You Deserve the Best Phone Camera: Discover the Pixel 9 Pro, S24 Ultra, and iPhone 16 Pro
the pixel 9 Pro the Samsung s24 Ultra and the iPhone 16 Pro arguably these have the best camera systems of any phone out there but let's compare them now and see which ones you like better and which ones might actually be better overall the first category is going to be the night photo and video for starters I just want to mention that all of these samples are going to be taken with auto mode nothing was changed manually to make it look any better or worse than it normally would When comparing the output without zooming in at all the quality of the ultra wide and the main sensor on all three phones are fairly comparable there is some stylistic differences that you might prefer over the other but overall the quality is good on all three phones so let me list out some of the differences that I've noticed between the different phones the first difference and the easiest one to spot because it's right in there you can notice it without zooming in is going to be the color tone so it looks like iPhone has a warmer tone than the other two and then Samsung and pixel are using a cooler tone in their photos the second thing that we can notice is the Shadows so the pixel9 pro boosted all of the Shadows with all the sensors with the iPhone it boosted it on the Main and telephoto uh sensors but then dropped them a bit on Ultra wide and then with the s24 ultra the Shadows on all of the sensors were the darkest of the bunch I know that I can get brighter photos with with the s24 ultra and with the iPhone so in in these samples I think it was more of a stylistic choice rather than the camera just can't get the brighter Shadows but I have noticed that pixel likes to keep everything visible so that's makes sense to me why the Shadows were boosted more on the pixel than the other phones so even though the ultra wide and the main sensors all performed pretty equally in terms of clarity and quality of the photo the telephoto sensor was a different story the iPhone 16 Pro looks like it had the worst output it had the softest details and also some Grain on it so it wasn't that great of a photo the pixel had a brighter photo and you can see more details but it had some good amount of noise in it and then the s24 ultra had the cleanest image and had the least noise so I would say that in terms of the telephoto it seems like the Samsung did the best of the three on the night or low light photos moving on to the night or low light video I noticed the same thing with the color tones iPhone had a warmer tone than Samsung and pixel and in the video portion it looks like the rols were reversed with pixel and iPhone with the iPhone everything seemed to be boosted up where you can see everything clearly and with the pixel and Samsung everything was a lot dimmer and again just like the photos Samsung had the darkest of the three videos I was impressed with the iPhones output on this this one it was the fact that it was bright and still very clean and not filled with noise was a very good sign that you know their optimization for video is really good as expected really but this wasn't the perfect outing there were a couple of issues that I want to note both the pixel and the iPhone had issues deciding which lens to use when I was zoomed in 5x they kept on going back and forth between the main sensor and the 5x sensor however once I started recording with the iPhone it just stuck with the sensor that was already selected whether it was the 1X or the 5x sensor I couldn't really tell but the quality was pretty decent with the pixel 9 Pro I did notice that there were times when it was switching mid recording from the main sensor to the telephoto sensor and to me that's probably the worst option possible because you're going to be able to tell that the sensor is being switch back and forth in the middle of the video so even though the iPhone did have some trouble deciding which sensor to was best for the scenario the fact that I just stuck with one after I started recording is a better outcome than pixels now with the Samsung s24 Ultra it didn't hesitate at all as soon as I clicked the 5x it switched to the 5x sensor and didn't hesitate to go back to the main sensor at all it just stayed on the 5x sensor and then obviously once I recorded it stayed on the 5x sensor without any hesitation so in that sense the s24 ultra was the easiest one to work with but you know the output was pretty much decent on all of them the second issue was specifically with the pixel 9 Pro so I tried out the night boost because it's supposed to be the best option for the pixel9 pro but when I recorded with the night boost the video was very choppy and pretty much unusable I noticed it while I was recording it looked like it was recording at a very slow frame rate and it was just ch uh choppy when I moved from left to right or panned from left to right I decided to upload it to see what would happen once it was you know processed by the Google servers and when I got it back it was improved quite a bit where you didn't notice the choppiness as much but in place of the choppiness I saw like the jitteriness um in a video which it is better than just being plain choppy but it's just not what I expected from the night boost I expected to be the best video out of all of them but I actually prefer the video I took with the regular video mode on the pixel9 pro instead of the night boost