybe, maybe it would say something.

  • Noah

    I’m not gonna lie, I’m REALLY sad that AA didn’t wait a bit to include the 6p. I really wanted to see how the camera, which has been getting great buzz, stacked up against the other top contenders, and not just in their review.

    • momo

      “a bit” more like 2 and a half weeks. They said that they’re going to have a gigantic photo comparison between all of the phones of 2015

  • Piyush

    The people voting for Phone C are certainly doing it because they know which phone it is :). The photos look so ugly when compared with the competition!

    • momo

      Yes because there will be more iphone users and ios users than android users on ANDROID AUTHORITY, an ANDROID devoted website, which i would expect mostly ANDROID users to be on

      • Paulo Lin

        Yes momo, just like you, fanboys love to troll Android sites, that’s a fact. Please look at Gallery 5,6,8,11 for starters and compare “C” and “D”. GIVE ME A BREAK!

        • momo

          so you’re saying there’s more iphone users voting on this poll than android users. Wow you are are really retarded if you think that. It doesn’t matter that there might be some trolls, there is no way possible that there could be more iphone users, not even close. I’m an android user and i generally dislike apple, but I and 39% of people agree that in this shoot, the iphone did well. You can say that the iphone did the worst, but you’re the minority. All those people saying that the iphone is the worst are the only ones commenting because they can not believe that an iphone could be winning in anything.

          • Tim Austin

            I’m not one for conspiracy theories but your logic is flawed: clearly there are more Android fans voting on this poll but that number is split between 3 different phones. All it takes is for a couple of iPhone fan sites to point to this page and they will all focus on one phone (not three running the same OS – one single phone). That could clearly bias the result. I’m not saying it is but your assertion that someone is “retarded” (a deeply insulting term to people with mental an behavioural disabilities, by the way) is pretty ridiculous.

          • momo

            Do you really really think that iPhone users alert all of their iPhone buddies about every opportunity there is to help I phones. That is really absurd and stupid and very unrealistic. IPhone dont care about stupid articles, they already know that their iPhone is popular. They don’t need to protect anything. In the Internet nowadays, there are far more android users bashing iPhones than vice versa

          • Paulo Lin

            Wrong there are plenty of fanboys on Android sites trolling how bad Samsung pay is, hope much malware Android has, how fragmented Android is, etc. Momo, get your head out of the sand and look at some pro Android stuff on CNET and you’ll quickly see how iPhone users are super crazy about Android being a better product and they know it.

          • momo

            thats iNET dumbass, of course iNET would be full of apple fanboys. But this is ANDROID authority, get that through your head. Many android users and fans go on this website everyday, like me. Apple and iphone users don’t give a crap about AA. They think their iphone is the holy grail, they dont need any reassurance so they dont routinely go on android sites and they dont care about what happens on android sites. They do not think that android is better than ios, even though it is, to them there is nothing that competes with the iphone. They don;t need to fight for apple online, because to them apple already won

          • Tim Austin

            Except they’ve been told by DxoMark that the iPhone camera is sh*t compared to the Android competition and the forums over there are furious about it: I looked. I don’t buy wholeheartedly that iFans would stream to this shootout and bias the result but I’m not going to say that it’s beyond possible. Why must you be so childish and unpleasant when someone suggests such a thing? Grow up.

          • momo

            I need to grow up right? Because the fact that ios and iphone users all band together to find all articles and websites where they could help the iphone is totally realistic right?(sarcasm btw) That is just so absurd and so outrageous, and is just complete utter BS. i’m only swearing because i’ve had enough of this Paulo Lin who goes out of his way to always talk shit about apple just because it’s apple. There are a plenty of reasons why apple and iphones are shit, bit camera ain’t one of them. You seem like a more reasonable person than that idiot, so you must realize that he’s just saying that so he can have a reason to explain why Phone C is winning.

          • Tim Austin

            I didn’t say I believed it: please use your eyes. I’m saying that it’s not beyond the realms of possibility and that your name calling of others for imagining it is ridiculous. It is.

          • momo

            it is beyond the realms of possibility. It is way beyond, people are just saying it so they have an explanation for why Phone C is winning. Because those people are just butthurt fanboys who can never handle the fact that the iphone is beating android at something.

