Look how the most powerful smartphone for photographers performs against a professional camera

LG V10 back
Here's the camera on the back of an LG V10. Antonio Villas-Boas/Tech Insider

LG markets its premium smartphones, the G4 and the V10, as the ultimate pocket shooters for photo geeks.

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Both Android devices feature top-of-the-line cameras. More importantly, LG's phones offers users the option of manually adjusting exposure settings as they shoot and saving their pictures as advanced RAW files for editing later. Those are features normally associated with DSLRs and other cameras for serious photographers.

I was skeptical that a smartphone's manual settings would be intuitive or responsive enough for real-world use. In my mind, DSLRs are for precision photography, while phones are for whipping out and snapping.

With that in mind, I decided to compare the experience of shooting on a Nikon D800 and an LG V10 in several real-world situations. (For more on the mechanics of manual shooting check out this instructional post.) I shot exclusively with a 24 mm f/2.8 Nikon lens on the DSLR, which roughly approximates a smartphone's wide-angle lens. Shooting in RAW, I processed both cameras' results to look as nice as possible on my computer. 

Here are the results:

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Both cameras do great outdoors:

phone camera comparisson 1
D800: 1/400 seconds; f/7.1; ISO 50 V10: 1/1800 seconds; f/1.8; ISO 50 Rafi Letzter/Tech Insider

Shooting from the roof of Tech Insider's New York newsroom, both cameras produced nice, similarly high-quality images. I'd consider the D800's shot superior on the margins for a few reasons, but they're all minor technical quibbles:

The D800's squarer sensor uses more lens area, while the narrow V10 can't get the street and sky in one horizontal shot.

I was able to narrow the aperture on my D800 to ensure every corner of the shot was in focus, while the V10 is stuck at a wide-open f/1.8 – perfect for low light and close-ups, but less than ideal for landscape shots.

Because of its ultra-wide aperture, the V10 has a shadowy "vignetting" around its edges. The effect almost resembles an Instagram filter – dramatic, but not ideal for quality.

Even blown up to full size, the quality remains similar:

phone camera comparisson 2
D800: 1/400 seconds; f/7.1; ISO 50 V10: 1/1800 seconds; f/1.8; ISO 50 Rafi Letzter/Tech Insider

Both images are sharp enough to count individual bricks on this building. The V10 is marginally blurrier, but no complaints on either front.

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The smartphone was vastly better at detail shots:

phone camera comparisson 3
D800: 1/160 seconds; f/11; ISO 50 V10: 1/1250 seconds; f/1.8; ISO 50 Rafi Letzter/Tech Insider

Probably the best argument for using a V10 over a DSLR is the inherent adaptability of smartphones. The wide-angle lens could get in close to capture the melting snow, while the 24 mm Nikon lens wouldn't even focus unless I backed way up.

Of course, DSLRs are designed for users who switch out lenses for different situations; a dedicated macro lens — or even a microscope attachment — would produce a far better image than anything the V10 got. But unless you plan to carry a niche, expensive dedicated macro lens with you everywhere you go, the V10 is better equipped to handle the odd super-closeup.

Here are some blown-up details from the snow shots:

phone camera comparisson 4
D800: 1/160 seconds; f/11; ISO 50 V10: 1/1250 seconds; f/1.8; ISO 50 Rafi Letzter/Tech Insider
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Here's how the cameras handled color indoors:

phone camera comparisson 6
D800: 1/160 seconds; f/2.8; ISO 640 V10: 1/125 seconds; f/1.8; ISO 300 Rafi Letzter/Tech Insider

The best-case scenario for indoor photography is bright colors under bright lights against a dark background. I found that in a Nike store. Both cameras do well here, though I prefer the contrast and more blurred-out background of the DSLR shooting wide-open. The V10 also loses more detail from the bright white shoes.

Blown up, you can see graininess creeping in on the V10 to mute the shoe's bold swoosh.

phone camera comparisson 7
D800: 1/160 seconds; f/2.8; ISO 640 V10: 1/125 seconds; f/1.8; ISO 300 Rafi Letzter/Tech Insider
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The V10 struggled in mixed light:

phone camera comparisson 8
D800: 1/160 seconds; f/2.8; ISO 640 V10: 1/250 seconds; f/1.8; ISO 300 Rafi Letzter/Tech Insider

The real test of any camera is how it works in less-than-ideal conditions. Bright light streamed in the window during this shot and bounced off her white shirt. The DSLR's sensor easily captured the highlights and shadows, but the V10 would only do one or the other. I chose to go dark, in order to keep from blowing out her torso into a white hole in my frame. But the result threw much of the store into grainy shadow.

I nailed the focus every time using the smartphone's touch control, while even with years of experience I sometimes miss on the DSLR:

phone camera comparisson 9
D800: 1/160 seconds; f/2.8; ISO 640 V10: 1/250 seconds; f/1.8; ISO 300 Rafi Letzter/Tech Insider
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In low light, the two cameras aren't even in the same league:

phone camera comparisson 5
D800: 1/160 seconds; f/2.8; ISO 1000 V10: 1/125 seconds; f/1.8; ISO 600 Rafi Letzter/Tech Insider

It's almost unfair to compare the two low-light images. Blick Art Materials employee Tamara G posed in front of color swatches in the back of the store, an area as well-lit as any indoor setting without big windows and much brighter than any night scene. But the V10 churned up so much noise at even ISO 600 that you can spot it even in this shrunken version. Sure, it might beat some other smartphones in this situation but this is nowhere in the realm of what a serious shooter wants from a camera.

(Note for photo geeks: knowing how poor the smartphone's sensor is at even medium ISO, I might have instead slowed the shutter down way further. But that's an option that only exists for very still subjects.)

A close-up reveals the major difference in quality:

phone camera comparisson 9
D800: 1/160 seconds; f/2.8; ISO 1000 V10: 1/125 seconds; f/1.8; ISO 600 Rafi Letzter/Tech Insider

A couple things worth noting here: the DSLR is actually two-thirds farther up the ISO sensitivity ladder than the smartphone, but still producing an order of magnitude less grain. On the other hand, I failed to nail the focus again in low light, while the smartphone still managed perfectly.

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For casual, handheld night scene shooting, the smartphone actually does pretty well:

phone camera comparisson 10
D800: 1/30 seconds; f/5.6; ISO 1600 V10: 1/30 seconds; f/1.8; ISO 400 Rafi Letzter/Tech Insider

This is one shot where the V10 easily stood out from out smartphones. I was able to set the shutter speed just slow enough to freeze the scene while still collecting enough light to keep the grain away. It still under performs compared to the DSLR at collecting highlight and shadow detail at the same time.

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Conclusions

LG V10
Antonio Villas-Boas/Tech Insider

The V10 definitely has a nice physical camera for a smartphone, but the manual control strikes me as more of a niche feature than the game-changer LG would have you imagine.

I use manual settings in my DSLR shooting on a weekly and sometimes daily basis, but I think if I had the V10 long-term I'd probably end up leaving it in automatic. Particularly without the ability to adjust aperture (and evade that intense vignette), I just don't see these features as worth the "premium" price tag on their own.

Photography
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