[ASUS ZenFone 8] Tom100%:
Nikon SLR vs Zenfone photo quality test

In this post I compare pictures taken with a Nikon D7100 SLR camera to the Zenfone 8 stock camera and Wichaya’s GCam mod. I wanted to find out which would give the best photographic quality. The results were not what I expected.

I made a similar test in the past that wasn’t too rigorous. This time I wanted to make a more accurate comparison of each camera’s capability.

I used a high quality wide angle zoom lens on the Nikon at F8 to maximise the depth of field and image sharpness. To get the best picture quality I used the cameras lowest ISO (100) and saved the picture in Nikon NEF (RAW) format.

The 16MP Asus and GCam files are only 4576px wide but the Nikon’s image is 6000px: I adjusted the Nikon lens to capture a wider picture that when cropped to 4576px had the same image area as the Asus and Gcam images. This allowed the sharpness of all three cameras to be directly compared.

I shot a 16MP and 64MP jpeg with the Asus stock camera.

I used the GCam RAW + JPEG option to shoot 16MP and 64MP pairs of dng + jpeg files.

The RAW files were processed using Capture One Pro, a high-end raw file editor.

I’ve attached comparison images so you can judge fo yourself which shot has the best photographic quality. Best viewed at 100%.

Results

The winner for me was the GCam 64MP dng which had better detail, definition and “pop” than the Nikon picture. This is quite amazing as the tiny Zenfone image sensor is only 1/10th the size of the Nikon’s APS-C sensor, but uses computational photography processing to enhance the picture quality.

The Asus stock camera's normal 16MP pictures always look good and are usually well exposed but they are over-sharpened. This makes the images “pop”, but when enlarged or viewed critically the detail looks very unnatural. I use them for general snaps and family photos.

GCam 16MP shots are generally a little darker than the Asus camera but have a more refined photographic quality. When I’m taking more creative pictures I use the GCam 16MP RAW + JPEG option as I might want to edit the dng (RAW) file afterwards.

It's possible to also edit jpegs but they're "lossy" and contain much less information than Raw files so the extent to which they can be altered is limited. Raw files contain all the original digital data saved from the camera's sensor and are much better to edit.

For the best photographic quality I use the GCam 64MP RAW + JPEG. While editing the dng it's useful to have a jpeg to compare it to. The edited 64MP dng file has more more detail than the Nikon D7100 NEF file and can be printed much larger. When shooting these 64MP dngs, leave a few seconds between each shot while they process, otherwise you’ll have problems saving them.

Asus Pro Camera, RAW + Jpeg option

I haven’t included the Asus Pro camera 64MP RAW + JPEG in the results. The jpeg file size is large, 35MB, and the dng is enormous, 126MB! The jpeg is soft and blurred and the edited dng gives exactly the same excellent results as the GCam dng, which is less than half the size at 60MB.

In low light, such as room lighting, the the edited Asus Pro 64MP file is isn’t very sharp and is grainy with a lot of colour noise. The edited Gcam 64MP dng looks much better, slightly grainy but reasonably sharp.

P.S.:

In my experience the Nikon Raw file contains a greater amount of data than any either of the Asus or GCam dng files. It has a little more scope for editing, but the GCam 64MP dng is still the clear winner.

Manufacturers are now starting to use computational photography to obtain outstanding results from mirrorless cameras with smaller sensors. Future innovation will no doubt cause big changes in the professional photography industry; it will be fun to see what happens.