Camera test: The phone with the best Portrait mode

Introduction

Sell your proper camera gear, phones can take portraits just as well already. This has been a popular claim to put in catchy headlines for the past couple of years, only to be totally debunked in the actual article or at the very least watered down with a whole bunch of ifs.

We've lined up the industry's cameraphone heavyweights - iPhone XS Max, Galaxy Note9, Huawei Mate 20 Pro, LG V40 ThinQ, OnePlus 6T, Galaxy S9, Google Pixel 3 to see how good phones have become in capturing portrait photos with defocused background. We'll also be taking some shots with a full-frame DSLR - the Nikon D750 - just to put things into perspective.

It's been 2+ years since Apple made the Portrait mode mainstream with the iPhone 7 Plus. In those years we've seen a number of different ways to do things - there's the Apple way with a telephoto-based setup that shoots the portraits with the long lens and uses the wide angle lens for depth detection. Then there's the (generally not as successful, and not as common) implementation with a wide angle camera for the portraits and an ultra wide angle for gathering depth data.

More affordable phones have meanwhile relied on one actual camera to take pics, and another, lower-res one, solely for depth detection. This has allowed makers to offer the all-important portrait mode while keeping costs down. These, however, will be outside the scope of this article, as we're shooting to see how the best of the best can cope with the task at hand.

Next to all these multi-module portrait shooters, there's the Pixel 3. Google has insisted on making single-camera portraits by aiding dual-pixel sensor hardware with subject recognition in software and the results have been 'wow' more often than not. Imagine what they could do with two cameras.

Being the firmly planted in the now folks that we are, we figured we'd leave the future alone. We rounded up a selection of high-end phones we have at the office and took them on a portrait shoot. A DSLR with a fast 50mm lens keeps them company - for reference purposes.

Who's playing?

The iPhone XS Max is here, the latest generation in the lineup that made everyone else want to have some sort of blurred-background portrait mode. This is the original implementation with a telephoto lens - a 52mm equivalent is a bit short for portraiture if you're coming from the SLR world, but it's about as long as most smartphones go today. The wider main cam is the sidekick in this scenario, providing depth information.

The Galaxy Note9 uses the same formula and a lot of similar (if not the exact same) hardware. The secondary 52mm equivalent cam takes the picture, while the wide angle one gathers depth data.

It's a bit more complex on the Huawei Mate 20 Pro. It's got a telephoto camera too, and this one has the longest lens of the bunch - an 81mm equivalent. When it takes portraits, however, it isn't using that and shots taken at the '3x' setting aren't up to scratch in terms of sharpness, even if the perspective and shooting distance is just right.

The LG V40 ThinQ, itself packing three cameras, uses the standard wide angle one for taking portraits, even though it's got a telephoto one. The advantage of this is that you're going to get better pictures in dimmer conditions, but the flipside is that wide angle portraits aren't as flattering to your subject compared to ones taken at longer focal lengths. And if you have the telephoto lens, why not use it?

The OnePlus 6T doesn't have a telephoto module, but it does have two cameras. It uses the primary 16MP one for taking the photo and the secondary (mind you, higher-res) 20MP unit for gathering depth data.

Next comes the Samsung Galaxy S9, the small one. It's only got the one camera with a 26mm equivalent lens, and relies on its dual pixel sensor to pick up clues what's close and what's far in the scene - that's why it takes an extra second to capture a portrait in the S9's selective focus mode. It's got one severe limitation, though - your subject needs to be within 50cm of the phone.

There's no such requirement on the only other single-camera phone in this contest, the Google Pixel 3. Even so, its portraits are indeed zoomed in from the usual 27mm equivalent that the lens provides. Google relies on machine learning to determine what's foreground and what's background and then augments that with depth data from the dual pixel sensor to provide varying amounts of blur depending on the relative distances.

