The Google Pixel 4a Camera Review From A PHOTOGRAPHER By The Project Photography

I think we're taking my car here you go. Thank you. What's up guys the project photography back with another video and today people, you guys, read the title: Google Pixel for a time. You know this is a photography channel and I pretty much shoot only photography, not really showcase, my videography or any other things I'm into. But I just got this thing a few days ago and man, I am loving it so far, and I think a lot of questions people ask nowadays about phones is how does the camera look and things like that and me as a photographer? I go out and shoot a bunch of things, but not with smartphones. I shoot last year photography with my Nikon cameras.

Furthermore, I shoot portrait stuff and professional gigs for other types of things, but I never actually use my phone for real photos and whatnot. So what I'm going to be trying to do today is give you guys kind of point of view from a photographer what they think about the Google Pixel 4a phone and just smartphone cameras in general, because I feel, like you know, we have a lot of these reviewers talking about the phone and the camera and whatnot, but no one actually knows like photography itself or does photography full time. So what I'm going to be doing today is giving us a photographer's review of the Google Pixel 4a's cameras. It has a front camera back camera and those are the things I'm going to be reviewing all right. So the Google Pixel 4a, I know, has an incredible camera everything from the specs to the image quality to the processing everything about it is great.

I know this because I had a Google Pixel 2 originally, but the main reservation I have about camera phones and just the camera on the phones in general is that the quality does not stack up to a mirrorless camera or a DSLR or just digital cameras in general. I understand that you know. Phones like this, that have cameras may be good enough for most people. For me, as a photographer, I feel like it doesn't get. What I wanted to do and the question I'd be begging today is: will this be able to replace a mirrorless camera or the quality going up to be used for general photography? Things like that? That's the main question we're answering today.

So what I'm going to do is put you guys on my GoPro to get a first person point of view of me taking photos with the Google Pixel 4a. I'm going to show you guys the quality, how I take them, have sort of a narration over it. So let's go and shoot and test this camera out. Do I look ridiculous? Yes, honestly, it's all good you! Let me know where you want to go. I want to actually shoot this.

I like the lighting, what's up guys right now behind the scenes behind the camera, and before I get into anything. The first thing I want to say is that when you see me edit photos like this one right here. That means that I really like the photo, and I thought it was good enough to go ahead and edit. I just like this next photo, I'm taking right now. So one of the big questions that I think people are going to have is like you know: why are you doing a behind the scenes? Why are you showing us the experience of actually using the phone dude? That's so clean bro.

Look at that! That's crazy and the main thing I want to tell you guys is that the reason why I'm doing this is that I want to show you the image quality of what it is that you're getting when you buy a Google Pixel 4a was image quality like you know, and I can sit here and tell you guys. You know the image call is great all this and that, but it doesn't matter because you know you guys have to be able to see the images for the for yourself and turn if they're good for your liking and things like that, and I think that's a big reason why I want to make this video is because you know, with things like photography, you have to be able to see the images you're going to be getting so before purchasing the phone or purchasing things like cameras and whatnot, and you know I think this camera does deliver incredible photos like this one's. Definitely, my favorite of the day. It's no question about it, but you know you have to be able to see these things for yourself and determine for yourself and determine for yourself whether you, like the images that you get from it or not, and I think that's so crucial to this video and kind of the main thesis is why I'm making this video. I want you guys to decide.

We like the photos for yourself. We can walk in there too. I actually really like the experience of using this. Like as a camera and that's another thing, I kind of want to touch base on they say in this video is that I, like the experience of the camera. You know when you think about the experience of it.

You know think about the experience of driving your car think about the experience of using your phone. Those are probably things that lead you to keep using the things that you use and photography is no different. So when I'm picking out cameras or deciding what I want to get next, you know the experience of using the actual product is very crucial for deciding that you know, you feel inspiration for using certain cameras and things. One quick mention, I would say, is I'm using the panorama mode here, but going back to the whole experience aspect, you know like you, don't want to be using cameras that are uninspiring or don't make you feel a certain way. You want to be using cameras that you love to use just like you want to be using a phone that you enjoy to use, or you want to be using a car that you enjoy to use cameras.

Are different and gives you inspiration actually go out and shoot things ah dude, I'm kind of disappointed with the panorama mode. It's not how it works with the Google Pixel uh two, it's that's that's different and, as I just mentioned there, the panorama mode is not the same as a Google Pixel 2, which is quite uh sad. I like actually how the Google Pixel 2 implemented their panorama mode made it really easy to use it had little room or had yeah. It gave pretty much a lot of leeway for error, which I really liked, but you just don't get that here with the Google Pixel 4a. You know I'm not down in the image quality, because the image you got it was pretty good, as you guys saw, but I just don't like the implementation.

