Published by Steve Litchfield at 11:16 UTC, September 24th 2017

Possibly the sternest test the Lumia 950 XL has ever had in the phone camera world, I'm genuinely afraid for its crown as we head into a showdown with the very latest Apple iPhone, the 8 Plus, with dual cameras, including a genuine 2x zoom, hardware-driven noise reduction and a truly powerful ISP to combine images and generally deliver 'perfect' shots. Can the two year old Lumia compete?

The iPhone 8 Plus takes the best of physical optics - twin cameras, one of which is telephoto - and the best of computational photography, with noise reduction and multi-frame techniques, and puts it all together with love and care. Remember that some of Nokia's PureView talent went to Apple and that the latter's imaging team is many hundreds of people. At which point you shouldn't be surprised that this particular camera head to head is going to be the closest yet.

The iPhone 8 Plus only offers a 12MP 4:3 mode, so effectively 9MP when looking at 16:9, meaning that I chose to shoot at 8MP on the Lumia 950 XL - I do like to match up resolutions as best possible so that I can use Rafe's fancy interactive comparator, below.

The iPhone actually captures the photos in HEIC format, but they're exported from the phone as low compression/high quality JPGs, which is what I'm looking at here. Also, some of the test shots were also snapped with the optional 'live photos' turned on, adding to the byte size, should you grab any of the original JPGs...

The fields of view of the two phone cameras were very different, I've tried to centre crops on the same detail where possible, for ease of comparison.

All photos were taken on full 'auto' on both phones, unless stated otherwise.

Obviously, there's the potential here to slant the comparison towards the iPhone by deliberately using the zoom all the time, but I've tried to use zoom with restraint. Plus, after all, the PureView zoom on the 950 XL is also there, albeit not at a full 2x. Finally, in low light, the 2x zoom lens isn't used by the iPhone, the software defaults to digital zoom on the main camera, which is the one with large aperture and OIS. Complicated, isn't it?!

Let’s start snapping and pit the results against each other, using our Famed Interactive Comparator (FIC). All 1:1 crops are at 900x500 for comparison, but see the links for full versions.

Note that the interactive comparator below uses javascript and does need to load each pair of images. Please be patient while this page loads, if you see a pair of images above each other than you've either not waited long enough or your browser isn't capable enough! You ideally need a powerful, large-screened tablet or a proper laptop or desktop. This comparator may not work in some browsers. Sorry about that. On Windows 10 Mobile, use the 'AAWP Universal' UWP app, which handles the comparator very competently (see the tips in the app's help screens).

Test 1: Sunny scene

My standard suburban comparison and, for once, the sun was shining. Here is the whole scene, as presented by the Lumia 950:





In case you want to grab the original images to do your own analysis, here they are, from the Lumia 950 XL and iPhone 8 Plus, click the links to download. And to look at the images in more detail, here are fairly central 1:1 crops, just wait to make sure the page has fully loaded and then use your mouse or trackpad pointer to compare the images:

There's not a lot to choose between the two photos - as you'd expect in great lighting. The iPhone 8 Plus's shot definitely looks more 'processed'/sharpened, but you have to know what to look for. And, down at the pixel level, to be this close makes little difference for end users looking at the whole photo. Still, with my purist's hat on, I'm going to give the Lumia 950 Xl the win here by a nose.

Microsoft Lumia 950 XL: 10 pts; Apple iPhone 8 Plus: 9 pts

Test 2: Sunny scene, zoomed

Having said that I wasn't going to over-do zooming, let's at least start with a zoom, given the perfect lighting conditions. Here's the same scene, but zoomed at roughly 2x. I say 'roughly' because there's no exact detent on the Lumia 950 XL UI, so you have to guess to some degree.