and you know I was thinking I was doing something wrong but the way that pixel's camera app works is kind of like iPhone where it's very automated I don't really have to do anything special I just have to click on the mode and it's supposed to do everything fine so I doubt I did anything wrong if you had the same experience let me know about it and if you didn't if you don't experience the same sort of issues I would like to know how you used it I imagine you just clicked on night mode and recorded can't imagine you do anything else but uh yeah my experience with it was terrible the next category is going to be the daytime photos and videos being that these phones are obviously going to perform the best in the daylight because you know there plenty of light it's not going to struggle there was no surprise that the quality was great on all the phones so I want to focus more on the differences that I noticed in this category rather than just going through all the regular photos and videos that I took the first thing is the overall reach so the first set of pictures that I took were at 25x because that's the max for iPhone so I just wanted to match them up between all three phones and see how they performed the iPhone had what I would consider to be the worst output it didn't seem to have much optimization and it had the fewest details in the picture the s24 ultra had a cleaner image but still lacked a lot of detail at 25x and then you go to the pixel9 pro this one had the cleanest image and the most detail so in terms of the range it looks like the pixel9 pro is actually the best option from these three and it looks like the pixel9 pro actually has a chance of being the range King this year because I took a 100x photo with the Samsung s24 Ultra and then I got the 30X Max photo from the pixel9 pro and cropped it into match and surprisingly enough the pixel9 pro had a better image cropped in than the Samsung s24 had at 100x so my understanding is that by zooming into 100x the phone is able to process the image that was taken at 100x and make it better than if you took a 25 or 30X and cropped in so I was kind of surprised that the pixel actually had a better photo from that distance but you know it's there and I think it's clear as day from the two samples I have the third difference is going to be with the 120 frames per second for starters pixels Limited to 1080p when recording at 120 frames per second which is already a downgrade in resolution from the other two phones and then on top of that both the s94 ultra and the pixel9 pro when recording and walking in 120 frames per second the video doesn't have any electronic stabilization it's only Optical and when it's only Optical on phones you can see the wobbling effect on the edges of the video so it kind of takes away from the quality where I was very impressed was with the iPhone's 120 frames per second also at 4K with the iPhone 16 Pro I was recording in 120 frames per second and walking like I was with the other phones yet the output was very similar in terms of stabilization as you would expect from the 24 and 30 frames per second 4K video so that was very impressive and in that specific scenario where you're recording 120 frames per second and walking the iPhone 16 pro has by far the best output now if you're on a tripod or using a gimbal it might not matter as much but if you're trying to go out with a little gear as possible the iPhone 16 Pro is going to have the best slow motion the third thing is that the iPhone does not have the ability to record in 8k and in this point in time it's not a big deal but in the future it could come in handy to be able to record an 8K even though it's not the most important thing right now there's still a pretty good use case for it for example I like to use it to record wide and then be able to crop in like 50% and still have 4K resolution so it just give you some flexibility number three B however is that the pixel9 pro even though it can record in 8k it has to be done with video boost I just don't think that the output is worth the weight now we're talking about we're recording AK video which is going to be a massive file size then once we record it we're going to have the 1080p version available to us and we have to upload the AKA data that's going to take forever considering that you know you're using most likely a personal home internet which doesn't have the best upload speeds for the most part and you're uploading a massive file not only that it takes hours for the processing to finish and then for you to be able to view it and then download it so it's just a terrible workflow and to me it just I wouldn't I wouldn't use AK on the pixel 9 Pro just because of the the workflow being so cumbersome and then obviously Samsung has the AK right there where you can just use it and it comes out great I mean I don't know why just pixel doesn't do that and then number four is going to be the steady or the action mode the first thing to note is that the pixel9 pro is limited to recording the action mode or the study mode in 1080P while Samsung and iPhone can both record in Quad HD which is somewhere between 1080P and 4K so in terms of resolution Samsung and iPhone I have a like up right there so in these samples that I'm going to be showing I was jogging as best I can to keep it the same between all three phones the next category is going to be portrait photos and portrait videos AKA cinematic mode AKA blur mode so yeah they