The optics and main sensors are pretty similar across the board here - 1/2.5" or so, OIS, plus processing of some kind. In the Lumia's case, the processing's from a single higher resolution exposure (16MP down to 8MP - 'PureView oversampling'), whereas the others combine multiple exposures, but the end result is similar - a 8 or 9MP JPG (the iPhone spits out at 4:3, bizarrely, but the central 16:9 crop works out the same).
This feature is all about low light, so I headed out after sunset. No sun required, no bright lights, nothing easy to snap. Low light is where the best phone cameras shine and all of the phones here did well, as you'd expect. All shots were handheld, but OIS is now ubiquitous, so I wasn't worried in the slightest.
Note that I can't use the interactive comparator, since we're looking at four crops at the same time, so I've opted for 'slices'...!
Test 1: Dusk, landscape
With a tricky subject, especially the illuminated sign against the dusk sky. Here's the scene as shot on the Lumia 950 XL:
And here are 1:1 crops from the photos shot by (in order) the Lumia 950 XL, the Samsung Galaxy S9+, the Google Pixel 2 XL, and the iPhone XS Max, just click on the links to grab individual JPGs for your own analysis:
There's something beautifully soft and arty about the Lumia 950 XL photo, but you have to agree that the 'sharpened' Galaxy S9+ shot has much more usable detail. As ever, it's not clear whether this is just the Lumia messing up low light focussing - there's always this doubt! Meanwhile the Pixel 2 XL brings out even more detail in the shadows, but at the expense of plenty of digital artefacts. While the Smart HDR on the new iPhone XS Max also manages detail in the shadows but unfortunately throws in fuzziness on straight edges that I find ugly.
Lumia 950 XL: 7 pts; Galaxy S9+: 9 pts; Pixel 2 XL: 8 pts; iPhone XS Max: 7 pts
Test 2: Dusk, River scene
I couldn't resist this river tranquil, with detail that's so distant that I couldn't really see it with the naked eye. A job for a camera phone, I think - and remember that I can't use telephoto zoom on the S9+ or iPhone because there's not enough light. Here's the scene as shot on the Lumia 950 XL:
And here are 1:1 crops from the photos shot by (in order) the Lumia 950 XL, the Samsung Galaxy S9+, the Google Pixel 2 XL, and the iPhone XS Max, just click on the links to grab individual JPGs for your own analysis:
The PureView natural look works very well here and I can't fault the Lumia 950 XL shot - oversampling at its best and no sharpening in sight. The S9+ applies too much of the latter and its detail here is a little ugly. The Pixel 2 XL and iPhone XS Max do better, with the Pixel balancing detail and artefacts nicely, and with the iPhone getting close to the Lumia, with more detail but with some noise and sharpening artefacts. I'm being picky, mind you, and all four phone cameras do well here, considering the distance and light levels. We've come a long way.
Lumia 950 XL: 10 pts; Galaxy S9+: 7 pts; Pixel 2 XL: 8 pts; iPhone XS Max: 9 pts
Test 3: Indoors, abandoned café
You'll have gathered I'm at a super-store at this point. In one section was a café, which had been closed for a couple of hours. The lighting was weedy, but the phone cameras here did a great job of bringing up detail and generally looking a lot brighter than it was to my eyes. I was focussing here on the cluster of lights at about 10m distance. Here's the scene as shot on the Lumia 950 XL:
And here are 1:1 crops from the photos shot by (in order) the Lumia 950 XL, the Samsung Galaxy S9+, the Google Pixel 2 XL, and the iPhone XS Max, just click on the links to grab individual JPGs for your own analysis:
It's pretty much the same story with this shot - the PureView oversampling on the Lumia 950 XL produces excellent purity and low noise, but the Pixel's output brings up slightly more detail at the expense of a little noise. Honours even. Meanwhile the S9+ and iPhone XS Max lag behind a little - the S9+'s extra sharpening produces edges which are hyper-real and a little artificial, while the iPhone's image processing seems like it needs tweaking by Apple still, I'm seeing fuzziness, noise and artefacts.
If I look closely. I fully expect people to ridicule this level of pixel peeping, but then the point of the exercise is to find a low light winner, and the margins of victory are going to be very small indeed!