So yeah I mean I hope going on. Actually shooting with a smartphone is very, very different. You know I mean a lot of people just kind of pull out their phone whenever they want to shoot but having an entire shoot with just using your smartphone as a person who only uses cameras was definitely a different experience, but uh one thing that I really enjoyed about the Google Pixel 2 or Google Pixel 4a is the fact that you know it's so easy to access. It's super easy. All you have to do is pull out of your pocket.

Double tap the power button two times, and you're right in the camera system, and it works really well dude, wait, wait, dude, look how insane this portrait mode is. Actually it looks totally computational, but like dude, that's ridiculous! One of the few times I actually use my phone camera for YouTube, and things like that is with a video so sometimes when in a quick pinch where I need some video I'll just pull out my phone rather than pulling on my whole camera setup and just playing with that. So right now you are seeing the quality of the Google Pixel 4a front, camera um. This is what it looks like it's. What it sounds like, I know it's not the best quality compared to my Nikon uh setup, but this is what it sounds and looks like, but currently caviar is on my GoPro.

You guys get a first person point of view and that's where I'll be shooting all my photos on today. Just with my Google Pixel and so far the photos are coming out really nice. I really like them. So we're just gonna keep on shooting this guy's using an actual camera which must be nice, but it's definitely a challenge, I'm actually enjoying it. It's pretty fun as being a photographer.

I did, as I said before, I don't use my phone a lot for photography, but my pixel 2 was a camera that I actually use quite a bit every, so often I came out with some great images. You know, and I really like that experience, and this carries over a lot of the same attributes. I think the Google Pixel 2 is three years removed. It came out 2017. I believe this came out in 2020, so the three-year difference shows that there are some improvements to the camera system, including night mode and just the overall image that I got out of the 4a.

It looks perfect, as well as a computational portrait photography, the portrait mode. It actually works much better than Google Pixel 2. , but it's just incredible to see how far cameras have come in such a short amount of time. Relatively speaking, you know when you think about uh how far uh camera systems had to come in its lifetime. It's been hundreds upon hundreds of years that we've had cameras, and you know having this little camera in your pocket at all times accessible whatever you want is incredible and just the quality you get out of it is so much better than what is before, and it's just amazing to see how far technology has come.

So I'm going to take a bit of a break from shooting photography for now, but I want to talk about the specs of the Google Pixel 4a front camera and the back camera so for photos. We have a 12 megapixel sensor, f, 1.7, only one camera, sadly, there's no dual uh lenses, and things like that, so only one camera at 28, megapixels, f, 1.7, aperture um. The amazing thing about this is, though, is that it can shoot raw photos plus JPEG. So why is that important for all you, non-photography users, it's crucial, because when you're shooting raw, your camera stores more information in the actual file, so it means you have better things like you. Can edit the colors better, you can pull shadows and pull highlights better, and it's overall creating a better editing experience.

So for a photographer like me, raw photos is absolutely crucial. Now other things, this thing has it has night mode panoramas, and it can shoot things like portrait mode. The computational photography on here is actually really, really good. I'll show you some portrait photos right now, as you can see, the quality is outstanding, and one thing that I really want to point out is that everything can be done in phone when you're, shooting photos and stuff. You can edit the files in your phone, and it's really easy and simple to use.

That's one thing I really like about the Google Pixel 4a and Google does an amazing job at this. So just moving on to things like video specs, this shoot this thing can shoot 4k 30, and it can shoot 1080p at 120 frames per second, and for me, that's what my Nikon cameras do. So that's all I need now. Moving on to the front facing camera, we got eight megapixels at a f2 aperture and the greatest or the best signature for video quality is 1080p at 30 frames per second, so I mean ideally, you would want two like multiple lenses, because then you want to get the nice optical zoom rather than digital, but other than that this thing performs well and for a camera phone it does what he needed to do so. One other base I want to touch on is how different this shooting experience with a smartphone is way different from using something like a mirrorless camera or a DSLR.

You know. One thing that I think stands out to me is obviously there's no EVF, there are no dials, you can't control shutter speed, aperture ISO, that sort of thing on the Pixel 4a and where the, where on something like a SLR you're able to control all those things. You know you don't have tactile buttons things like that. I think you make a big difference in the experience of shooting with something like a smartphone, but if most people just want, you know something to just shoot around with, and you know that's all they have is just their smartphone. You can definitely pull it off.

