I was recently approached by the mobile
network provider Three, to review their new Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge for food
photography. I am an iPhone 6s user, and an Apple die-hard, but decided to take
on the task as I am a long-standing Three customer.
I have lost count of how many years I have
been with Three, and as a food and travel writer, I can’t think of a better
network to be on. This is mostly because of their “Feel At Home” countries, an
ever-expanding list (currently 42, including almost all of the EU, the USA,
Australia, and as far as Indonesia, Hong Kong and Macau), for a full list of
countries, check the link here. I write this blog post from Sri Lanka,
another Feel At Home country where I can surf the net, make phone calls and
send text messages all using my UK contract allowance at no extra cost. It’s
brilliant.
Anyway I digress. The purpose of this
feature is to compare the cameras in my beloved iPhone 6s with the SamsungGalaxy S7 Edge, and how they fare in my food photography. I also describe the
digital SLR camera and lens I use, recommend some excellent photo-editing
applications for your phone, and share some tips on dealing with low light food
photography situations.
Food
photography using your phone camera
Phone cameras have come such a long way in
the last few years. Today, I can get better photos from my camera phone than I was
able to get from a domestic Sony digital camera just a couple of years ago.
However, it’s surprising to note that even today, the quality of images varies
tremendously from phone to phone.
For my food photography, I use a combination
of my Canon DSLR 5d Mk III and a Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8 lens, a fantastic bit
of kit which is ideal for what I do, but also came at a huge cost. I am no
professional photographer and I have very limited interest in learning the
technicalities of cameras and photography – these bore me to death. Little by
little though, I have been learning how to get the best out of my camera by
asking questions, online research, and by trial and error.
But I still take lots of pictures using my
iPhone 6s, because like everyone else I carry it with me all the time, and it’s
the easiest way to share images on social media. My social media channels (Instagram,
Twitter, Snapchat and Facebook) are an extension of The London Foodie blog, so
having a phone with the best camera I can get is paramount.
Use
of photo editing software and filters
In addition to the practicality of having a
phone with a good camera with me all the time rather than carrying a heavy
camera around, there are several excellent photo-editing apps which are easily available
to download on the mobile.
The two most popular apps are Lightroom and
Snapseed. I have both on my phone but I
mainly use the latter – Snapseed is a great app to bring out the colour and
light from your images which suffer when taken in low level light.
 |
| iPhone 6s Image - Before Snapseed Editing |
In addition, Snapseed allows you to
photoshop particular areas of a picture, if say one corner of an image is too
dark, that can be corrected with this app. It also allows you to “heal” bits of
an image, for instance deleting an unwanted person or object in the background.
 |
| iPhone 6s Image - After Snapseed Editing |
There are also several filters to choose
from in the app, although I find this feature too gimmicky for my taste – over
the years I came to the conclusion that when editing images, less is definitely
more or else you can end up with something that looks artificial and tortured.
Using
your phone camera in low lighting settings
I never use flash in food photography,
especially in a restaurant setting where it would be intrusive for other
diners. Although I have seen flash being used by professional photographers
with great results. But if you don’t know what you are doing, flash can
completely kill the image, bleaching the food’s colour and making it look dull
and flat.
So when visiting to review a place with
challenging light conditions, like dinner at a dimly-lit restaurant, I always
take my iPad with me. I discovered a few years ago that bringing the well-lit
white screen of the iPad close to a dish being photographed is a good way to
provide discreet but uniform light, with minimal glare or unwanted reflection.
I use this trick all the time.
If I happen not to have my iPad with me,
but have a supportive and self-confident companion with a smartphone, I tend to
use their phone torch with the light diffused by a napkin wrapped around the
torchlight. This is my second-best option, but is far preferable to using
direct torch-light, which again kills most food images.
If all else fails, I take my plate to where
the light is – a bar, another table, even sometimes the kitchen, though of
course this will not make for a very pleasant dinner.
Comparison
of Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge vs iPhone 6s
While no phone compares to a good dedicated
camera, the iPhone 6s and Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge are believed to be two of the
best options on the market. But how do they compare?
For this comparison, I have used the both
phones’ automatic camera settings, and have not manipulated the images in any
way – no editing or filters. This is the setting most people use on their
phones.
I copied as a footnote a table of general
specifications, focusing primarily on the display and camera functionalities,
to compare the hard facts between the Galaxy S7 Edge and the iPhone 6s. I leave
it to you to analyse this technical information, as this review is about my
personal experience of using both phones’ cameras specifically for food
photography.
