I Spent $10K on DSLR Camera Gear. You Can Just Buy a Pixel 7 Pro - CNET

When I heard Google boast astir the Pixel 7 Pro smartphone's "pro-level zoom" and asseverate that the phone's photography features tin situation accepted cameras, my ears pricked up. I'm 1 of those superior photographers who hauls astir a bulky camera and a clump of lenses, but I emotion smartphone photography too, truthful I decided to trial those claims.

At its October motorboat event, Google touted the Pixel 7 Pro's telephoto zoom for magnifying distant subjects, its Tensor G2-powered AI processing, its faster Night Sight for low-light scenes and a caller macro quality for closeup photos. "It cleverly combines state-of-the-art hardware, bundle and instrumentality learning to make astonishing zoom photos crossed immoderate magnification," Pixel camera hardware main Alexander Schiffhauer said astatine the phone's motorboat event.

As you mightiness imagine, I got amended results from my "real" camera equipment, which would outgo $10,000 if purchased caller today. Even though my Canon 5D Mark IV is present 6 years old, it's hard to bushed a large representation sensor and large lenses erstwhile it comes to color, sharpness, item and a wide dynamic scope spanning agleam and acheronian tones.

But the Pixel 7 Pro's photographic flexibility challenges my camera setup amended than immoderate different telephone I've used, adjacent outperforming my DSLR successful immoderate circumstances and earning a "stellar" rating from CNET exertion Andrew Lanxon. While my camera and 4 lenses capable a full backpack, Google's smartphone fits successful my pocket. And of people that $900 smartphone lets maine stock a selfie, cheque my email, wage for the groceries and tackle the regular crossword puzzle.

With the dependable yearly betterment successful smartphone camera hardware and representation processing, a smartphone isn't conscionable a better-than-nothing camera. These small slices of electronics are progressively capable to nail important shots and unfastened up caller originative possibilities for those who are discovering the rewards of photography.

I'll support hauling my DSLR connected hikes and household outings. But due to the fact that I won't ever person it with me, the Pixel 7 Pro -- successful peculiar its zoom and low-light abilities -- means I won't beryllium arsenic disquieted astir missing the changeable erstwhile I don't.

My Canon 5D Mark IV, which costs $2,700 caller these days, astir often has the $1,900 Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L II USM lens mounted. I besides usage the $2,400 EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM for telephoto shots, the $1,300 ultrawide EF 16-35mm f/4L IS USM zoom, the $1,300 EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM for closeups, and the $429 Extender EF 1.4X III for much telephoto scope erstwhile photographing birds. Here's however that cogwheel stacks up against the Pixel 7 Pro's 0.5x ultrawide, 1x main camera and 5x telephoto camera.

Google Pixel 7 Pro vs. Canon 5D Mark IV, main camera

With plentifulness of light, the Pixel 7 Pro's 24mm main camera does a bully occupation capturing colour and item successful its 12-megapixel images. Check the comparisons present (and enactment that my DSLR shoots successful a much elongated 3:2 facet ratio than the Pixel 7 Pro's 4:3).

Pixel peeping shows the telephone can't clasp a candle to my 30-megapixel DSLR erstwhile it comes to detail. If you're printing posters oregon request a batch of item for photograph editing, a modern DSLR oregon mirrorless camera is worthy it. But 12 megapixels is plentifulness for astir purposes. Check the beneath cropped images to spot what's going connected up close.

Google missed a accidental to sprout adjacent higher solution photos than my 30-megapixel DSLR, though. The Pixel 7 Pro's main camera has a 50-megapixel sensor. It takes 12-megapixel photos utilizing an attack called pixel binning that combines each 2x2 pixel radical connected the sensor into 1 efficaciously larger pixel. That means amended colour and low-light show erstwhile shooting astatine 24mm. But you tin usage those 50 megapixels otherwise by skipping the pixel binning and shooting successful the sensor's afloat solution erstwhile there's capable light. That's precisely what Apple does with the iPhone 14 Pro camera, and I privation Google did the same.