all have different names but basically portrait or blur video however you want to call it the first thing to mention is that obviously all the phones since it's artificial can be a little bit hidden Miss some phones do better than others and I think Samsung and iPhone both do a really great job uh the pixel 9 Pro does a good job a lot of times and then sometimes just misses wildly the main difference I've noticed when they're missing is that the iPhone and Samsung when they miss is like a slight additional blur to the edge of your skin while the pixel9 pro when it misses pretty bad you can actually see a clear outline around the body before the blur starts so it can get pretty bad with the pixel 9 Pro and then Samsung I've also noticed that the background might not always be evenly blurred I've seen pictures where you everything is blurred evenly and then you have a spot that is not blurred as much and it's pretty noticeable so in those pictures I tend to just remove the blur Al together and just keep it as a regular photo iPhone I haven't used it quite as much so I haven't seen how bad it can actually get but for the photos that I have used used most of the time it's pretty spoton in terms of its accuracy of the blur the second thing is that the pixel9 pro has the most limited range for the portrait mode so with the iPhone and Samsung you can use portrait mode on the main sensor and the telephoto sensors which for the s24 ultra there's two of those with the pixel9 pro you're limited to using the main sensor and it's also a little bit odd because the range even using the main sensor is is between 1.5 and 3X which I don't know why they don't let you use the main sensor at 1X so that's also odd besides the fact it's limited to Just One sensor and the third thing for the portrait photo once again comes down to pixel 9 Pro being Limited in terms of the options in the app with the pixel9 pro you basically just have portrait photo as it is out of the box there's nothing else you can do with it with iPhone and Samsung you have different light lighting techniques that you can use on the mode and with Samsung you can even change the effect of the blur or the background so in terms of options Samsung and iPhone are doing a better job on that point so now I'm going to show you the samples for portrait video from the three phones two things to note while you're watching this the first thing is that the pixel9 pro is once again limited to 1080P and iPhone and Samsung can both record portrait video in 4k so you might notice a difference in quality the second thing is that this is also going to be an audio test so you can see how good the speakers are for the three phones I haven't listened to them so I'm not going to talk on the audio but you'll be able to see for yourself and judge for yourself which one you prefer or maybe they're all just good overall this is the blur mode on the pixel 9 Pro also known as cinematic mode on iPhone or portrait video on Samsung how is the quality how is the cut out for the blur and does it follow me accurately when I move left and right or does it start cutting off my ears and cap also how is the audio quality this is the portrait video mode on the Samsung s24 Ultra also known as cinematic mode on iPhone 16 Pro and blur mode on the pixel9 pro how is the quality and how is the cutout or the outline and when when I move left to right does it start to cut off my ears or the cap and also how is the audio quality this is the Cinematic mode on the iPhone 16 Pro also known as blur mode on the pixel 9 Pro or portrait video on Samsung's s24 Ultra how is the quality and how is the outline or the cutout for the blur and when I move does it follow me properly or does it start cutting off my ears does it follow me accurately and then how is the audio quality I know this last segment was pretty tough on the pixel9 pro but I feel like the next segment is going to be where the pixel9 pro does the best in and that's going to be the specialty modes the first one I'm going to cover is the iPhone spatial video so this one is I guess something for the future but right now I don't see much use for it unless you own a Vision Pro the first thing is that you're recording two separate sensors so I don't know how close it's going to be in quality from the left to the right sensor but I guess iPhone could figure something out with that the second thing is that you're limited to 1080p at 30 frames per second which is an odd one because why wouldn't they give you the option for 24 frames per second since they have it on the other modes as well and do they not have enough power in the chip to be able to record in 4k I just I don't get that one either and of course with the spatial video there is just no way to replicate that with the other phones I don't even think you could do that with even third party apps next let's go to the pixels action pan this is one that can be replicated with the other phones but depending on the situation or the scenario you would either need some gear like an ND filter or be shooting at at night where you can go for longer shorter speeds but basically this does all the hard work for you with action pan you just follow your subject and click on the capture button and it's just going to do all the work for you and give you a you know a photo in motion type of f I've done this plenty with my mirrorless camera so it is possible with a regular camera but you either need to be in low light