Gadgetory

we're in an interesting spot with our LG g6 coverage right now our review unit is still on pre-release software but we're getting a pretty good idea of what this camera hardware can do we're going to go ahead and push forward with our real camera review just acknowledging at the front of this video that there's a giant asterisk as to the performance of this phone and if there are any significant changes once the software has been updated to release software we'll go back and revisit what those changes might be buckle up folks we've got a lot of ground to cover and I'm gonna move pretty quick now on the third iteration LG's dual camera solution brings most of our favorite features from the b20 improving a few things while also taking a small step back in a few other areas but our goal here is to see if the combined pros and cons add up to a great consumer experience starting off with exposure and saturation it would seem LG is taking some small steps towards delivering more on candy subtle tweaks to JPEG processing pushing up saturation for that nicer color pop on the hole it's a successful implementation as we're in an era where people are more easily impressed by auto HDR processing modes but we do see where the saturation can sometimes kill details in warmer colors looking at the raw file of a yellow flower we lose almost all of the structure in the middle when converting it to a JPEG this goes double for exposure most phones tend to meter brighter than they need to again people more impressed by bright colorful images but this combo of slight overexposure and juicy saturation can cause Reds to sizzle and clip details and highlights have stopped reduction brings back pedal detail and reigns in that magenta crisp eNOS the wide camera is now more competitive a better sensor than what we find on the b20 images are well exposed and we don't suffer the same graininess as we did on the V 20 though in metering for a much wider image we generally see slightly warmer images from the standard camera than from the wide which brings us to white balance in keeping with the eye pleasing approach LG leans slightly warmer for that white balance most of our shots were captured in really warm California afternoon light and the g6 plays with this deliciously happily in an overcast shot the phone avoids to blue appropriately playing with pink pedals though the clouds are pushing a cooler tone overall and taking a quick look at the raw file these aren't retaining as much info as previous phones we've reviewed purposely overexposing to stops clipped highlights can't be brought back down and editing your metering on this phone is very important as your range of editing is a bit more limited happily the wide sensor is improved over the V 20 and these files will deliver nicer results than LG's workhorse phone now we won't spend a lot of time on the app layout it's nearly identical to the V 20 and this is one of the best photography apps available on any phone today you can make the app as simple as possible or as feature complete as needed even down to video controls which were completely absent on other premium phones there's still a number of fun features like the pop-out mode we can't use these cameras to attain a huawei like wide aperture but we can produce a collage of sorts also the tall g6 display gives us some fun composition tools where you can easily line up shots based on previous photos and square shots can be playfully displayed side by side your composition window now LG zoom is well improved the action is a lot smoother for the image preview and while shooting video sliding from the wide camera to the standard there is still a bit of a pop unavoidable as the camera sensors are far enough apart for subtle changes in the angle of view but it's an almost seamless action in use this is a great range for a phone camera from the wide sensor to full software crop zoom on the main sensor UHD video is grainy at full zoom but it's not completely degraded and the whole zoom range is far more useful than phones that only focus on zooming in one area where we see a small step back with the g6 the smaller sensor in this phone produces a slightly edgier busier bouquet than the v20 a byproduct of a sensor with a smaller surface area it's more than competitive against an iPhone with a similar sensor size falling just behind always shooter but larger sensor phones will produce prettier bouquet we were a little concerned that LG dropped the laser module for the focusing system but it really hasn't affected our day to day shooting we see nearly the same focus acquisition sometimes it's actually faster than what the v20 could achieve an accuracy hasn't been affected from what we can find we do have the same gripe about focus reporting though especially macro distances where the phone will report a lot though it's obviously missed the subject you're trying to capture in making standard photos juicier LG is also pushing brightness and HDR mode it's still one of the slower phones at capturing multiple shots making it more likely that moving subjects are going to blur but we often just see shadow brightening in most of these HDR outputs happily we don't see highlights pushed as hard a little more clipping over normal shot but the main focus really is on boosting shadow detail it would be nice if we could rein in highlights just