Can Google’s Pixel 6 Pro Beat Canon’s Best Compact Zoom?

Google’sPixel 6 Pro has a powerful zoom for a smartphone begging the question of whether it’s good enough to beat dedicated cameras, such as Canon’s best compact zoom. This comparison would have seemed absurd a few years ago, but many smartphones now have strong telephoto capabilities. The Pixel 6 Pro can snap surprisingly good photos of distant objects or get close-up shots when the subject is nearby.

Canon’s Powershot SX740 HS is a compact zoom camera with an impressive 40 times optical zoom with a maximum telephoto length equivalent to 960 millimeters. Despite the massive optical zoom range, this is a small camera, measuring just 4.3 by 2.5 inches with a depth of 1.6 inches. The telescoping zoom lens extends as far as 2.5 inches from the body at maximum range, collapsing down entirely and automatically protecting the lens with a metal cover when powered off. The 3-inch display on the back makes it easy to frame the subject when holding the camera high or low for creative shots. While the Powershot SX740 HS was released in 2018, it’s still Canon’s best compact zoom camera and appears near the top in recent lists of best compact ultra-zoom.

Google’s Pixel 6 Pro comes with a four times optical zoom, one-tenth that of Canon’s Powershot SX740 HS, making it seem unlikely that it could ever compete with the range of the much thicker and heavier dedicated camera, particularly when it comes to zooming. Furthermore, Google’s best smartphone has a 48-megapixel image sensor but outputs 12-megapixel images, 60-percent less than Canon’s 20-megapixel sensor. That’s why it’s pretty surprising to find that the Pixel 6 Pro’s zoom capability actually outperforms the Powershot SX740 HS in several situations. Google’s advantage comes from computational photography and a wider aperture lens.

When & Why Pixel 6 Pro’s Zoom Wins

The Google Pixel 6 Pro has a maximum optical zoom of four times (103-millimeter equivalent) and a Super-Resolution Zoom of 20 times (515-millimeter equivalent), meaning Canon’s Powershot SX740 HS will reach further. In bright outdoor lighting, the Pixel can’t compete. Even Google’s impressive machine learning prowess can’t overcome that big of a deficit. However, indoor photos, shots captured at dusk or on an overcast day, show the challenge traditional camera makers face.

Longer lenses allow less light to reach the image sensor. At maximum zoom, Canon’s Powershot SX740 HS has an aperture of f/8, losing much more light than the fixed f/3.5 aperture of the Pixel 6 Pro’s telephoto. To compensate for such a slow lens, Canon’s Powershot SX740 HS has to increase the ISO, which causes the image to be noisy and also slow down the shutter, making the motion blur much worse. Tiny hand movements are amplified at a long range, and the resulting photos are either quite noisy or blurry. By comparison, Google’s advanced image processing wizardry produces perfectly exposed, vibrant images that are relatively sharp from the Pixel 6 Pro even in challenging conditions at its maximum Super-Resolution Zoom.

Source: Google, Canon

About The Author

Alan Truly
(1146 Articles Published)

Alan is a Tech Writer living in Nova Scotia, Canada. A tech-enthusiast since his youth, Alan stays current on what is new and what is next. With over 30 years experience in computer, video and photo equipment, you can expect useful tips and insights in his writing. Alan has a degree in programming, many years focused on design, editing, and animation. A period of managing logistics and e-commerce operations for a mobile accessories company rounds out a diverse background. Alan is a true jack of all digital trades in this ever-changing computer-enriched world. To stay flexible in mind and in body, he practices yoga, light cardio, and eats a whole food diet, based on minimally processed plants.

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