You will probably note from this table that
the camera specification for both phones is very comparable, except that the
lens aperture differs.
Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge has a f/1.7 lens,
compared with the iPhone 6s’ f/2.2. But what does this imply? It means that Samsung
S7 lens has a wider aperture, and hence it will allow more light into the image
whenever the lens opens. Don’t be confused by the lower denomination of the
Samsung’s f number – the lower the number, the wider the aperture.
The
Money Shots
I chose a lunchtime restaurant at King’s
Cross’ The Lighterman, in a naturally well-lit dining room, to photograph the
food using the iPhone 6s and SamsungGalaxy S7 Edge cameras.
The first two shots, of deep-fried squid
with chilli sauce, show a small but important differences. The Samsung in my
opinion has sharper detail, and the image is brighter though colder. The iPhone image has a yellowish tone to it,
being warmer, and when you look closely the details are fuzzier.
 |
| Samsung S7 Edge |
 |
| iPhone 6s |
The next pair of images is a platter of
starters. Here once again, the iPhone image is warmer, and the colours in my
opinion are more intense. For me the Samsung image has let too much light in
and the resulting photograph is over-exposed and bleached. However, the details
are again sharper.
 |
| iPhone 6s |
 |
| Samsung 7 Edge |
The next photographs from a dish of seared
salmon and pineapple with diced red onion and micro-coriander, avocado and lime
purée, though very similar at first glance, show startling differences in
picture clarity, especially in close up.
 |
| Samsung S7 Edge |
 |
| iPhone 6s |
To illustrate this point, I have blown up
the same image so that you can appreciate their detail. Notice the minute veins
and creases visible on the back of the micro-coriander leaf from the Samsung image,
which are blurred on the corresponding iPhone picture.
 |
| Samsung S7 Edge |
 |
| iPhone 6s |
Finally, the dessert was chocolate mousse
with raspberry sorbet, fresh raspberries, lemon and lime zest, hazelnut and
caramel. Here, to conclude, we see a
similar pattern – the iPhone image is warmer, darker, though the colours seem
to have been tinted and the details are less clear. The Samsung on the other
hand has let more light in, the colours are brighter and more true to the
original (compare the blue colour of the plate between the two images – the
iPhone’s is grey). Look also at the finely grated hazelnut over the chocolate
mousse – it is much clearer in the Samsung image than the iPhone’s.
 |
| iPhone 6s |
 |
| Samsung S7 Edge |
Another common theme we have seen in all
the images is that the Samsung photos are about 50% larger in Mb size, and the
ISO used from the automatic setting is much higher in all the images.
Verdict
Technically speaking, the Samsung Galaxy S7Edge phone camera has slightly higher specification, and delivers clearer,
brightly coloured food images, if somewhat overexposed under certain
conditions. The wider lens aperture (f/1.7 vs f/2.2) allows more light into the
image and the camera should fare better in low light levels. In addition, this
phone camera offers a range of food related filters to photoshop with not found
on the iPhone 6s.
The iPhone 6s takes warmer photographs, and
is less prone to over-exposure, but suffers from a lower level of detail. The
images seem fuzzier and of lower resolution though the range of colours is
sometimes truer to the original than the Samsung S7 Edge.
However, having now both phones, I still do
not believe I will be switching from my iPhone 6s to a Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge.
From my perspective, the slight benefits of the Samsung camera do not outweigh
the hassle of changing phone brands with everything that entails.
The Hard Facts: Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge Vs
iPhone 6s
|
GENERAL
|
Samsung
Galaxy S7 Edge
|
iPhone
6s
|
|
Price (32GB model)
|
£589 on samsung.com/uk
|
£499 on apple.com/uk
|
|
Release date
|
February 2016
|
September 2015
|
|
Dimensions (mm)
|
150.90 x 72.60 x 7.70
|
138.30 x 67.10 x 7.10
|
|
Weight (g)
|
157.00
|
143.00
|
|
Battery capacity (mAh)
|
3600
|
1715
|
|
Colours
|
Black, Gold, Pink Gold, Silver, Blue
|
Silver, Gold, Space Grey, Rose Gold
|
|
DISPLAY
|
||
|
Screen size (inches)
|
5.50
|
4.70
|
|
Resolution
|
1440x2560 pixels
|
750x1334 pixels
|
|
CAMERA
|
||
|
Rear camera
|
12-megapixel
|
12-megapixel
|
|
Flash
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
|
Front camera
|
5-megapixel
|
5-megapixel
|
|
Aperture
|
f/1.7
|
f/2.2
|
No comments:
Post a Comment