to reduce your shutter speed or have gear like the ND filter so immediately what came to mind was that Samsung has a built-in endd filter when using expert raw mode so I figured I could just replicate it super easy even in daylight what would happen is that I would follow the subject and when I took the photo the background was actually perfectly still and what was blurry with the subject so I'm not sure what the software was doing but it wasn't doing what I wanted it to so really unless you have an ND filter or an attachment for an ND filter you can't really replicate this all that easily next is the pixels long exposure and this is another one where you can replicate it more easily when it's low light because you go to lower shutter speeds but also with gear like an ND filter so on this one the expert raw mode and the Samsung s24 Ultra actually was able to do a pretty decent job but it's not very helpful in terms of software it it requires some skill to get the photo clear and still have the motion of the water or whatever you're taking a picture of with the pixel9 pro you literally just take the photo and it's going to make everything super crisp except for the thing you want to be in motion and that's going to look like it's in motion either water where silky smooth or passing cars that are blurred out so it just again it just does all the work for you it makes it super easy to have a very cool photo the s24 ultra also has a way of doing this afterwards if you capture the same picture with the live photo photo on you can go into the gallery and swipe up to get the options for the AI portion of things and it to create it though the output hasn't been all that great maybe someone else might have better luck basically what I was seeing with the s24 ultra using that method was the water was silky smooth and the center of the picture was in focus and very clear but then the edges looked like they were blurred too so it wasn't as crisp as what was coming out of the pixel9 Pro Plus it required extra steps which you know that's the whole point of the pixel 9 Pro here it's just you point and shoot and it's going to come out good pretty much every time I've use that that mode now moving over to Samsung they have single take and that's going to be a great one if you don't know or have any idea of what you want to do in that scenario so if you don't know if you want to take a video set of pictures which sensor to use just go to single take press the button and you're going to have plenty of options option to choose from with about 10 seconds of shooting and lastly on the specialty mode is Samsung's dual record this is another one that you can't just replicate with any other phone is you kind of need that mode to really get the that type of result so with with dual record there are plenty of upsides to it the first one being that you can record from two separate sensors whether's the main and telephoto or Main and front facing for whatever type of you know content or output you want and also you're not limited to 1080p on this you can record at least in the s24 ultra you can record in 4k so you're going to get great output great quality out of this uh mode and finally I want to add just one more category for intangibles and this one's going to go straight to the pxs 9 Pro where it has a single piece of glass for all three sensors so not a big deal in most cases but while while I was testing this I tried to keep the lenses as clean as possible between the photos and the videos and after a short while it just got really annoying trying to clean the three or four different lenses from the other two phones going in these little tiny circles one by one and then hopefully you don't touch one with your finger while you're cleaning the other and I give Matt props to Google for sticking with one single glass where a couple of wipes cleans all three sensors so uh even though it's pretty not an important day today I found it to be a a pleasure to work with compared to the other phones on that one I'm sure you're probably expecting me to choose my favorite phone from these three but I don't want to do that because each phone has their benefits so instead what I want to do is mention the things that I would try to avoid with the different phones for the s24 ultra all you really need to worry about is just kind of avoid taking motion or moving videos in 120 frames per second the wobble effect really is distracting so if you are going to use that either use a gimbal or put it on a tripod and get the slow motion that way with the iPhone 16 Pro I would avoid taking like ultra low light photos with the telephoto sensor and then I would also avoid taking extended range photos because after 10x it start to fall apart a little bit and with the pixel 9 Pro I would avoid taking the moving 120 frames per second video again just like the Samsung but I would also avoid taking AK video and it's not not because the AK video is has poor quality it actually has really good quality it's just that workflow for me is a nightmare and I I just wouldn't want to deal with that now that I have all of that out of my system let me know which one you think is the best one or at least look the best and then which one is your favorite even if it's not the best and in case you're interested in purchasing any of these phones I do have affiliate links in the description be sure to check them out thanks for watching and I'll see you next time
2024-11-21 07:52
