Canon EOS 1 Ds Mk III
vs.
Samsung Galaxy K zoom
So that's the question: Is picture 1 shot with the Canon or the Samsung? Or is it the other way around? Of course ... if you are a photographer you know the answer (though you may not believe yourself): The difference in depth-of-field gives it away.
This is my story: My iPhone 4 is 4.5 years old, I had been waiting for the iPhone 6 like a baby for its first tooth (ouch!). Anyway, the iPhone 6 came ... and the camera left me cold. I know what I want ... and the lens in the iPhone 6 is not it. So I had a look around ... and I came across the Samsung Galaxy K zoom. (This an ongoing saga, I blogged about it over and over: 515, 476, 345.)
It's an interesting piece of gear ... it has - o wonder - a proper zoom lens, and the specs are to a photographer what a Ferrari is to a car enthusiast: The lens is a 10 x 24mm wide angle (in 35mm terms). That is the same wide angle as on my Canon pro camera, only with a zoom 10x as long (to 240mm). Hmmm. OK, that is all very well ... but Samsung - for as far as I was concerned - make washing machines! What could the camera with a phone built in possibly be like?
So today I went to the Samsung shop and got the salesman - David - take a couple of photos of me ... one with the Samsung, one with my camera ... I nearly fell over when I saw the result; even just there in the shop, when I enlarged the picture on the screen ... and the screen is nice: Large. Bright. Sharp. Saturated.
Anyway, I won't say much more, other than that my Canon is a 21mp camera, the Samsung (they claim is 20mp) turns out to be 15mp. To get a good result I needed to tweak the file from the Samsung a little more ... which is due to that I stood in a slightly different spot; it's all documented below. And, please, be easy on me ... the test is by no means scientific ... it is just simply done the way people use cameras now-a-days ... I pointed and shot. You want me to answer the riddle for you? 1 is the Canon. 2 is the Samsung. 1 cost five years ago $12,999 (without a lens; the latest version, the EOS 1Dx costs $9,338 with the 24mm zoom) ... 2 costs $699 ... that's for the camera ... they throw the phone in for free. Here are the unmanipulated shots straight from the cameras, the interior shots weren't manipulated either (btw, the light is different in the two portraits, for the Canon I stood right under an overhead lamp):