        • momo

          and are u stupid? in gallery 8 and 11 C clearly wins. In 8, C is the only one where you can make out the clouds, and in 11 C is the only one where you could actually see through the glass in natural way. So much exposure on the other phones. In 5 it’s not that good but in 6 it’s alright. So i don’t know what the fuck you’re saying bro, because you really need to either get your eyes fixed, or start using some brain cells, cuz right now, it looks like you don’t have any.

          • Paulo Lin

            Read this 90% of blind test picked the Galaxy S6 over the iPhone 6 so how does your logic work. Gallery 8, the picture is dark, Gallery 6, the guys face is blurry, WTF!?!?

            http://www.techtimes.com/articles/62270/20150622/apple-iphone-6-vs-samsung-galaxy-s6-this-blind-camera-survey-settles-the-debate.htm

          • momo

            hey dumbass, why are you bringing up other comparisons. We’re only talking about this shootout, not anyother ones. I don’t care if samsung is better than 6s in other comparisons or votes, i generally think that the s6 and note have better cameras than 6s, BUT 6s is the winner here, bring me facts about this shootout. Again, use some brain cells

          • Paulo Lin

            Hey asshole, my point about the other survey is that 27,000 picked the Galaxy S6 (90%) pictures and 3,000 picked the iPhone 6 pictures (10%). The iPhone 6S camera has the same rating as the iPhone 6. My point, how can this survey go so strongly the other way when another blind camera test went 10% for the iPhone 6. In the other survey, no way of knowing which one was the iPhone which is my point here in this survey, people know it’s the iPhone. Why don’t you use some brain cells, clearly this blind test is not so blind!

            Again, look at the iPhone 6 and 6S rating, it’s the same!

            http://www.cnet.com/uk/news/iphone-6s-gets-middling-score-on-camera-test/

          • momo

            Like a said, i don’t give a crap about how the pics in the other test looks like. My arguments are SOLELY for how the images look like in this shootout. It doesn’t matter if you can’t believe why the iphone is doing better, it did and there’s nothing you can do to change that. It doesn’t matter if the iphone did worse than other phones in OTHER shootouts and tests. In THIS shootout, THIS, THIS, THIS (is that enough for you, maybe i’ll add one more) THIS shootout, people generally found phone C, the iphone, to do the best.

          • Paulo Lin

            You may not give a crap, I don’t care, how come every other blind camera test the iPhone comes out last, here’s another one just don’t yesterday and only 2 of 7 pictures were iPhone favored. What I’m saying is that this one is not a true blind camera test since everyone knows C is the iPhone so there is bias in this survey which I’ve been saying from the start. Is this do difficult to understand?!?! Maybe for a donkey it is.

          • Paulo Lin

            Dunno what happened to my post. Well here it is again. What I’m trying to say but you can’t seem to understand, this is not a true blind camera test since people know C is the iPhone so there is bias in the votes. This is problem with THIS blind test, it’s not blind!!! All other blind camera tests, iPhone comes in last when comparing the galaxy S6 and iPhone 6S. Is it so hard to understand?!??

            Here is a real blind camera test done yesterday and only 2 of 7 pictures were iPhone favored, that’s a loss in my book and a true test, no one know which phone is which.

            http://www.gsmarena.com/blind_shootout_iphone_6splus_galaxy_s6edgeplus-review-1323.php

  • wrkerr

    I’m no expert, but I’m surprised to see the results so far. To my eye, phone D looks best by far. I would have ranked phone C 3rd or 4th.

    • momo

      well the majority went over your thoughts cuz D is second and C is first.

  • fredphoesh

    The EXIF info on the photos shows that the best by far is the Samsung, the worst by far, milky, less sharp, lousy colours, is phone C, which is the iphone. Sony and LG are both better than the iphone, and both not as good as the samsung. I’d love to see the nexus 6p in this mix! BTW, a better way of testing is to download all the highres JPEG files by right clicking on the thumnails and choosing to save link as… then watching full screen with IrfanView.
    ALSO, I noticed the JPEG files are MUCH smaller with the iphone – 243kb vs 4018kb with the same shot on the Samsung.

    • momo

      numbers are not a way of comparing picture quality. The way it looks to you should be the way you judge it.

      • S.Yu

        Jpgs are bad. Small jpgs are worse.

  • alex27$

    Phone C definitely- the only one that didn’t white out skies

    • momo

      preach son. thank you. SO many poeple over look it and then they say phone C is NOT natural.

