(upbeat music)
- What's up guys Saf here on SuperSaf TV,
and this is my Sony
Xperia 1 II camera review.
Now it is going to be
a little bit different,
to the standard SuperSaf
Style camera comparisons
that you see here on the channel.
Although there will be
lots of comparison shots
that I am going to be showing,
versus the iPhone 11 Pro Max.
But it's different because,
this is a different smartphone.
The whole camera sets up,
the way everything works with the pro apps
is quite different,
so I thought this would be
the best way to cover it.
Now, as part of this video,
I've also invited the best
voice in the YouTube text base.
My good friend, Michael
Fisher, the Mr. Mobile.
So we'll be hearing some of his thoughts
and see if they match up with my thoughts,
about the Sony Xperia
1 II cameras as well,
which will be a little
bit later in this video.
So the Xperia 1 II hardware is excellent.
I really like that,
Sony have gone with three
12 megapixel cameras,
rather than going for 48,
108 megapixel cameras.
Like a lot of the competition and doing,
even though on those
smartphones 99% of the time,
you're still going to be shooting around,
12 megapixels anyway.
So I appreciate that Sony
have gone with the setup.
Sony actually make the sensors for,
pretty much most smartphones out there.
And I personally also use
the Sony A7 III as well as
the Sony ZV1.
So hardware is really, really good.
And what I really like
about these cameras is that,
the colors are very consistent
across the three cameras.
This is something that we
see on many of the cameras,
as soon as you switch
from one to the other.
Colors can change quite a bit.
This is not the case
here with the Xperia 1 II
and the colors are also quite natural.
You see a lot of manufacturers really -
boosting up the vibrance and saturation.
This is also not the case
here with the Xperia 1 II.
And I think this is
something that a lot people,
are going to appreciate.
Now, one of the biggest improvements here,
compared to the Xperia 1
last year is dynamic range.
I was very much not pleased
with the dynamic range,
that you got out of the shots
with the Xperia 1 last year,
but this is being improved
quite a bit here -
on the Xperia 1 ii,
both in the standard auto mode as well as,
in the photo pro mode.
Now, thanks to a few of
you who did point out that,
if you do go into the
settings of the photo pro app,
you can switch on Auto HDR,
which definitely does help.
And in a lot of cases,
I did prefer the dynamic
range on the Xperia 1,
compared to something like
the iPhone 11 Pro Max,
as you can see on a few examples here.
Now, having said that,
there was certain instances,
where I'd get really
good dynamic range from -
the ultra wide camera.
But when I went to the primary camera,
things walk quite a blown out.
So this is something that I did find,
and hopefully can be improved
with software over time.
I'm touching on the photo pro app.
I mean, having all of those
manual controls is something,
that's really, really useful.
And if you ask somebody
that's kind of used to the
Sony Alpha line,
you'll be very much at home with,
all of the different
controls that you have
and all of the different settings.
Along with that physical shutter button,
which I am sure a lot of
people will also appreciate.
Now within the pro app.
I think for me,
the most important thing is
the auto focus that we have.
The auto focus, which tracks
eyes, not only of people,
but also of animals.
And this is something that
we don't really see on,
pretty much any of the
smart phone out there,
as well as the ability to have,
up to 20 frames a second best shot.
So if you are trying to take pictures of-
fast moving subjects,
then you can be confident,
that all of them are going to be in focus.
And this is something that,
I think is quite unique
on the Xperia 1 ii.
Now when we go on to video,
things are a little bit different.
So the cinema pro app, once again,
lots of controls over white balance, ISO,
shutter speed, focus.
Now for me personally,
I'm already used to a
lot of these features,
with apps such as FiLMic
pro on the iPhone.
So they all features that I use a lot.
And the other thing about
the cinema pro app is that,
I found that it was very specific to
specific situations,
where you had control over lighting.
And that is because once
you lock in exposure
and start recording,
if you are maybe handheld outdoors,
as soon as you go from a
dark area to a bright area,
then things are not
going to be looking good.
So this is something that
I find is great to have,
but it is very, very specific.