You know it's not about the actual product you're using that it's not about the camera, using it's about being able to actually know photography and that's a big deal. The difference between me shooting with a smartphone and a camera, is simply just the feeling of the interface, but I can still come out with incredible images, as you guys see in this video. I think the images I got were perfect, and I'm really proud of them, and it just proves that you don't need this expensive camera system to be able to create great photos, but with that being said, you're not going to get the same results as DSLR on mirrorless, because there's so many more things you can do, including things like macrophotography bracketing. Oh yeah, that's good, try to get closer to the wall actually, and then I'll shoot the other way, probably and just other sorts of things like that, you can't change out lenses. You know these are big things that make photography able to function, and you just don't get that with smartphones, but most people that be shooting with smartphones.

Don't really care about that sort of thing. So I guess it doesn't really matter, but I'm coming at it from a photographer's review. So these are things I kind of look out for and right here this is city hall. I mean going into the night mode for my photography, uh night mode in google. Pixel 4a essentially does what is called a long exposure where the sensor is opened up, exposed for a longer duration of time, which lets more light into the actual sensor, and it creates much nicer images, they're, much less grainy, and they're much cleaner, and I'm shooting with it here, and I can say that actually works very, very well like this looks good edit that, so this is pretty much it for me narrating over the video itself.

Let me know what you guys think of this sort of format. I really like doing this because it just I just like going on shooting photos, and if I can do that in a video like this, then it just makes my life fun by the way. Here's the image quality, what the front facing camera looks like again, nothing too crazy, but just figured. I showed you guys, so we are done shooting for today. That is all the photography I'm doing with the Google Pixel 4a and man.

What experience I really liked it a lot actually like it. Just it just worked! It just did what it's supposed to do. That's what we liked about it, so I'm probably going to be going reviewing the photos and uh whatnot and editing some of them like on my phone when we go eat right now, so I'm gonna. Take you guys back to my place, and I've been talking about my conclusions about the camera on this phone. So now I am back home, and it's time to give my final verdict and here's the thing.

The question I asked at the beginning of the video was: can the Google Pixel 4a replace my mirrorless cameras that I use on a daily basis for photography and other sorts of endeavors when it comes to video and photos? And the quick answer to that question is sadly no. This will not replace my Nikon z6 on my Nikon z50 anytime in the near future, and here's why, when it comes to camera gear, this can't replace me being able to switch out lenses doing different techniques like focus stacking. I'm able to shoot Castro with this, and we'll do a lot of things with mirrorless cameras that I simply can't do with a smartphone for one changing out lens is a huge thing. The thing is, I can get 24 megapixels with my Nikon z6. I can shoot amazing video.

I can use gimbals and I can do all these other sorts of things that a phone just can't match the quality of and at the end of the day it really just comes down to quality like when you look at the difference between a smartphone photo and a camera photo. You can tell the difference immediately. I know I can. I know a lot of other people can as well and that's the thing it's just Google Pixel 4a. It just can't replace that and that's not a knock on Google by any means, because what they did with the Google Pixel 4a is absolutely incredible.

The good thing is this. Camera is still very, very good for your average consumer for your average person that just goes out and buys this phone, not necessarily for the camera itself, but because it's a phone, and they need a phone. This thing is going to perform really, really well, as you guys saw in my photos. I came out with some great images that I was very happy with the user. Experience of the actual camera system itself was really simple, easy to use.

It didn't have adjustments that I could make like you. I couldn't change ISO shutter speed, aperture things like that, but for just your average person, they're not really going to care about that, and the photos that this thing produces is actually perfect. One big thing in photography is something called color science. You know how do the colors look straight out of camera? How do they look? You know, how do the colors stand out to you? You know, and the Google Pixel actually has perfect color science? I was pretty blown away. You know when I look at photos from apple phones, especially like the iPhone 10 or things like that.

I really don't get that sense, like the images pop and I just don't feel like the color science on that phone is very good at all. You know the colors are really flat, they're really washed out. But when you look at something like this and the images I was able to produce wow, they just really stand out to you, and they really look good they're, not trying to compete with mirrorless cameras. They're not trying to compete with DSLR. Their whole goal of this was to create an amazing, convenient camera inside a perfect phone.