  • rmagruder

    Something to note. MacRumors.com has a piece where , in the comments section, this article is linked, and the person tells everyone which phone is the iPhone to encourage them to come here and vote. Sorry, Android Authority, but you should have scrambled the A-D pictures rather than doing one vote and using the same value. You rendered a ‘blind’ test completely meaningless.

    • coolmonk

      Can you provide the link? Thanks.

    • momo

      You are really retarded if you think there are more iphone users than android users on ANDROID AUTHORITY. Also, if you think iphone users come to android websites to help the iphone, then you also have to believe that android users do the same to ios websites. And that android users are called to not vote for the iphone. I’m not saying any of this, you are. And i don’t trust shit from a website called “macrumors.com”. Bring a credible source with credentials, bitch. I’m an android fan and user, but you’re just a butthurt loser who can’t accept the fact that an iphone is beating android.

    • Paulo Lin

      I’m not surprised at all, momo seems convinced this vote is unbiased! Where is it mentioned in macrumors.com, I would love to prove to this clown that this vote is completely bias, especially when everyone knows which one is the iPhone and there is a link from fanboy websites. With all the millions of die hard fanboys, pretty easy to direct people to this site to vote “C” especially 2700 votes is nothing out of the many millions of die hards.

    • phonester

      You mean the link to this page on ANDROID Authority where all the ANDROID users are actively reading all these posts about how C is iPhone? Ridiculous. It’s winning because of 8, 9, 12, and others. Look at the sky on 8 & 9. There is none on A, B, and D! Terrible.

  • vctrdnl

    Phone D is the best one, Phone C – almost constantly the worst one, except for a few shots. I am not that into phones to tell which one is which by this blind comparison so this is my unbiased opinion.

  • hdplus

    I don’t know which is one, but what really stands out for me:
    The 3rd phone is taking really different shots. One time too dark, one time too light. And too zoomed in.
    The 4th seems constant and for me it’s the best.
    The 2nd is pretty unconsistant, too. The worst imo.
    The 1st phone is the 2nd best in my opinion, cause the colour reproduction looks natural here.

  • Really.

    My selections were:
    B C A D
    D D D D
    D B D C
    D

  • mrjayviper

    I’d rather see the most-use case (i.e. settings set to auto) for photography test. If readers want a more in-depth review, there are plenty of photography sites out there that cater for those who tweak camera settings.

  • Hoek

    Im unsure how C is being considered the better camera here, for me it was the worst by a fair bit, blurred photos with a grey hue to them all. B for me was the best followed by D.

  • pcf_Mactronix

    Phone C often was given a different field of view but was clearly second best to D.

  • Nerman Talakic

    Phone D is the best overall but Phone C wins at night photography so I’m guessing C is LG G4.

  • coldspring22 .

    Just to balance things a bit, here is blind camera test from gsmarena between iphone 6S plus and Galaxy S6 edge plus:

    http://www.gsmarena.com/reviewcomm-1323.php

    Galaxy won most of the match ups. This test is better because exif information was not leaked.

  • Rose

    no doubt keep winning EOS 70D in almost all conditions, i don´t know why most people want a more thin cellphone if that afect obviously the lens camera and deep field capture, but well, all of them have really nice camera, literaly waiting to know which is wich to go shopping my new cellphone, really got surprised that most have voted 3 when for me is not the best at all :|

  • Zeus Hai

    1- After going thru tons of comments, Note 5 is a clear winner to me, as you dont have to mess up with any setting just to get a better image out of this or that lighting condition.

    2 – Sony never tells us to use the 8mp mode to get the best possible pictures, so I can see a lot ppl will just set it to 23mp and be disappointed with the camera.

    3 – You CAN NOT say that AA is biased, as they DIDNT know 8mp was better than 23mp BEFORE the test. You can only say that if they DID know about it but intentionally set it to 23mp.

    4 – Even if Z5 has a better camera (,which I doubt), I would recommend anyone to get a Note 5 / S6 variants, or iPhone 6s(+). Z5 is simply an inferior phone in almost everyway, and that’s why Sony is going down. :)

    • Tim Austin

      Fanboyism much? lol

      Sony set the camera at 8MP from the very start. You have to make a point of taking it out of 8MP. And if I can remember Sony harping on about SuperSampling when the Z1 came out, you’d hope that someone at AA would have that in mind: the Verge review makes mention of it, as do Techradar and GSM Arena.