The other thing that I found
was with stabilization,
when you are in the cinema pro app,
then stabilization is really not good,
especially if you are at 4K 60fps
and 4K 60fps is only limited
to the primary camera.
You do not have 4K 60fps on the ultra-wide
or the zoom camera,
things that a lot of the
competition do offer.
Now, when you do switch to
the auto mode for video,
then yes,
you are going to be able to
get the different exposures
and things.
But I did find,
the shots did look quite
dark in a lot of instances
and the stabilization,
although it was better
compared to what we had in the
pro app,
it still wasn't as good as
something like the iPhone.
As you can see in this example here.
Now I know a lot of people keep
saying to use the pro modes,
but really sick speaking.
There are lots of situations,
where you simply can't use pro mode,
and the pro mode is not available for,
the front facing camera
and the front facing camera,
is something that I also
want to touch on because,
i'm going to be straight up on all these.
And even though I'm going
to get a lot of hate for it,
the Sony Xperia 1 ii,
does not have a good front facing camera.
It's eight megapixels.
It can only film up to 1080P.
Dynamic range is really, really bad.
And when you do try to use,
portrait mode from the
front facing camera,
then dynamic range just goes
completely out of the window.
There's been lots of
instances where I've had,
a very blurry image -
trying to use the portrait mode,
from the front facing camera,
which was very, very disappointing for me,
for a smartphone that's
retained for around $1,200.
The iPhone SE for example,
is a third of the price.
And I can tell you hands down,
has a much better front facing camera.
This was also the case
in video dynamic range,
for video from the front facing
camera was really not good.
And I know a lot of people
are going to be saying,
Oh, this is for pros,
pros don't take selfies
or vlog and things like that.
But I know a lot of
professional photographers
and videographers at every
single one of them at least,
uses the front facing camera for,
Instagram stories
and the likes because we are in 2020
and having such a bad front facing camera,
on a smartphone that's
retaining for around $1,200
or 1100 pounds is really
no excuse in my opinion.
Now, another thing around the pro apps,
is that they're all well and good,
but what about,
when you want to really
take advantage of -
competition photography.
So to give you a couple of examples,
night mode,
there is no dedicated night
mode on the Xperia 1 ii.
So here you can see an
example versus the iPhone
and the iPhone is clearly
doing a much, much better job.
Now yes, I could Mount this on a tripod,
but I don't always have a tripod with me,
(indistinct) the object.
If I'm carrying around a tripod with me,
then I might as well
carry around my Sony A73,
instead of trying to shoot on this.
The other area is portrait mode.
So you do have a defocus mode on here.
And once again,
portrait shots on the Xperia
1 ii are really, really bad.
I've seen lots of budgets,
smartphones do a better job.
It kind of just does a
blur around you and again,
dynamic range.
This goes completely out the window.
As soon as you try to do a
portrait shot portrait mode
or the defocus mode,
is only available on the primary camera,
not on the telephoto camera.
Telephoto camera is generally,
what you'd use for portrait shots,
but again, this is not available.
So although,
there are lots of positives
with the Xperia 1 ii cameras,
there are a lot of negatives.
And I was talking to Michael Fisher,
about some of these things
and i found that he also
experienced some similar results.
So I thought, let me bring
him onto the channel.
And then we can have a discussion
and kind of share our
opinions on these cameras.
Fisher, so good to have
you on the channel.
- Saf it is great to be here
and I really apologize for
showing up out of uniform.
Let me just get these
accessories on there.
That's better, there we go, now I'm ready.
Now I'm ready for it. I'm super set style.
- Brilliant.
(Fisher laughs)
I kind of feel like,
cause I've actually got
my normal glasses on,
so maybe, maybe I need to
put the sunglasses on too!
(Fisher - I wish you would)
or maybe it should just (Fisher
laughs) be (indistinct).
All right, they were
on let's let's do this.
Fisher, it's great to, well,
firstly chat as well but
also have you on the channel!
(Fisher - great to be here)
- We've both been using the Xperia 1 ii.
I'd say I've been,
I've had it for about just over a week.
I believe you've had it for!
(Fisher - about
eight days) the same time.
There's a few things, there's
a few opinions I have.