For a reference camera we'll be using the Nikon D750 with the Nikkor 50mm f/1.8G lens - a midrange full-frame DSLR with a nifty-fifty attached. Serious portrait photographers will likely lean towards a faster and longer lens, but we do want to give these phones a standing chance, right?

Let's look at some portraits now, shall we?

Scene 1

We're starting off with a scene where our model (he doesn't often get called that) is leaning against a wall and the photo is being taken at an angle. The idea is to check out how the different algorithms handle the roll off of the blur as the distance increases, and if and how much any of the phones will try and blur the wall in front of the plane of focus.

Looking at the telephoto implementations and the Pixel 3's pseudo-tele images, we can see that the Note9 applies the least amount of background blur. The iPhone's background progressively melts away, but at the default setting the effect isn't as strong as that from the Pixel, which is also the most dependent on distance.

The Pixel is also the only phone that applies blur to the section of the wall that's in the foreground, but the wall should be sharp where the plane of focus intersects is, and it's not the case with the Pixel's image - so it is a bit overdone, in fact.

The wide angle portraits immediately strike with their very different perspective, and in the case of the S9, we couldn't quite replicate the framing because of the proximity requirement of its 'Selective focus' mode. And since we're on the S9, let's just say that it doesn't really bother much with depth detection, instead, it keeps the face sharp and blurs the rest.

The V40, Mate 20 Pro and OnePlus 6T apply progressively more blur the further the background goes, and the effect is the strongest on the Mate. It also applies some amount of vignetting by default, even if you've disabled its light effects, drawing the eyes towards the center of the frame.

It's worth mentioning that all phones did a great job isolating the subject's head from the background, but oddly enough, not all managed to properly separate the clothes - the hood proved particularly troublesome.

Scene 1: D750+50/1.8G • iPhone XS Max • Galaxy Note9 • Pixel 3

Scene 1: V40 ThinQ • Mate 20 Pro • OnePlus 6T • Galaxy S9

Scene 2

For this second scene we threw in some Christmas lights in the background to examine how the portrait modes will render those - that's one area where just blurring things doesn't get you close to the real deal. On top of that, Angie's hair is infinitely more challenging than the well-defined outline of our first test subject, and it shows.

Christmas lights first. We'd say the iPhone is the undisputed king in this respect producing the nicest bokeh balls of the bunch - even the reflections of the LEDs in the table top are rendered as big circles of defocused goodness (well, simulated, but still). And that's at the iPhone's default simulated aperture of f/4.5 - pick a lower f-number and they grow bigger.

Interestingly enough, it's the OnePlus 6T that's done the second most pleasing rendition of those. Meanwhile, the Galaxies draw them as a general mushiness of light, and the Pixel has completely obliterated them into an abyss of blur - you can't really tell there are lights in there at all.

None of the phones has done a perfect job of rendering the hair, and all have failed one way or the other. The most difficult bit is in the left of the frame where her hair is set against the wood panelling of the wall and the phones are at a loss when and where to start blurring.

Scene 2: D750+50/1.8G • iPhone XS Max • Galaxy Note9 • Pixel 3

Scene 2: V40 ThinQ • Mate 20 Pro • OnePlus 6T • Galaxy S9

Scene 3

The idea behind the third scene was to have more distracting objects in the background to try and confuse the algorithms into thinking they're part of the subject. We were shooting for hair extensions from the dry plant in the back to complement the already bush of a hairstyle of the subject, and possibly create issues with the shelves running behind the head.

Due to framing limitations imposed by the varying focal lengths and concepts we couldn't strictly replicate the same challenges for all phones, but it is what it is.

The iPhone's take on the shrub challenge is mostly successful, aided in no small part by Apple's way of handling portraits in the first place - render a sharp oval in the middle of the face and gradually blur away as you move out. That makes the hair-or-twig conundrum easier to handle as the hair is already pretty blurry in that area. It is a bit shaky, however, with the jaw line where skin and beard meet shelf.