I think they really did that. The accessibility of accessing the camera is really simple. All it takes is two clicks of the power button, and you're in the photo app already. You know you don't have to mess with ISO shutter speed, you just click photos, and you just keep on going and that's perfect when it comes to simple and easy to use interfaces when it comes to smartphone cameras, and when you look at the info experience when it comes to the Google Pixel 4a, the editing software that they use is just photos. Google photos, but it's actually really, really good.

It's simple to use and when I edit my photos for uh phones, at least I just use it whatever I have for here like I use just use. Google photos to edit my photos, and they look really, really good. Everything that you saw here was shot on the Google Pixel 4a and edited on the Google Pixel 4a. What I could have done is, I probably could have taken raw photos and then imported on my computer go to Lightroom change, a few things and then export them, but most people don't want to use all that time and energy just for phone photos. Most people are just going to edit their photos in camera or in phone, and just go straight off of that, and for that purpose it's really, really good.

I was able to adjust things. Like contrast, I was able to adjust things like clarity, the temperature saturation things like that, pretty simple to use. That's all you really need, so the in phone app for editing photos is actually perfect intertwined with the interface with how the camera system works. It's really, really good when you're using a camera phone, you want to be as convenient as possible and simple as possible, and I think they really dial in on those two things. The main knock I have against.

It is again the fact that the image quality is just not going to stand up to something like the uh, my Nikon or just things like that. Like actual cameras, you know, and it doesn't have dual lenses or triple lenses or whatever, but this is a budget phone. This thing costs 350 dollars, guys like that's insanely, cheap and on top of getting a pretty great phone, you get a pretty good camera as well. Now I want to tackle the computational photography side of things. What is computational photography? It seems like portrait mode in the phone.

It's things like panoramas in the phone. Furthermore, it seems like night mode in the phone, it's a hidden, miss for me. Most of the time, the HDR works really well, things like the portrait mode works really well, and the night sight works really well, but there are other times where it just falls apart, where you can see a clear difference in where an actual camera would make a difference, and you see it when you use portrait mode when you have a blurry busy background, and it's really hard to distinguish the foreground and background it's actually kind of hard to blur the actual image. But when you have a distinct foreground and a distinct background, they're separated completely the portrait mode for this phone works really, really well, and that's something that I think a lot of people are going to be using a lot of people really enjoy. Another thing I kind of want to like gripe about when it comes to portrait mode.

Is that when you look at the transition from in focus to out of focus, you can tell that there was a lot of AI and computation used, because you know there's a pretty distinct difference between the in focus and out of focus normally for regular cameras. There'd be a nice smooth transition, but for here it's kind of a hard in focus to hard out of focus, which is something that I don't really like. But you know what most people aren't going to tell the difference: anyways and they're, not not everyone's a photographer. So that's something that I think people are really going to enjoy. Using.

One thing I really want to talk about is that the panoramas I did not like is similar to where you have to kind of drag your phone, whereas the Google Pixel 2 it had this. You took the photo and then show kind of the foot of the dots on the outside of the photo where you can line up, and then it shoots the next part of the panorama that is way easier than having to keep your hands steady, the entire time. That's the system they want to use. So you know we'll just roll with it. But overall I actually really like the Google Pixel 4a for its camera.

You know the front. Camera works pretty well, the back. Camera works really well and in a pinch this is perfect. Like I'd. Be more than comfortable, if I didn't have my cameras on me or things like that, and if I just needed a quick photo, I would be more than happy with the image quality that comes out of this.

You know the sharpness, the tonality, the colors are incredible. The fact that you can edit everything in phone- and if you really want to go that extra mile, you can totally shoot raw photos on here and get something like Adobe Lightroom for the mobile apps, and you can just edit raw files like that. Like that's, absolutely incredible, I'm not sure if any other phone manufacturer is doing that. But Google is a step above everyone else if they are, of course, this isn't going to replace my cameras, but in a pinch this is going to be exactly what I need for. If I just need a quick photo, if I want to just use it to shoot or whatever this is going to do a perfect job, I had a really fun time, actually shooting with the phone um.

Normally, I don't enjoy shooting photos with just a smartphone, but overall I really had a good time when it came to this so really positive. Things about this phone has a lot of potential, and I just really like it. You know great phone, and it's a great price that it's at. So let me know what you guys think down the comment section down below and if you, like, my videos go ahead, give it a like if you are interested in photography, go ahead and check out my other stuff on my channel. I do landscape photography, mainly a Nikon shooter, and all that good stuff.

So yeah like comment subscribe, and I will catch you guys in the next one.

Source : The Project Photography