And you know,
we've had a brief conversation
about this before as well.
- That's right.
- But what I thought would be
good is for us to you know,
just have this chat on video so we could,
you know, share our views and
opinions with the audience.
- I love that idea man,
thank you for inviting me on.
And you know what, it's really
cool because I feel like,
I talked about it on the
Android central podcast,
a couple like a week ago
and I was pretty harsh on it,
cause it was really early in my testing.
And then once the review video came out,
I was much more fair
because I knew it better.
But now in it like an
hour after publishing,
I was like did I go too easy on it?
So I think this is perfect.
We're going to strike a perfect
middle ground right here.
(Saf laughs)
- Perfect, that's excellent.
So let's initially start
with the positives,
because you know,
there are a lot of positives
because there are positives.
- Indeed, i really like it when,
we had only talked for
like an hour with Sony
and 12 megapixels on all three sensors.
They're not going for the megapixel race.
They're not doing 108 megapixel shooters.
And they went into detail on why,
you know,
we want to be able to scan that
whole sensor really rapidly,
so that we can reduce,
what is it, the rolling
shutter distortion.
(Saf mumbles) We want to be
able to take these burst shots
and do these crazy two 20 FPS burst shots,
with three times per
shot, focus calculation.
I mean, that's a pretty
exceptional technical,
technological achievement, right?
- Yeah.
And I mean like things like auto focus,
it's pretty much not on any
of the smart phone camera,
right now.
- Right, i do love doing that.
I mean, you got the physical button
and you do the half press to focus
and you get the block.
And then the,
one of the tiny little
blocks jumps up to the eye
and it's like, Oh, this
even works on cats.
- Yeah.
The fact that it also works
on animals on a smartphone,
is definitely very impressive.
And in terms of like general so like,
going out there and
taking lots of pictures
and things, what, in terms of
the results from the pictures,
what have you most liked?
- You know i feel like
Xperia phones have gotten,
you know we used to
really get down on them,
back in the days,
of 2014, 2015, 2016,
you had all this over sharpening this,
very large amounts of
digital noise and stuff.
And I feel like,
they've calmed down on that
over the past few years,
to the point where even
last year Xperia 1,
i was pretty satisfied
with the image quality
and the color science on.
This one yields very closely to that.
- Okay
- In fact, I was really having
a great time with it man,
until I went side by side with the pixel.
And I'm just personally
speaking the way I shoot,
the way I like my images to come out.
Yes,
the pixel really does over
processing a lot of the time,
but i tend to prefer its results probably!
(Saf - okay)four
times out of five.
I don't know if you had
a similar experience.
- Yeah. So I totally agree with you that,
my personal point, from that is that,
you know when I did put them,
put the images, which
I've shown in the video,
side-by-side against the
iPhone, more often than not,
I did personally prefer
images from the iPhone,
but my argument has always been that,
having a pro app is amazing.
It's great to have that.
Personally speaking on my iPhone,
i do have filmic pro,
which I use very regularly
and that kind of has a lot of those -
settings that you can
dial in when you need it.
But I would like to
have both those options.
So the thing for me with
the Xperia 1 was that,
I really enjoyed the pro experience,
but as soon as it came back
to the regular experience,
then I found myself just
more often than not,
preferring images from the
likes of a pixel or an iPhone.
- Definitely.
And you know people,
i was posting some teaser
images on Instagram
and people really jump
all over here for even,
deigning to use the auto mode on a Sony.
And that's not the point.
That's not what's for sure,
but even the best pro
photographer, you know,
sees a once in a lifetime shot passed by
and just needs to get it.
You just need to double click and shoot.
You don't always have
time to, for a pro app.
And you know,
I was having a great time with
the cinema pro app as well.
You mentioned video mode.
I was using shooting at -
my host segments for my review video.
And it was great to be able to say,
"hey, stand-in David and
Mel have Android authority,
who lives with me?
Come sit in this chair.
(indistinct),
I'm going to get focused,
I'm going to expose for you white balance
and shoot in 21 by nine.
And it's so fun.
- Yeah totally.