In case you want to grab the original images to do your own analysis, here they are, from the Lumia 950 XL and iPhone 8 Plus, click the links to download. And to look at the images in more detail, here are fairly central 1:1 crops, just wait to make sure the page has fully loaded and then use your mouse or trackpad pointer to compare the images:

You'll remember from my zoom article that the Lumia 950 XL can zoom losslessly by 1.5x when in this 8MP mode. But I'm asking 2x here, meaning that there's going to be some lossy digital zoom too. Thus the iPhone 8 Plus's 2x zoomed shot from its dedicated lens produces the clearer shot now, with the 950 XL taking a turn at producing a 'processed' (as in blocky/fuzzy) image. Just look at the edges and fine detail and you'll see what I mean.

Microsoft Lumia 950 XL: 8 pts; Apple iPhone 8 Plus: 10 pts



Test 3: Low light scene, zoomed

Staing with zoom (sorry!), and having established the suburban detail above, I wanted to throw in the exact same test but in very low light, here taken just before sunrise. It was much darker than the images make it seem, it's the magic of OIS that allows both phone cameras to bring out the detail here. Anyway, something of an ultimate light gathering exercise - the iPhone 8 Plus went down to 1/4s exposure, while the Lumia 950 XL went to 1/10s but with four times the ISO etc.

In case you want to grab the original images to do your own analysis, here they are, from the Lumia 950 XL and iPhone 8 Plus, click the links to download. And to look at the images in more detail, here are fairly central 1:1 crops, just wait to make sure the page has fully loaded and then use your mouse or trackpad pointer to compare the images:

Now this is interesting - and expected. The iPhone 8 Plus doesn't have OIS on its zoom lens, so it knows that the only way to get zoom in low light is to rely on the main, stabilised lens and use traditional digital (interpolative) zoom. As a result, the Lumia 950 XL's image, even though slightly digitally zoomed itself, is noticeably cleaner and more detailed. [Note that the iPhone X, due out in a couple of months, has OIS on both lenses and will do a lot better here. More on that in November!]

Microsoft Lumia 950 XL: 9 pts; Apple iPhone 8 Plus: 7 pts



Test 4: Shady detail

Good lighting and an old church door that caught my eye from around 25m. No zooming this time, just old fashioned snap and detail. Here is the whole scene, as presented by the Lumia 950:





In case you want to grab the original images to do your own analysis, here they are, from the Lumia 950 XL and iPhone 8 Plus, click the links to download. And to look at the images in more detail, here are fairly central 1:1 crops, just wait to make sure the page has fully loaded and then use your mouse or trackpad pointer to compare the images:

As with the first suburban shot, the 950 XL's PureView oversampling and image processing work well to give great and genuine detail (e.g. inside the door 'frame'), while the iPhone 8 Plus does well but ultimately has just too much contrast and sharpening added.

Microsoft Lumia 950 XL: 10 pts; Apple iPhone 8 Plus: 9 pts

Test 5: Clock zoom

I can't resist using that tempting iPhone 8 Plus 2x zoom again, especially since the sun's out and it will definitely be employed. Here is the whole unzoomed scene, as presented by the Lumia 950:





In case you want to grab the original images to do your own analysis, here they are, from the Lumia 950 XL and iPhone 8 Plus, click the links to download. And to look at the images in more detail, here are fairly central 1:1 crops, just wait to make sure the page has fully loaded and then use your mouse or trackpad pointer to compare the images:

This is playing utterly to the iPhone 8 Plus's strengths, of course, but having real, optical 2x zoom is just a pleasure. And shown off well here, with the iPhone's photo almost perfect, while the Lumia 950 XL has to dip into lossy zoom territory (always a bad thing) and the result is an artefact-strewn, over-exposed mess. Oh well. Low light is coming and the Lumia's time to shine will arrive, below. Hopefully!