Lumia 950 XL: 10 pts; Galaxy S9+: 9 pts; Pixel 2 XL: 10 pts; iPhone XS Max: 8 pts
Test 4: Time for a beer
Looking for a colourful and detailed fluorescent-lit display to snap, I chanced upon these ales. Here's the scene as shot on the Lumia 950 XL:
And here are 1:1 crops from the photos shot by (in order) the Lumia 950 XL, the Samsung Galaxy S9+, the Google Pixel 2 XL, and the iPhone XS Max, just click on the links to grab individual JPGs for your own analysis:
Now, this is getting a bit silly, all the shots are great. But I'm again going to be pixel-picky. There's tiny writing to be read, always a super test of camera capabilities. And the PureView Lumia 950 XL just holds off the competition here, with slightly clearer capture of the beer labelling (e.g. "Premium Ale" on the back of the Theakston). The iPhone XS Max isn't far behind, while the S9+ and Pixel 2 XL have sharpening which smudges fine detail right down at the pixel level, so they're one notch behind.
[In fact, the Lumia wins anyway here for another reason - it has a 16MP mode to choose that's independent of light levels and that would have given greater detail again. The iPhone and S9+'s telephoto lenses are bypassed in such lighting.]
Lumia 950 XL: 10 pts; Galaxy S9+: 8 pts; Pixel 2 XL: 8 pts; iPhone XS Max: 9 pts
Test 5: Dead of night
My standard night time test shot, with lit detail at 100m. Here's the scene as shot on the Lumia 950 XL:
And here are 1:1 crops from the photos shot by (in order) the Lumia 950 XL, the Samsung Galaxy S9+, the Google Pixel 2 XL, and the iPhone XS Max, just click on the links to grab individual JPGs for your own analysis:
This shot always sorts the men from the boys. At first glance the Lumia 950 XL wipes the floor with the others, but I have a confession to make - it took three tries to focus to get this phto - the usual Lumia 950 PDAF focussing issues in very low light. So I'm docking it a point for this hassle. The S9+'s and Pixel 2XL's shots are a notch down, with the S9+ being clean but full of artefacts (straight lines, greenery), while the Pixel 2 XL image is realistic but with too much noise in the shadows.
And I'm honestly not sure what the iPhone XS Max was smoking here. I'd blame focus, but it definitely said it was focus locked when shooting - and besides, the entire frame is full of this impressionist water colour nonsense. In fairness, the XS Max is by far the newest device here and is still on launch firmware, so I'm assuming that camera updates will follow shortly from Apple. My test scene certainly throws its algorithms into a tizzy.
Lumia 950 XL: 8 pts; Galaxy S9+: 7 pts; Pixel 2 XL: 7 pts; iPhone XS Max: 5 pts
Verdict
Adding up the scores gives:
- Lumia 950 XL: 45/50pts
- Pixel 2 XL: 41/50pts
- Galaxy S9+: 40/50pts
- iPhone XS Max: 38/50pts
Now, don't freak out about AAWP bias for the Lumia, the results are there before your eyes, above. It's clear that the 2015 Lumia 950 camera, with its single exposure PureView oversampling is still king in low light, even in late 2018, and even allowing for the sometimes dodgy autofocus issues. But the competition has caught up and overtaken it for other use cases, not least telephoto/zoom, as evidenced in recent shoot outs here and here. And then there's the speed issue - the 950 XL takes eight seconds to process a photo after capture (in the background, but it can be annoying), while the iPhone XS Max, Galaxy S9+ and Pixel 2 XL do their processing within a second (in the iPhone's case a fraction of a second), so there's an order of magnitude improvement in photo processing in the intervening three years.
Having said that, there's a definite air of disappointment that none of these mainstream flagships can get close to a three year old phone in low light - other Lumia 950 owners will have been waiting for something else with the same abilities. Now, there's also the Huawei P20 Pro, which has had plenty of updates since my tests earlier in the year again the Lumia 950 XL and 1020. This is definitely on my radar for a re-test, and if any Android phone can get close to the Lumias in low light then it's this one....