Flagship camera comparison: Oneplus 9 vs Oneplus 9 Pro vs iPhone 12 Pro Max vs Samsung S21 Ultra By Digit

Hi guys welcome to digit. in, and today we are going to be talking about the OnePlus 9 pro and the OnePlus 9 camera lots of special things going on here. There's the Hasselblad branding there is this collaboration between one plus and a camera maker that has a legacy of producing well, some of the most amazing cameras that exist. Don't forget, hustle bloods cameras were used for the moon landing as well, so lots of excitement with respect to the cameras on the OnePlus 9. So in order to really see how these cameras really perform, we also took, along with us, the iPhone 12 Pro max and the Samsung Galaxy s21 ultra and started shooting with these four phones side by side, we're gonna break down every single aspect of all four of these uh smartphone cameras to tell you, which one is not only the best, but also where exactly the OnePlus 9 pro and the OnePlus 9 fit in the larger scheme of things, but before we get into all of those details, make sure to hit the subscribe button on our channel and, of course, also hit the bell icon so that you don't miss any future coverage from us and there's plenty about the OnePlus 9 series coming out soon. First, let's go over the specs of these two smartphone camera units, okay, they're very similar, but at the same time there are minor but important differences.

First, let's go over the OnePlus 9 pro. It's got a 48 megapixel primary sensor, which will do four in one binning, and it's using a custom Sony sensor. This is the Sony mix 789 moving below. That is the ultra-wide sensor, which has a resolution of again uh 50 megapixels and is using this mix Sony mix 766 sensors. Now, if you guys may remember this, the OnePlus 8 pro from last year also used a higher megapixel ultra white camera because that allowed OnePlus to bend the results and deliver way better performance than what was ever seen before.

So we have something like that here as well. In addition to that, the OnePlus 9 pro also features a dedicated monochrome lens, 2 megapixels uh resolution. On the front. You still get a 16 megapixel, selfie camera. When it comes to the OnePlus 9 um, you still get the monochrome lens.

You still get the mix 766 uh 50 megapixel ultra-wide lens, but what changes is your primary camera on the primary camera of the OnePlus 9? You have a 48 megapixel resolution, yes, but the sensor is a different one. This time it's the Sony mix 689 between the two primary sensors. It's very interesting. The resolution is the same. The physical size is the same, but there are different series all together and when we shot with them, there were some noticeable differences.

So after having gone through the specs, let's dive right in and talk about imaging performance. So let's go over the image quality of the images coming out of the OnePlus 9 pro the OnePlus 9 and put it together right next to that of the iPhone 12 Pro max and the Samsung Galaxy s21 ultra so many names, so many phones and so many photos were shot. But here are a few things that are very clear now: the OnePlus devices, while they do take excellent photos. There are some issues that are very glaring, for example, when shooting subjects that are somewhat backlit, for example sunsets or, if you're shooting a subject which is in front of a light source, etc. Um the OnePlus devices will boost the contrast significantly, as we can note in this shot on your screen over here.

We have a yellow flower, for example, which is the subject of this photograph against a bright blue sky in the photos coming out of the OnePlus devices, both the 9 pro and the 9. We see that most of the leaves around these flowers are turning to pitch black. However, when we look at the sample coming from the iPhone 12 Pro max, we see that the iPhone drops the contrast in favor of boosting dynamic range and what you get is an image where you have good detail being visible in practically every aspect of the frame now, depending on what you like, you may prefer, one or the other, but from a technical standpoint, the iPhone image is better simply because if you could always boost the contrast in that image and get the kind of clarity that you want. However, in the images coming out of the OnePlus 9 pro and the OnePlus 9, there is no way to recover detail in the leaves that have basically gone from green to black. Similarly, when shooting a flower against the sun, like practically at sunset with the flower, sorry with the sun setting right behind, we again see a similar issue where the OnePlus images do boost the contrast and therefore lose detail in the shadows, whereas the iPhone maintains a lower contrast level to maintain a higher dynamic range.