DSLR vs. Pixel 7 Pro, telephoto cameras

Telephoto lenses magnify much distant subjects, and the Pixel 7 Pro has a singular scope for a smartphone. Its sensors tin sprout astatine 2x, 5x and 10x zoom modes with minimal processing trickery. It'll sprout astatine intermediate settings with assorted combinations of cropping and multi-camera representation compositing that I find reasonably convincing. Then it reaches up to 30x with Google's AI-infused upscaling technology, called Super Res Zoom. Here's the aforesaid country changeable crossed the Pixel 7 Pro's afloat scope from supertelephoto 30x to ultrawide 0.5x:

The Pixel 7 Pro's zoom scope reaches from 0.5x to 10x shooting astatine the autochthonal solution of its 3 cameras, past extends to 30x with Google's representation processing technology. That's an equivalent of 12mm to 720mm successful accepted full-frame camera terms.

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The representation prime is beauteous atrocious by the clip you scope 30x zoom, an equivalent of 720mm. But adjacent my costly DSLR cogwheel lone reaches 560mm maximum, and venturing beyond 10x connected the Pixel 7 Pro tin beryllium justified successful galore circumstances. Not each photograph has to beryllium bully capable prime to marque an 8x10 print.

Bigger telephoto photography

Telephoto lenses are big, which is wherefore those pro photographers astatine NFL games haul astir monopods to enactment their hulking optics. Canon's RF 400mm f/2.8 L IS USM lens, fashionable connected the sidelines, weighs much than six pounds, measures much than 14 inches long, and costs much than my full postulation of cameras and lenses. My Canon 100-400mm zoom is smaller and cheaper but doesn't fto successful arsenic overmuch light, but it's inactive gargantuan compared with the Pixel 7 Pro. I'm delighted to beryllium capable to seizure utile telephoto shots connected a Pixel phone, an enactment that antecedently was disposable lone connected rival Android phones from Samsung and others. 

Google exploits the Pixel 7 Pro's 50-megapixel main camera sensor for the archetypal measurement up the telephoto lens ladder, a 2x zoom level bully for portraits. The Pixel 7 Pro uses conscionable the cardinal 12 megapixels to seizure a 12-megapixel photograph successful 2x telephoto mode, an equivalent focal magnitude of 48mm.

The dedicated telephoto camera kicks successful astatine 5x zoom, an equivalent of 120mm. Instead of a bulky telephoto protuberance, Google uses a prism to crook airy 90 degrees truthful the indispensable lens magnitude and 48-megapixel representation sensor tin beryllium tucked sideways wrong the Pixel 7 Pro's thicker "camera bar" section. It besides tin usage the cardinal megapixels successful its 10x mode, oregon 240mm, an enactment I deliberation is terrific. This San Francisco architectural show beneath is beauteous good:

Using AI and bundle processing to zoom further, the camera tin scope 20x and adjacent 30x zoom, which translates to 480mm and 720mm. By comparison, my DSLR reaches 560mm with my 1.4x telephoto extender.

My DSLR would person trounced the Pixel 7 Pro for this country of Bay Area fog lapping up against the Santa Cruz Mountains southbound of San Francisco, changeable determination betwixt 15x and 20x. (I privation Google would constitute zoom level metadata into photos the mode my Canon records lens focal magnitude settings.) But conjecture what? I was upland biking and didn't instrumentality my DSLR. The champion camera is the 1 you have, arsenic the saying goes.

San Francisco Bay Area fog lapping up against the Santa Cruz Mountains, photographed present astatine astir 20x zoom with the Pixel 7 Pro, is simply a utile if flawed photo.

Stephen Shankland/CNET

Back astatine 10x zoom, I was pleased with this changeable beneath of my pal Joe upland biking. I've photographed radical successful this precise spot earlier with smartphones, and this was the archetypal clip I wasn't frustrated with the results.

A Pixel 7 Pro photograph of a upland biker taken astatine 10x zoom

Stephen Shankland/CNET

Google's optics and representation processing methods are clever but not magical. The Pixel 7 Pro produces a 12-megapixel image, but the farther beyond 10x you shoot, the much you'll cringe astatine its blotchy details that look much similar a watercolor painting. That's the glass-is-half-empty view. I'm really connected the glass-is-half-full side, appreciating what you tin bash and recognizing that a batch of photos volition beryllium viewed connected smaller screens. Image prime of 10x is respectable, and that unsocial is simply a large achievement.

Here's a examination of a rooftop enactment photographed with the Pixel 7 Pro astatine 30x, oregon 720mm equivalent, and my camera astatine 560mm, but cropped successful to lucifer the phone's framing. The DSLR does better, of course. Even cropped, it's an 18-megapixel image.

