Nobody put their hands to their heads, no, you haven't read wrong, youtuber Sawyer Hartman He has faced his Leica M10-P with one of the most expensive lenses of the German company against the iPhone 11 Pro in a blind test with 4 people. The result shows that in the day to day, an average user will find it very difficult to differentiate a photograph made with a camera that he can carry in his pocket as opposed to one taken with a camera of $ 20,000.
Only a few details for well-trained eyes betray the iPhone.
You have to know how to look to find what is cul. And is that the difference most of the time is only visible if we have well trained eyes and we know what we have to look at. The iPhone camera is victorious in this confrontation and demonstrates how capable it is compared to a team almost 20 times more expensive.
The good lighting, the best ally of the iPhone 11 Pro.
If we talk about daytime photography with sunlight or good artificial lighting, if you have seen the video you will have noticed that the difference is difficult to notice with the naked eye. And is that the iPhone achieves incredible colors and textures, along with a sharpness that puts Leica against the ropes. A detail to take into account, and that in the video is not mentioned, is that the Leica is a manual focus camera, which together with a lens with a maximum aperture of f0.95 make the task of finding the critical focus on an image is the most complicated, hence the iPhone is able to produce those images so defined in comparison.
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In the day to day, an average user will find it very difficult to notice the difference.
Computational photography cannot save the laws of physics.
It is when the computational photograph intervenes to mimic the effects created naturally by the camera and its optics, how can the bokeh be, when the duster is seen on the iPhone. And although the computer photography has advanced a lot, there are circumstances that still resist him.
The portrait mode.
Let's analyze the situation with the hair in the video, where we can see how the iPhone does not know whether to focus it or not, not understanding it as part of the girl's face. Leica, not understanding face or background, and focusing mechanically to the focal plane that corresponds to it, leaves the entire area that should be clear, without the possibility of confusion.
Image source: Sawyer Hartman's YouTube channel.
Night mode and photography with low light.
First of all let's talk about numbers. The Leica has a full frame sensor 36 x 24 mm, while The iPhone 11 Pro sports a 1 / 2.55 inch sensor. As you can see the difference is very important when it comes to size, and the ability to capture light from one in front of the other is enormous. It is here where computational photography, despite having improved greatly in this last generation, cannot fight the laws of physics, in which a larger captor can absorb much more light and information than the small iPhone sensor, which uses image stacking to get more detail and information from the dark areas. Attention to this, which does not mean that the night mode is not very capable, that it is, simply that there are circumstances that still cannot be solved as a professional camera.
Image source: Sawyer Hartman's YouTube channel.
Is the iPhone camera better than a $ 20,000 Leica?
Unfortunately there is not going to be an answer that leaves everyone happy. As indicated in the video, the best camera is always going to be the one that you can take with you everywhere, and in this the iPhone wins by a win. If we also add that Apple has mounted very capable cameras in this last generation and that the most common use of a photo taken with a mobile device is to be uploaded on a social network, then without a doubt the iPhone is the winner. It's not that Leica is worse, it's that its public and benefits are focused on a different field.
