When it comes to medium format cameras, it’s really hard to beat Hasselblad’s offerings as the company is probably the brand that comes to mind when you think of medium format cameras. However the question maybe not many people are asking is, how does a Hasselblad medium format camera fare against some of today’s flagship smartphones?
That’s what YouTuber and photographer Tyler Stalman wanted to find out when he pitted the Google Pixel 2’s camera against a $20,000 Hasselblad camera. Note that the Pixel 2 has been voted by DxOMark as being the best smartphone camera for 2017, so as far as smartphone cameras are concerned, the Pixel 2 is at the top of the pile, which makes it a worthy (?) contender against the Hasselblad.
In the video above, Stalman puts both cameras through its paces where he tries to measure how each camera handles things like dynamic range, sharpness, depth of field, and so on. For the most part and as far as images posted onto the web and social media are concerned, at a glance you might not be able to tell the differences unless you’re actually looking for it, although upon closer inspection (and if you know what you’re looking for), then the differences become more obvious.
Towards the end, Stalman cheekily mentions, “Remember, anytime you see somebody telling you that a smartphone is going to be replacing your DSLR, it’s probably just clickbait, just like doing a comparison between a $20,000 camera and a smartphone.”