Practical limits connected Pixel 7 Pro's telephoto cameras

To truly workout the phone, I toted it to spot the US Navy's Blue Angels formation show implicit San Francisco. Buildings and fog blocking my view made photography tough, but I recovered caller limitations to the Pixel 7 Pro.

Fiddling with surface controls to deed 10x oregon much zoom is slow. Framing fast-moving subjects connected a smartphone surface is hard, adjacent with the assistance of the miniature wider-angle presumption that Google pops into the country and its AI-assisted stabilization technology. Focus is besides comparatively pokey. With my DSLR, I could rapidly find the jets successful the sky, fastener focus, way them arsenic they flew and sprout a burst of shots.

I didn't get a azygous bully photograph of the Blue Angels with the Pixel 7 Pro. Google's "pro-level zoom" works overmuch amended with stationary subjects.

DSLR vs. Pixel 7 Pro, shooting successful the dark

Here's wherever the Pixel 7 Pro beats retired a vastly much costly camera. There's nary mode you tin clasp a camera dependable for 6 seconds, but Pixel phones successful effect tin acknowledgment to computational photography techniques that Google pioneered. Google takes a postulation of photos, utilizing AI to justice erstwhile your hands are astir still, past combines these idiosyncratic frames into 1 shot. It's the ground of its Night Sight feature, which I've utilized galore times and, astatine its extreme, powers an astrophotography mode I've utilized to instrumentality 4-minute exposures of the nighttime sky. 

Below is simply a examination of a nighttime country with the Pixel 7 Pro astatine 1x, wherever it's champion astatine gathering light, and my DSLR with its 24-70mm f2.8 lens. The DSLR has much item up close, but the Pixel 7 Pro does well, and its deeper extent of tract means the leaves successful the foreground aren't a smeary mess.

Here's a examination of a 2x zoom photograph with the Pixel 7 Pro and the champion I could bash handheld with my 24-70mm f2.8 lens. The longer your zoom, the harder it is to clasp a camera steady, and adjacent with my elbows connected a railing to dependable the camera, the Pixel 7 Pro changeable was vastly easier to capture. I had to crank my DSLR's sensitivity to ISO 12,800 to get the shutter velocity down to 1/8sec, and adjacent then, astir of the photos were duds. Image stabilization helps, but this lens doesn't person it.

Just for kicks, I utilized a tripod to instrumentality 3 exposure-bracketed shots with my DSLR and merged them into a azygous HDR (high dynamic range) photograph successful Adobe's Lightroom software. The longest vulnerability was 30 seconds. That's however overmuch effort it took to bushed a Night Sight photograph I took conscionable lasting determination holding the telephone for 6 seconds. Check the examination below.

Here's wherever my DSLR wholly trounced the Pixel 7 Pro, adjacent with Night Sight, though: the astir afloat moon. Here's the Pixel 7 Pro astatine 30x zoom vs. my DSLR astatine 560mm, cropped truthful the framing matches.

DSLR vs. Pixel 7 Pro, ultrawide

Google made the ultrawide lens connected the Pixel 7 Pro an adjacent wider tract of presumption compared with past year. What you similar is simply a substance of idiosyncratic preference, but I admit the melodramatic position that you tin seizure with a precise wide angle. When I don't request it, the 24mm main camera inactive qualifies arsenic wide angle.

Here's a examination of a country changeable with the Pixel 7 Pro and my DSLR's 16-35mm ultrawide zoom.

DSLR vs. PIxel 7 Pro, macro

The caller ultrawide camera present has autofocus hardware, and that opens up the satellite of macro photography for close-up subjects. Apple's iPhone Pro models got this quality successful 2021, and I've loved macro photos for years arsenic a mode to sprout flowers, mushrooms, toys and different tiny subjects, truthful I'm delighted to spot it connected the higher-end Pixel phones.

As with the iPhone, though, the macro is utile arsenic agelong arsenic the taxable fits successful the cardinal information of the frame. Note successful this examination beneath however blurred the representation gets toward the periphery of this butterfly coaster with the Pixel 7 Pro.

No, it's not arsenic bully arsenic my DSLR. But with macro abilities, Night Sight and a zoom scope from ultrawide to ace telephoto, the Pixel 7 Pro is much than conscionable utile for snapshots. It lets you commencement exploring a overmuch bigger portion of photography's originative realm.