The Note9 has done better with the shelf, but is running into problems with the hair where it fails to recognize the mostly flat color of the background (so it doesn't really-really need to blur it) and makes a bit of a mess with unruly strands cutting them into blur at arbitrary lengths. Even so, it was able to tell the plant in the background isn't part of the subject. The Pixel wasn't fooled by the plant either, plus it did a much better job with the hair, though it got oddly bested by a green leaf on the side. It had no issues with the shelves.

The wide ones all did fine with the hair, the S9 actually being slightly superior at that than its fellow Galaxy. Minor imperfections at the shelf-to-face border can be observed on all when examined up close, but there are no outright blunders.

Scene 3: D750+50/1.8G • iPhone XS Max • Galaxy Note9 • Pixel 3

Scene 3: V40 ThinQ • Mate 20 Pro • OnePlus 6T • Galaxy S9

Scene 4

We devised Scene 4 to test how the portrait modes would handle objects that are in the same plane of focus as the main subject. With actual optics, those should be in sharp focus as well, but if the software is tuned to find a face, keep it sharp, and then mostly blur the rest, the results would be different.

This ended up being the case with the iPhone XS Max, just as we suspected. We understand the drive behind that - you want nothing to distract from the person's face. Even so, provisions should be made in the software to account for uncommon cases like this one, no?

The only other phone that got fooled was the Galaxy S9, though it did so in a really weird way. The concrete column is half sharp, half blurred, what's that about?

Scene 4: D750+50/1.8G • iPhone XS Max • Galaxy Note9 • Pixel 3

Scene 4: V40 ThinQ • Mate 20 Pro • OnePlus 6T • Galaxy S9

Scene 5

In a fleeting moment of just barely passable weather we went outside to grab another set of shots to illustrate how the phones handle another challenge. You see, they can all lock onto a face, but what if there are distractions, like the person has a pair of sunglasses on their head, or what if they're talking on the phone - or what if both, clearly.

No phone of this bunch managed to properly blur the background in the gap formed between the arm holding the phone, though the Note9 and the Mate 20 Pro are on to something. The iPhone and the OnePlus 6T are clueless, and the Pixel hasn't done much better either. The S9 with its arbitrary haze of a blur has blurred the gap, but also the vast majority of the subject that isn't a face, so it doesn't count.

On to the sunglasses, and this is a perfect scene to illustrate a very important point with these portrait modes. The results vary a lot from shot to shot - sometimes the frame will be sharp, sometimes it'll blend with the background. The takeaway is to grab multiple shots if you have the chance - that way you'll be more likely to end up with a convincing rendition. Here's a sequence of the Pixel's shots where you can spot issues in one place or another.

Hit or miss

With that said, we've managed to get a shot from each phone (except the S9) where they properly kept the sunglasses in focus, frame and all, instead of merging them with the background. Well, there's the caveat that on the iPhone they're already a little blurry because they're outside of the face oval that we talked about. Looking at the DSLR shot they are in fact slightly behind the plane of sharp focus, but not that far behind.

Scene 5: D750+50/1.8G • iPhone XS Max • Galaxy Note9 • Pixel 3

Scene 5: V40 ThinQ • Mate 20 Pro • OnePlus 6T • Galaxy S9

Scene 6

Another scenario we wanted to explore is again linked to presenting the phones with a scene where optics wouldn't have to decide what was close and what was far, but portrait modes were bound to struggle. Angie was kind enough to stand outside in the cold against the handrail while we were lighting her and taking shots from the inside.

We were aiming to see if the algorithms would recognize that the handrail should be sharp as it's pretty much in the plane of focus, while the background in between the railing pieces should be blurry, being far and all. There was a lamp post in the mix as well posing as a vertical element of the railing.

And we sure did fool them, each to a different extent. Save for the S9, they all figured the large horizontal handrail piece shouldn't be blurred, but from then on it was hit or miss with the other elements. The lamp post, however, turned out not to be a problem.