- But it for that kind of set up,
it's useful for the kind
of thing we're like,
okay, well now I'm going
to pan from the walk sign,
down the road of no,
there's no auto settings for any of that.
(Saf laughs)
- Yeah.
- It just won't adapt!
- Exactly, exactly.
So I mean you mentioned a really
important thing there that,
you know, when you were
trying to stand in,
get David to stand in for you.
So that kind of brings me over
onto the front facing camera.
Because you know, smart phone cameras.
Now there are an all round package, right?
We've got the ultra wide,
we've got primary telephoto,
but the front facing camera is
also quite an important part.
And I know not everybody takes selfies,
but you know, there
are lots of times when,
you will be using the front facing camera,
whether that's for images and video.
Now, I'm very interested to hear,
your opinion on the front facing
camera of the Xperia 1 ii.
- They brought over the
same component as last year.
I mean, I think front to back,
the entire package is the
same from the Xperia 1.
Which is fine.
I've had good luck with it in daylight.
I would always (indistinct),
have you tried a video
call with the phone yet?
- I haven't tried a video call,
but I've recorded lots of
short videos with the phone.
- Now i wonder if you
had the same experience,
because on the video calls,
the skin smoothening was just outrageous.
- Okay!
- I had, i was lucky enough
to have a Twitter user
or a comment, or let me know,
hey, you got to test this.
And I did.
And i was like, Oh wow, this,
this camera makes me look
like I'm 17 years old.
Okay. That's interesting.
(Saf laughs)
- Okay. That's something that,
I have not tested,
but having a test of, you know,
taking lots of pictures from
the front facing camera,
as well as video, you know,
in comparison to pretty much all of the
flagship smartphones out there,
I found it to be really behind personally.
I mean, you know, highlights,
overexposes most of the time
dynamic range isn't great.
As soon as you use portrait
mode, then you can,
you can say goodbye to highlights
and dynamic range just
goes out the window.
As soon as you,
switch on portrait mode from
the front facing camera.
And that's something that
I found very disappointing,
because regardless of
whether you take selfies
or not for an 1100 pound a smartphone,
which is going up against,
you know, pretty much every
of the flagships out there,
that's something that I
think that they really did,
they just seem to concentrate
all on the pro modes
and the rear facing cameras
and completely messed up
the front facing camera,
in my opinion.
- And that's exactly right.
Yeah.
And I think that,
translates across the
whole camera experience
and the whole package.
It's like, yes,
thank you for doing what
we've been asking for so long,
which is I'm recording
this my half of the video,
on a Sony camera.
I've been shooting on Sony
gear for seven or eight years.
And we've said for most of
those seven or eight years,
"hey, Sony lean into this.
You guys make the cameras
for most smartphones.
You have a loyal following
of camera photographer
and videographer people.
Why not build more of
that into your phones?
And they're doing that.
The problem is I feel
like for whatever reason,
they are just unable to match
the auto mode performance,
that will appeal to normal folks as well.
So it almost feels like
a crutch where they say,
well, yeah, it's $1,200,
but if you're a photographer,
you have a budget for that.
You know, you can go buy this phone.
I'm like, sure, but I already have an A9,
to take all those bursts out shots with.
Why do I need my phone to do it?
It's very confusing,
confusing positioning.
- No it's really good to
hear your feedback as well,
because then, you know,
I kind of know that it's just
not me, that's thinking this.
And I've also been
speaking to other friends
and a bond from board outwork,
Tom, the tech chap,
and they've all been
having similar experiences.
And, you know, like there's
other things you know,
smartphone photography, as I said,
has come such a long way
and there's so much more to it than,
it's very different in my opinion,
to taking your pro mirror less
camera whatever it is out,
for some shots,
smartphone photography,
you know we've got some amazing
software for night mode,
for example, portrait mode, another thing.
So, again, something that
I personally found on,
I'd love to hear what your
experience was, was this as well.
I was trying to take some
low light shots and the Sony,
unless I had a tripod with me,
I would not be able to get any sort of,
decent low light photography,
whereas on the pixel with the iPhone,
I just put on night mode, boom.
