Admittedly, selfie cameras are not held to the same high standards as the main cameras of a phone. It even wouldn’t be too outlandish to say that aside from the regular speculation regarding their form and position, front-facing cameras have remained an afterthought that rarely scores an enticing new feature. Seemingly, more thought is invested into hiding away selfie cameras than making them real good.
I’m thirty-something, and I’ll be honest with you, selfies aren’t something I take on a regular basis. Once in a blue moon, give or take, but when I do, I definitely expect them to be as good as it gets. Surely, I don’t blow me out of the water and be exceptional.
Given how many high-profile smartphones we’ve welcomed in the past couple of months, it’s only natural for our interest to be piqued by the promise for improvement in the selfie camera department. Given that this year’s highlights on the smartphone market are the Galaxy S21 Ultra, iPhone 13 Pro/Pro Max, and the Pixel 6 Pro, it’s only natural that we’d want to compare the three in every way, selfie cameras included.
Scene #1: Portrait
Portraits are, to me, one of the best uses of a selfie camera. Not that I have a bone to pick with regular selfies, no, but portraits simply look more natural to me. Surely, the suspension of disbelief associated with portraits is oftentimes broken by the imperfect appliance of background blur. I’m certain most of you know that complex backgrounds, for example tree branches, leaves, and other intricate patterns don’t really mix well with the artificial bokeh.
The reason for that is simple: it’s hard to perceive depth without a dedicated camera sensor that feeds its data to the selfie camera and tells it which areas should be blurred and which ones should be in perfect focus. Software algorithms and AI have come a long way, and these days, most phones are capable of delivering a superb portrait by only using a single camera. Our mileage may vary, though, as some are more capable than others.
How does our venerable trio fare in this test?
Pixel 6 Pro
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