Mind you, for most phones it was a matter of whether the handrail pieces would be sharp or blurry - the background in between them would always end up in the 'defocused' state. Not on the V40 ThinQ - the LG phone chose not to apply blur to the entire area below the handrail. Oh well.

Scene 6: D750+50/1.8G • iPhone XS Max • Galaxy Note9 • Pixel 3

Scene 6: V40 ThinQ • Mate 20 Pro • OnePlus 6T • Galaxy S9

Bonus scene - stuff

We also figured we'd set up a random scene with stuff we had around the office to let the phones showcase what they can do with non-human subjects.

The Pixel's stronger background blur makes its images look a bit more appealing, but it's also not done a flawless job if you look closely. The iPhone and the Note9 are a bit less convincing with problem areas visible at fit-to-screen magnifications as well.

The Mate 20 Pro wouldn't shoot non-people in its Portrait mode, so there's Aperture mode for those occasions. It did pretty well with our test scene even blurring the plant in the red pot a little, and the actual background a lot more. The V40's rendition was very cautious will the least amount of blur applied. The OnePlus 6T went easy on the blur too, but generally managed to isolate the subject well. Unlike the S9 which is all over the place, as usual.

Scene 7: D750+50/1.8G • iPhone XS Max • Galaxy Note9 • Pixel 3

Scene 7: V40 ThinQ • Mate 20 Pro • OnePlus 6T • Galaxy S9

Final words

No, don't go selling your camera gear just yet, portrait modes on smartphones aren't that good. What we found out, however, is that some of them are easily good enough.

The iPhone XS and the Galaxy Note9 take photos with their telephoto cameras while the Pixel 3 goes into a zoomed in mode with its single cam, so these three fall in the same group in terms of perspective and subject distance - and that is a proper distance that doesn't make your subject feel uncomfortable. The three are also generally superior in subject detection to the wide-angle based implementations.

The wide-angle based portrait modes were problematic to work with - the models invariably complained about invading their personal space. The V40 ThinQ, OnePlus 6T and Mate 20 Pro were comparable in their ability to isolate subjects with a lot more noticeable differences in exposure than actual faux blur properties.

Then there's the single-camera Galaxy S9 that can be relied upon to mess things up regardless of the subject or background. Sure, it's got other virtues, it's just not great for portraits. Of course, the dual camera on the S9+ makes a difference, and we did have the Note9 around to illustrate that. Another Galaxy in this test would have been too much.

It's a tough call to pick a single winner, but we'd go with the Pixel. Competent subject isolation, convincing (maybe too liberal at times?) background blur that varies with distance, some attempts at blurring foregrounds too - the Google software team's done a marvelous job.

What the Pixel really can't do to save its life, and the iPhone XS excels at is rendering bokeh circles from background point sources of light. If you're a sucker for those, go iPhone, or next best, surprisingly - OnePlus 6T. Other than that the iPhone's portrait mode is quite proficient at subject separation and happily took our challenges, though it did inevitably got fooled here or there - as did all.

The Galaxy Note9 was especially troubled by spiky hair, more so than the others. With the right subjects, however, it was usually on the same level as the iPhone - the differences between these two are mostly in color and exposure, and less so in background blur.

Perhaps the single most important takeaway from this article is that regardless of which phone you're using for portraits, you'll benefit from taking several shots of the same scene. Subject isolation is often a matter of luck and minute changes in composition could leave you with a better image. Experiment, reframe, take half a dozen photos - it's not a roll of film, it won't run out.

In any case, in the current state of state of computational photography smartphones are still no match for a camera with a big sensor and a fast lens. The thing is though that you always have your smartphone in your pocket and carrying a camera takes extra effort - provided, of course, you even have a camera in the first place. For the vast majority of people and applications one of the more competent portrait modes in this shootout will do just fine.

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