a bit more a quick look at panorama and LG continues to offer fantastic image stitching with an easy process of panning across the scene again very flexible from standard view to wide - panning across a bold image moving to a smaller sensor though puts a crimp on low-light performance and almost all of our indoor and night shots we see an unpleasing combo of noise reduction in sharpening viewing photos as their total their well exposed in lively night shots but there's very little room to crop zooming in a little we see a very hard patterned texture if there's any area where software improvements might benefit to g6 it's on adjusting this algorithm and I suspect that when this phone is updated for consumer release we'll likely have to take a second look at these kinds of samples and I hate taking selfies but the g6 maintains a solid front camera with normal and wide options it'll get the job done for a group shot has the requisite odo modes to blur your skin and the 1080p video captured is reasonable enough for a little light vlogging and looking at video from the rear camera you know the important stuff we see similar color processing and exposure to still photos but LG tends to produce a slightly flatter video than competitors especially when shooting in manual mode the idea that if you want to edit these you can apply additional contrast and saturation so the files out of the phone are pleasant enough 1080p video files suffer from a little additional sharpening just reinforcing that we're at that point to transition over to UHD for any video you might actually care about the G fix delivers a very high bitrate ultra high def hovering around 400 megabytes per minute of video the only complaint we might illustrate is again tied with sensor size we're indoors even with our studio light setup we see a bit more grain in the sample than we prefer being able to dial in your own settings for shutter speed and ISO can help tame what the camera would otherwise produce on its own video also gives us a better look at image stabilization and we see the traditional LG lens shake and shimmy while walking the phone does a better job of smoothing the scene out than previous LG's maybe due to that smaller sensor but there's a busyness to nearly all of our handheld shots shooting 1080p we can use software stabilization in conjunction with the hardware and LG has improved on the jittery look from the v20 but we're stuck with dull detail from cropped in 1080p video the exception of course is shooting from the wide sensor which has no Hardware stabilization there's significantly more twist from the UHD video and free of the lens warping aspects of the hardware oh is the software stabilization is actually quite nice now talking audio LG maintains some of the best audio capture available and while we lose the ability to change the direction of the mics we still have controls for volume limiting and a low-cut filter the g6 is easily one of the best solutions for capturing high quality audio but it should be mentioned that videos shot with the hi-fi option are more difficult to work with if you need to edit we won't spend a lot of time on this but slow-mo isn't much improved processing from the phone shooting 120 frames per second one-quarter speed looks okay but it won't unseat any of the leaders in this arena like the Pixlr the iPhone and I wouldn't much bother slowing down beyond four X's the data just isn't there the video just starts skipping when you try to stretch to 1/8 so let's wrap this up where's that leave us with the camera on the LG g6 we always have to balance compromises against benefits and LG's largely on the right track here where the V Series represents an uncompromising approach to content creation the G Series phones are a bit more mainstream move to a smaller image sensor introduces a few compromises we'll certainly have to revisit low light performance in a future video but overall this phone is second only to this phone in terms of real-world flexibility the auto mode traditionally a weakness on LG cameras is more competitive against other smartphone rivals the wide-angle shooter is definitely improved over the g5 in the p20 and the manual mode here absolutely shamed those competitors which are focused solely on auto processing and HDR and what's exciting is that there's less artificial software separation between the G and the B Series now where the g5 omitted those excellent video controls the g6 doesn't try and front that lame software split instead Hardware differentiates these two platforms where we have the larger image sensor and the better microphone array on the more expensive handset well g6 top our list of best shooters of 2017 well it's tough to say it's a little too early to tell but these early results are definitely encouraging and it's certainly wetting our appetite for what we might see in terms of evolution on a future the 30 phone later in the year and that's as good a place to end as any as always thanks so much for watching be sure to subscribe to this channel for our full coverage of the LG G 6 including reviews and comparisons and help us out with some sharing on your favorite social networks for PocketNow i'm juan carlos wag knell author of take better photos smartphone photography for noobs a.k.a some gadget guy on twitter and instagram and i will catch you all on the next review