For those who have the latest Pixels–have you noticed a lack of sharpness with pictures taken with the wide angle (.6) lens? Here’s a side by side of normal lens vs wide angle:
I’ve contacted Google support and gone through the troubleshooting steps. They’ve offered to replace my phone but I’ve read discussions saying it’s a hardware/design problem, so it wouldn’t be worth getting a new phone.
I don’t know anyone else with a new Pixel to take comparison shots so I thought I’d check here.
In short, yes. I have a Pixel 6 Pro, and the ultrawide camera (0.7 on mine) is not as sharp as the normal one.
I believe this comes down to a few reasons:
- Lower resolution on the ultrawide (12 MP instead of 48 MP)
- Fixed focus instead of autofocus (this is most significant at short range)
- No optical image stabilization
- Optically, it’s just more difficult in general to get sharp images from a wide angle
@Dr.Strangelove–thanks for the reply. I “upgraded” to the 6a from a Pixel 2 for software upgrade reasons but apparently the camera hardware is basically the same. I have a Moment case for the Pixel 2 and a fisheye lens which is much sharper than the wide angle on the 6a. Moment doesn’t make lens adapter cases for the new Pixels (due to the dual lens configuration I guess) so if I want sharp close-up images I’ll guess I’ll have to use my old phone.
I expect that for anything closeup, you’ll be better off with the main camera. You can move in closer than the ultrawide allows.
I likewise upgraded from a Pixel 2 XL, and although the 6’s cameras are a big step up overall, one negative has been for macro stuff. The 2 could focus on things much closer than even the 6’s main camera. Though resolution-wise, it’s probably a wash (I don’t have to hold it as close to see fine details).
Just for comparison’s sake, I took this with my Pixel 2 from about 2 inches away with the Moment fisheye. I “de-fished” it using Photoshop–it’s definitely fuzzy around the edges but fairly sharp otherwise:
