Can a mobile phone beat an 11 year old camera?

I wanted to do this comparison for a really long time but I always procrastinated... Well the time has come! In this video I'm putting the iPhone's camera (iPhone 11 Pro) against a 2009 Panasonic GF1!
Which one will win in the end?

00:00 Intro
02:09 Daylight Test
05:26 Indoor Test
09:41 Low Light Test
13:11 Conclusion
15:16 Closing Thoughts

The new version of the test is here!
iPhone 14 vs GF1

iPhone 13 Pro against Panasonic GF1

My gear:

Camera: Panasonic GH5

Microphone: Blue Yeti

Headphones: Sony MDR 7506

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Host & Creator: Dimitris Katsafouros

[nekta]

Excellent video, well said. I am in fact still using a gf1 shooting raw, and the images crap all over the latest of phones.

[training]

Thanks a lot! I hesitated about retiring my old GF1 and getting myself a new iPhone. Instead, I got a better camera pouch so I can carry my GF1 more comfortably. You saved me a lot of money and above all, the image quality will be better.

[cloudcitydigital]

I had this exact lens and body! AMAZING little setup.

[davemz]

The latest premium smartphone cameras are massively impressive, for what they are. Compared to any micro 4/3 ever made? Ohhh, maybe not.

[MichaelSchagen]

I use my phone camera just to help me remember stuff. Whenever I see something I want or need to remember, I take a picture of it instead of e.g. taking notes. I think most people take snap-shots for the same reason. Just as a token to help them remember a particular event or moment in time. For that phone snap shots suffice. But for 'photography' I.e. conveying a story or emotion, the shortcomings of phone cameras get in the way.

[training]

I think the general conclusions are right. Looking at my old photos with GF1 and comparing photos in low light and fog with photos with a newer, compact Canon G9x mk ii, the colors of the GF1 photos are remarkably beautiful. Plus I did relatively little editing on them. But in sunny weather, I much prefer G9x, not least because of its size and hdr, which make Lightroom editing easier.

[twoowls]

Great coverage....most interesting! Regards, Jimp

[MUHAMMADTHOHA]

nice video, I am still using GF1 since 2015

[HR-wdcw]

I would say from a pure image quality standpoint based on the sensor and imaging technology (not the lens) they are about the same. But the added advantage of the GF1 is you can change the lenses, and possibly get better quality overall because of it. So in this case, I would say they are about the same. The biggest upper hand the iPhone might have is that people already have one (whether it's the 11 Pro or something else that's comparable or newer). So they can save money by not having a dedicated camera, but if money isn't a concern and you don't care so much about one device versus two, an interchangeable lens camera will always be at least as good, if not better. Although more and more cameras are now supporting RAW formats and some apps will now shoot with formats like Adobe's DNG so you do gain some flexibility with a smartphone, but I still wouldn't give up my dedicated cameras (regardless of format) for a smartphone.

[interstat]

The mobile phone camera sharpening is actually mostly an AI type technique called Super Resolution where it guesses what the resolution should be based on a database of textures and so on. It’s used in TVs for upscaling by chip makers like MediaTek. Sony and Panasonic TVs have a very advanced version for their TVs.

[robertgretter]

When you carry a camera, you also carry the intension of taking photos.

[evertonporter]

Very thorough comparison between the the GF1 and the iphone pro. I have a Panasonic GF2 which I bought on Ebay a few days ago to go with my excellent GX80. The camera's results really are superior to a smartphone under all conditions.

[leeraxd]

i just did the same side by side but with a 12 pro max and a gf1 14mm lens and ricoh gr2! I think GR2 is more comparable because it’s a fixed lens camera and it’s extremely portable. However, GR2 fails all around on low light even with raw. GF1 is an old body with tons of great Olympus and Lumix and even Leica lenses, so it’ll always be a superior camera, even if it’s 11 years old. The 12 Pro Max is a little more upgraded from the 11 Pro but it’s still going to fall short compared a good digital camera. I do think the iPhones do exactly what they need to though, in terms of the camera. Most people will only be viewing their phone pics on their screen so there really is no need for a large sensor. And some images, like landscapes, look really good on my phone camera. But iphone can never been the bokeh, macro, and low light qualities of a micro 4/3. Just too small of a device to fit a sensor like rhat.

[litchi]

Wished that you had included a segment on video recording quality comparison between the two devices.

[rocheuro]

very good comparison, properly made and very well commented. I would say the same. totally agree. The images are only as good as the sensor . Software magic is another story. often people even dont understand the difference between sharpness (artificial sharpenning) and true real details.. as well as overal "clarity and cleanness" of the image. The same applies to digital and optical zoom - people often misunderstand these two.

[melvinch]

Can a mobile phone have a m43 sensor ? Can a mobile phone compete without using computational algorithm on the images ?

[villagranvicent]

Excellent comparison, I miss my GF1, great little camera!

[aacc]

LX7 knocked this Arena gate, pure natural fastest lens still could fight any modern sensor phone

[dxmeister]

Iphone RAW’s are sharpened to death even with sharpening “disabled”

[beesong]

bit of background, Im a photo noob. Out of nowhere my boss sold her GF1 with 14-45mm 3.5.-5.6 kit for $20. With some research, I realized I got a gem of a camera. planning to get the lumix 20mm 1.7 mk ii for those amazing photos.