As a mac user choosing a new phone should be simple right? Not if you’re really looking for a camera with a phone attached. After a little research I plumped to go Android and the Sony Z3, but I was curious about how it compares to the iPhone 6 ‘in the field’. Thanks to my friends at Three I was given the chance to put it to the test…

Set up : Image shot with Sony Z3

The set up.

Each phone was placed on the tripod
Cameras were triggered remotely to avoid shake.
The phones were tilted slightly to get the subject, the church, centre frame in each shot.
No editing was applied to the images prior to this post

iPhone 6 : Click to Enlarge

Sony z3 : Click to Enlarge

On uploading the images I was surprised by the colour temperature differences between the two images. The other obvious difference is the wide angle lens on the Sony capturing a great deal more of the scene.

On Closer Inspection…

Again, no adjustments have been made apart from the crop. The branches on the Z3 image are sharper and more defined and the shadpws in the front larger window have a little more definition, as too does the brickwork.

Image Size

No surprise that there’s more detail really, the Z3 is packing a tidy 23megapixel camera while the iPhone 6 sports an 8 megapixel iSight camera.

Sony : 5248 pixels x 3936pixels — iPhone 6 : 3264 pixels x 244 pixels

Sony Z3 and iPhone 6

Bells and Whistles

The Sony comes with bespoke apps for it’s camera, some of them I love (see Background Blur With Sony Z3) but the wealth of great iOS apps drowns them out. Then there’s the working eco-system. Switching to an Android phone was a struggle, working as I do with a Macbook Pro and iPad.  So, its decision time…

What I’m faced with is a choice of a better camera (in my opinion) with the Z3 or the workflow ease of the iPhone. There are some compromises, Sony Bridge supports iPhoto, iTunes and the mac workspace but it is a compromise and isn’t as fluid as I would like, or have been used to.

So, my choice?

My day to day phone has become the iPhone 6 but the Z3 remains with me as part of my phoneography kit. If I had to ditch 1, I hate to say it, the iPhone would go. I’d sacrifice the workflow for that camera, and the 4K video camera… or would I? Yes… no… arrrhhhh maybe… dammit!!

While I was Out

When I went to take the comparison photos my son came with me, he happens to have an iPhone 5s. In my phoneography kit was an iPhone 4S, so we popped them on the tripod to compare too. Not very scientific, these phones have been through the mill a little, but for fun, here’s the results;

(Unlike the main images above, these images have been reduced in size for quicker loading)

iPhone 4S

iPhone 5S

Huge thanks the Three for making this post possible!