The Sony Xperia 1 Review: A 21:9 Take of the World

Camera - Low Light Evaluation

[ Xperia 1 ] - [ S10+ (E) ] - [ S10+ (S) ]
[ P30 Pro ] - [ G8 ] - [ Pixel 3 ] - [ iPhone XS ]

In the first shot here, it’s a typical situation where a camera which only has a certain level of limited dynamic range, has to choose between exposing between the darker parts or the highlights of the scene. The Xperia 1 chose to go for exposing more for the shadows which has the adverse effect of really blowing out the highlights.

Unfortunately Sony here can’t compete with other phones which just have better and wider dynamic range processing – for example Apple’s iPhone XS manages a significantly better result.

The phone is already bottom barrel as it is, however against phones with dedicated night modes it’s no longer much of a competition.

On the wide-angle the dynamic range is still bad, however Sony’s detail preservation as well as noise reduction is top notch, while other phones end up with quite blurred out and ugly noise reduction.

[ Xperia 1 ] - [ S10+ (E) ] - [ S10+ (S) ]
[ P30 Pro ] - [ G8 ] - [ Pixel 3 ] - [ iPhone XS ]

In more artificially lit scenarios such as this one, the composition differences between the phones are relatively small. The biggest difference remains detail, and notice how the Xperia manages to preserve the dirt on the foreground wall.

The wide angle continues to show a dynamic range weakness and it blows out highlights too much.

[ Xperia 1 ] - [ S10+ (E) ] - [ S10+ (S) ]
[ P30 Pro ] - [ G8 ] - [ Pixel 3 ] - [ iPhone XS ]

This scene was a disaster for the Xperia 1 as the stabilisation didn’t manage to get a clear shot and there’s lots of blurring due to longer exposures both on the main and wide angle. It’s a pretty bad result.

[ Xperia 1 ] - [ S10+ (E) ] - [ S10+ (S) ]
[ P30 Pro ] - [ G8 ] - [ Pixel 3 ] - [ iPhone XS ]

Here we also see the phone struggling with dynamic range and it’s just not able to get sufficient light into the sensor.

[ Xperia 1 ] - [ S10+ (E) ] - [ S10+ (S) ]
[ P30 Pro ][ G8 ] - [ Pixel 3 ] - [ iPhone XS ]

In dim indoor light, the phone still struggles to get much light in, so while details are alright, the exposure isn’t sufficient. The competition’s night modes are just way ahead.

[ Xperia 1 ] - [ S10+ (E) ] - [ S10+ (S) ]
[ P30 Pro ] - [ G8 ] - [ Pixel 3 ] - [ iPhone XS ]

Finally while in extreme low light, even though goes into a special mode, it seems to be all that this does is capture longer exposures, and there’s not too much in way of computational photography.

Low-light Camera Conclusion

While the Xperia 1 has good noise reduction and detail preservation, its lack of dynamic range is extremely evident in low light as it just can’t deal with many scenarios as well as the competition can. The phone actually performs worse than the iPhone XS which is a bad place to be at, as it means that the device definitely can’t keep up with other Android devices which have developed their computational photography capabilities.