Microsoft Lumia 950 XL: 6 pts; Apple iPhone 8 Plus: 9 pts

Test 6: Indoor flowers

A nice flower arrangement, lit indoors by artificial (fluorescent) light. Here is the whole scene, as presented by the Lumia 950:





In case you want to grab the original images to do your own analysis, here they are, from the Lumia 950 XL and iPhone 8 Plus, click the links to download. And to look at the images in more detail, here are fairly central 1:1 crops, just wait to make sure the page has fully loaded and then use your mouse or trackpad pointer to compare the images:

The iPhone 8 Plus camera may indeed be backed by massive processing power, but its result looks artificial here, down at the pixel level, while the 950 XL's photo looks AMAZINGLY real. Just my opinion, but your comments welcome too. This is down to the combination of still-cutting edge OIS, PureView oversampling and ZEISS lenses. I expected this test shot to come out equally, but the Lumia's photo detail has blown me away.

Microsoft Lumia 950 XL: 10 pts; Apple iPhone 8 Plus: 8 pts

Test 7: Party time!

My famous mocked up evening party shot, with me creating the exact same movement under low light and with flash enabled on the phone camera, with the phones on a tripod on self-timer (I didn't want to entrust this to human/family error!) Here is the whole scene, as presented by the Lumia 950:





In case you want to grab the original images to do your own analysis, here they are, from the Lumia 950 XL and iPhone 8 Plus, click the links to download. And to look at the images in more detail, here are fairly central 1:1 crops, just wait to make sure the page has fully loaded and then use your mouse or trackpad pointer to compare the images:

While the iPhone 8 Plus does a good job of capturing the scene as a whole, you can see from the crops above that there's significant blurring of movement in the scene - while the 950 XL's extra bright flash and multi-frame flash algorithm manages to get much closer to what a standalone camera would have achieved. You can even see some individual hairs on my hand holding the glass, plus wrinkles (ahem), while the pixel level detail is just image-processed fuzz from the iPhone. Sorry, Apple, on this one. You have yet to nail moving subjects in low light...

Microsoft Lumia 950 XL: 8 pts; Apple iPhone 8 Plus: 6 pts

Test 8: Night time

A lit path on a dark night, a test of focussing and light gathering. Here is the whole scene, as presented by the Lumia 950:





In case you want to grab the original images to do your own analysis, here they are, from the Lumia 950 XL and iPhone 8 Plus, click the links to download. And to look at the images in more detail, here are fairly central 1:1 crops, just wait to make sure the page has fully loaded and then use your mouse or trackpad pointer to compare the images:

Both phone cameras went for roughly a 1/4s exposure (thanks to OIS!) but the Lumia's image is dramatically less noisy, thanks to the PureView oversampling and a physically larger sensor. Apple, in theory, has hardware-based noise reduction, but I'm not seeing the results from this here. Critics will say that 'oh, you're expecting too much from a phone camera', but I'd reply 'but phone cameras CAN cope with this sort of scene and they've been doing so successfully ever since the Lumia 950 range was released at the end of 2015!'...

It's not just noise, either. Look at the car on the right of the crop, it's almost invisible on the iPhone 8 Plus photo.

Microsoft Lumia 950 XL: 9 pts; Apple iPhone 8 Plus: 6 pts

Test 9: Wild fair

A wild-card fling of a phone camera test - flashing lights at night down at the fair - all rather extreme but even a geek has to have some fun!! Here is the whole scene, as presented by the Lumia 950:





In case you want to grab the original images to do your own analysis, here they are, from the Lumia 950 XL and iPhone 8 Plus, click the links to download. And to look at the images in more detail, here are fairly central 1:1 crops, just wait to make sure the page has fully loaded and then use your mouse or trackpad pointer to compare the images:

A tough shot for both to pull off and the iPhone 8 Plus just manages a win here, with its focus more accurate and with the sharpening algorithms able to pull out more detail in this man-made/artificial scene. In contrast (pun intended), the Lumia 950 XL's shot is very good but there's a sense (as there often is at night) that the focussing of the lens system wasn't quite right.

