Marques Brownlee has one of the most popular photo and video-focused YouTube channels out there—boasting some 5.2 million subscribers—and his most recent video takes on a subject that many in the photo world argue about ad nauseam: DxOMark ratings. The video is currently the #7 trending video on all of YouTube, and it’s definitely worth a look, especially if you don’t fully understand how DxO comes up with its overall ratings, photo ratings, video ratings and beyond.
The first half of the video breaks down how DxOMark’s testing system actually works, and how scores in individual categories are compiled into an overall Photo and Video score, which is compiled into an overall score for the device. The second half of the video is where it gets really interesting, however.
Brownlee spends the last 6 minutes or so of the video tackling a few different subjects:
- How DxOMark’s role as a consulting firm leads to some speculation about how certain manufacturers might be tuning their devices so they’ll perform better on DxO’s testing system, and whether that always translates
- How the scores are NOT based on a maximum score of 100.
- How we really ought to expect every new smartphone or camera to be the “best” DxOMark has ever tested, because the tech ought to be getting better every year.
- And how the Tech Press at large isn’t very good about explaining DxO scores and often just throws out an overall score for clicks.
That last part is something we do our best to avoid here at DPReview—diving into individual scores and breaking down some of the more subjective assumptions, like we did with the Pixel 2—but something we’re certainly not immune to either.
In the end, Brownlee’s video helps to explain how DxOMark scores are arrived at, the questions you should ask when you look at those scores, and the kind of in-depth analysis you should demand from your tech publications when they share those scores. Yep, that includes us.
Check it out for yourself at the top, and let us know what you think in the comments down below.
Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)