And I've got a really, really
great looking night image,
that's captured on the smartphone.
- That's exactly the
experience I had, man.
You are word for word
recounting my experience,
on the East river, looking at
Manhattan last Monday night,
beautiful night shot
like nine or 10 at night.
I had to set up the Xperia
on a portable tripod.
I sit along exposure, set all
the values and I eventually,
after some trial
and error got a shot that
I didn't completely hate.
It was actually quite good,
but it took a lot of time to
get an approximation of that
same shot with the pixel,
which wasn't quite as good,
but I'd say about 95%,
took me one shot and it
was handheld, you know,
it took me five seconds
to do with the pixel,
most of what I was able
to do with the Xperia.
So I do feel like Sony,
is sort of chasing the
wrong ball in that, respect.
- Totally.
- It's like, it's a cool
pride point to be able to say,
"hey, we get it right in the camera.
We're focusing on optics
and we're giving you all
the tools you're used to,
from your pro camera.
But if the results aren't
there for most people,
it's just doomed to be a
niche product forever. Right?
- I think I'm glad you said
niche rather than niche.
(laughs)
Just let me just mention that.
Cause Whenever I'm speaking to Marquez,
it's like niche
and then I'll just kind of like
expect, sorry. Niche, niche.
Yeah, no, I think you
hit the nail on the head.
It seems to me that this is,
a smartphone camera for
a very niche audience.
Now what I would have loved,
I would have loved to have
had a great auto mode,
which does take advantage
of all the things that,
we're used to now on
smartphone photography,
such as, you know,
portrait mode, night mode,
all of these things that make
smartphone photography great.
As well as a pro level camera.
So I would have loved to have
had both of those things,
which I think is completely
possible in today's day
and age.
Fisher thank you so much for, coming on.
I think, you know,
you shared some great insight
from your side as well.
And I think the audience
is going to really,
really appreciate that as well.
So thank you so much for coming on.
- Can I, stick a quick word in for,
for sure you can.
- Of course.
- Now that we are talking about Sony.
I have to say it cause I
have to fess up a little bit,
when I first took delivery on the 1 ii.
- Yeah.
- I forgot that Sony had also
announced the Xperia Pro -
alongside it
and that's what I really
wanted and hoped this was.
So I feel like the Xperia Pro,
is going to be the first
thing they release,
that is actually able to
do what they want to do,
which is serve the needs
and solve some real problems for again,
a niche avenue of people,
videographers in this case.
But, I'm very excited to try that out.
So if we, if either one of us gets it,
let's have another talk
and let's bring this
conversation back, man.
Cause I want to hear your
thoughts on it too when it hits.
- For sure.
I mean, that would be awesome,
but yeah,
Fisher, thank you so much
for being on the channel.
I really appreciate you
taking the time out to,
share your thoughts as well.
And definitely let's
do this again sometime.
- I look forward to that
and you stay well man.
I look forward to seeing your face again,
sometime say in the indefinable future.
- Yeah man, same.
I'm missing, all of you guys, quite a bit.
So I hope we get to hang out again soon.
- Likewise.
- Take care.
Big thanks to the Mr Mobile,
Michael Fisher for
joining us on this video
and sharing his opinions.
He's actually done a great
review as all of his reviews,
on his channel.
I'll be linking that
review of the Xperia 1 ii,
in the description below
as well as in the cards.
And in terms of my conclusion,
my opinions on the Xperia 1 ii,
you've heard the word niche,
spoken about a lot in this video.
That's what this is, in my opinion,
the Xperia 1 ii is very
much a niche device
and the camera's also targeted
at a very small niche,
but nevertheless,
in my opinion,
that gives no excuse
for having a really bad,
front facing camera
and not including
features like night mode,
a good portrait mode,
which we have on many of
the other competition.
Why can't we also have those
as well as those pro features.
That's what I think.
What do you guys think?
Definitely. Let me know
what the comments below.
I'm sure,
I'm still going to get a lot
of heat from experienced fans,
but Hey, that's fine.
I'm giving you my honest opinions.
If this is the smartphone for you,
then that's all well and good.
I'd love to hear why that
is in the comments below.
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