Microsoft Lumia 950 XL: 8 pts; Apple iPhone 8 Plus: 9 pts

Test 10: Stained glass zoom

Here's a good example of where zoom is needed and with tricky lighting. In this church interior, I couldn't get closer to this stained glass window because the altar area was roped off. So I shot the window from the side with 2x zoom on each phone. Here is the whole (zoomed) scene, as presented by the Lumia 950:





In case you want to grab the original images to do your own analysis, here they are, from the Lumia 950 XL and iPhone 8 Plus, click the links to download. And to look at the images in more detail, here are fairly central 1:1 crops, just wait to make sure the page has fully loaded and then use your mouse or trackpad pointer to compare the images:

Although both phone cameras struggled with exposure and dynamic range here, the iPhone 8 Plus had enough light to use its zoom lens and the result is more detail - and also better colours, with the Lumia turning the monk's brown habit (on the left of the crop) to royal purple. Oops. This is a good example of, whatever negatives I've brought up above, how the iPhone 8 range's image processing does get colours right more often than almost anything else, while the Lumia range, for all its imaging positives, can sometimes throw up something of a curve ball in terms of colours, with skin turning yellow and - here - rich colours changing hue entirely.

Microsoft Lumia 950 XL: 6 pts; Apple iPhone 8 Plus: 9 pts

--------------------------

Verdict

As usual, adding up the points gives us a feel for how the two phone cameras did:

Lumia 950 XL: 84/100pts iPhone 8 Plus: 82/100pts

I promise that this isn't a 'fix', by the way. In fact, I had nine test cases and the 8 Plus was too far behind in terms of how I felt about the capability of its cameras, so I added a tenth (the clock zoom test, no.5 above) to give its principal selling point another chance to 'shine'. I'm kind that way. And the 950 XL still came out on top, though not by much.

The preceding paragraph tells the story of the iPhone 8 Plus camera, really. If you like to use the 2x zoom lens a lot (and in good lighting) then it's the best phone camera in the world bar none. (Well, since the Samsung Galaxy K Zoom!) Away from the zoom use case, it's simply another very good modern phone camera, along the lines of the Google Pixel and Samsung Galaxy S8. Which is to say that images are excellent as long as you stay in reasonable light and don't crop down to pixel level. Plus the dual camera design on this Plus model does mean that special computational effects like the rather effective 'portrait' mode are possible, also a possible reason to choose this model over a single lensed design, if that's what you're into.

But in terms of straight out photos with high image quality (IQ) the Lumia 950 range still reigns supreme as the 'all in one' phone camera, in my view. It's demonstrably not perfect - odd colour renditions sometimes, unreliable focus in very low light, poor digital zoom algorithm. Yet, test case after test case, it's still manages to pip everything else to the post, even two years after launch.

As I've said often, the competition is always catching up. The Nokia 808 PureView was five years ahead of its time but hampered by an OS that had already been proclaimed End Of Life. The Lumia 1020 was also arguably years ahead, but hampered by the use of an old chipset and no dedicated ISP. But the Lumia 950 and 950 XL had reasonably current chipsets and refined versions of most (though not all) of the tech that had gone into the 808 and 1020. Which is why the 950 devices have 'lasted' longer in terms of imaging relevance here on AAWP.

I'm pretty sure the £1000 Apple iPhone X camera (dual OIS) will finally - just - topple the Lumia 950 XL, and I'll test that soon enough. But in the meantime, the classic WIndows 10 Mobile flagship remains on top of the heap. Whatever DxOMark might say*.

Your comments?

____________

* DxOMark, which likes to proclaim itself the self-styled standard tester of phone cameras, never did test the Lumia 950. Ever. Which is ironic, considering that it's consistently missed the one device that would trump everything else in its list, at least for pure IQ. There are question marks over its methodologies though, plus there are serious questions about its impartiality over the years - it does seem that the manufacturer that cosies up to DxOMark every few months is the one that gets the best shot at 'top phone camera' for that period (hint: they've spent a lot of time working with a company in Cupertino over the summer)...