      It’s being addressed in the full AA review, however, so lets see what happens.

      And inferior in places and superior in others: it’s swings and roundabouts. The phones you mention above don’t have waterproofing, Playstation integration, front firing speakers, SD card support OR noise cancelling Hi-Def audio through headphones. They also don’t have dedicated shutter buttons.

      It’s what you value that matters. Want the best screen? Sammy. Want the best performance? Apple. Want the best audio or own a PS4? Sony. As for camera’s, any of the above will do you proud but the Z5 has the superior hardware and, as such, the most potential to improve over time – and improve from a very high starting point, at that.

  • Zul Qarnain

    Apart from the complete darkness photo, phone D has given pretty consistent results and even though it wasn’t the absolute best in much of the categories. Those two reasons would make it the best phone for someone that likes taking a lot of photos. I do have a sneaking suspicion that it’s the iPhone 6s thanks to that shit low light performance.

    • momo

      phone D si note 5, check exif

  • phonester

    Look the sky (or lack of) in pictures 8 & 9 for cameras A, B, D. And look at picture 12. Only C handles any of those pictures.

  • Really.

    My votes were
    B C A D, D D D D, D B D C, D

    A-1
    B-2
    C-2
    D-8

  • Magnus Mac

    Just one quick question, When you are comparing the best of all the phones why didn’t you use the best iphone out there AKA iphone 6s Plus with optical image stabilization? At least be fair, you didn’t use the Samsung Galaxy S6 instead of the Note 5 right which was the latest right. I used to follow Android Authority but fanboy-ism is pulling me out of it. Don’t worry commenters I ain’t an Apple Fanboy that you should start pouncing on me already, hold on to your horses!!!

  • Jayadev Senapathi Kota

    Phone D is the best which is Note 5.. just save a pic and see the properties of the pic (details tab) and scroll down and see..

  • Jayadev Senapathi Kota

    winner – : phone D – Samsung Galaxy Note 5

    phone A – Sony Xperia Z5

    phone B – LG G4

    phone C – Apple Iphone 6S

    phone D – Samsung Galaxy Note 5

  • lee

    When are you posting the results? Waiting for them from such a long time.

  • paten

    Easy pick for me, i picked C because i often shots at low light, and gallery 12 proves it.

  • Bv Rathan

    I think pictures in gallery 8 were taken in slightly different times.Just look the clouds in reference pic and that of in picture c(iPhone).They’re very cloudy in iPhone pictures whereas in reference picture it is not cloudy it is sunny.Any idea why,?I really doubt this test

  • Samuel Ezra

    I think you should do it all over again. Because it’s not fair for the Z5. Obviously you change it to 23MP while the default setting is 8Mp. So please do all over again

  • Shpendi Shahini

    I think that phone C is winner here, I have S6 and iPhone 6 but here I see that LG have better camera judge you by self :)

  • D13H4RD2L1V3

    I use an LG G4 as a daily and the camera on it is marvellous.

    However, I personally think it’s a dead heat between phone C and D. Personally, I think D was slightly better than C overall but where phone C really crushed it was in photo 12, with a marvellous low-light shot. The rest are just too underexposed.

  • Gerrit Woord

    unbelievable. I thought C was the worst of all. D is way better in my opinion.

    A softness in corners and noise in lowlight. Ik think is Z5
    B looks like in some pictures it has some white filter on it. But does a good job
    C has lots of noise and artifacts.
    D is razor sharp

  • pIXo

    I would like to see blind test with something like Nikon D810 …

  • Mario Tubero

    Which is which Android Authority? Nirave Gondhia, where is the follow up on this?

  • the more realistic comparison to Samsung GALAXY NOTE 5 is here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSp6d2JzHhk

    • EQ

      Z5 destroys the Note 5.

  • Adam Kobeszko

    What is the official list of which sample pic is which phone?

  • MarianXtrem

    Phone: A) Sony Xperia Z5
    B) Samsung Galaxy Note 5
    C) LG G4
    D) Apple iPhone 6S
    LG G4 is the best.

  • comman man

    Phone A is Sony Xperia Z5
    Phone B is LG G4
    Phone C is Apple iphone 6s
    Phone D is Samsung Galaxy note 5

  • WHO AM I

    What is C? What is the phone name?