The s21 ultra also ends up delivering an image which is actually pretty good, but in terms of sharpness, all four cameras deliver excellent quality, while the primary camera does produce impressive images, where the OnePlus phones really shine and mind you, they really shine in this one is the ultra white camera. Now OnePlus has done the smart thing. They did what everybody else is doing with the primary camera, using the binning technique to deliver better images, and they put that on the ultra-wide lens great stuff, and we see these two cameras deliver on that promise. Now a few shots from the OnePlus 9 pro and the OnePlus 9 shot with the ultra on the ultra-wide lens, and here is what you need to know. Firstly, there is very little distortion, but OnePlus is being a little disingenuous here.

They are applying a lens connection. You just don't have the option to turn it off. The result is that your frame is not as wide because with lens correction applied, the frame becomes more linear, and therefore you'll lose some resolution. However, the bin image, in terms of its dynamic range in terms of its color, in terms of its white balance and in terms of its sharpness, also detailed retention, top points, the result from the OnePlus 9 pro and the OnePlus 9 just between these two phones differs very slightly in the white balance. The OnePlus 9 throws image is more, is a little on the cooler side, whereas the 9 has a warmer white balance, but that could simply just be the variance in the shooting conditions.

However, if you compare them with, for example, let's say the iPhone 12 Pro max, we see that the iPhone 12 Pro max has a much better image, mostly thanks to again its lower contrast in the image which allows for better detailed retention in the shadow areas. A similar result can also be seen with the Samsung smartphone, the Samsung Galaxy s21 ultra, where the image exhibits, lower contrast compared to that of the OnePlus 9 and the 9 pro, resulting in slightly improved dynamic range and decent colors. There are areas in the image where detail is lost, and you do see some smudging across the frame all the way, both from the corners to the center, so the s21 ultra does lose a few points, but here's the best part, the OnePlus 9 pro the OnePlus 9 and the s21 ultra. All three of them feature autofocus on their ultra-wide cameras. The iPhone does not, which is a shocker, to be very honest.

Um when you have autofocus on the ultra-wide lens it allows you, or rather it gives you the flexibility to frame and create uh perspectives in images that are not been explored before so when it comes to the ultraviolet camera, I would definitely give the points to both the OnePlus 9 pro and the OnePlus 9 they're using the same sensor same uh, everything the same software, and you do see the results shine. No doubt next up, let's talk portrait mode because who doesn't love taking portraits right, whether it's of yourself or your friends, the OnePlus 9 and the OnePlus 9 pro offers a really impressive portrait mode. No doubt in the samples that we collected across all four phones. Well, they came in second place and here's why the portrait mode has practically been perfected by the iPhone. There is no doubt about it.

The separation between the subject and the background was actually quite natural and what you would expect if you were shooting this image from a DSLR. The both has a very natural gradation, going from the foreground to the background, which is actually very critical to making that image. Look realistic on the OnePlus 9 and the nine pro while the blurring of the background is quite pleasing to the eye. There are two problems with it: one. It is not a gradual uh, refocusing and two.

The effect is too strong. Additionally, there is also issues with you know: uh, subject: separation, where it's not able to detect some edges uh, as in this photo where you can see that my colleague's hair is obviously caught in the blurring field, which should not have been the case. This is not the case on the iPhone at all with the Samsung, though the results are a hit or miss. There were some images where the portrait mode worked perfectly well, but there were also others where it just got the ear and the hair completely off and ended up blurring them out on the face as well. So in terms of its reliability, consistency, the OnePlus 9 pro and the OnePlus 9 do deliver on good portraits as long as you can control the both which you can, but we shot everything in the standard mode.

No adjustments applied same thing on the iPhone and from one of those perspectives where you don't want to fiddle with any settings, you don't want to do anything else. The iPhone 12 Pro max is definitely ahead, but the OnePlus 9 pro and the OnePlus 9 are close. Second, for sure, let's go over the telephoto lenses. Now the OnePlus 9 and the OnePlus 9 pro offers a 3.3 x, hybrid, zoom thing: it's not a pure optical zoom factor, so we're not going to get into the details of that because well, at the end of the day, we care about the results. So here's what we got we shot with all four of these cameras going from the widest to the most telephoto and here's what we noticed all of them offer a very different field of view.

When it comes to the telephoto side, the OnePlus is giving you a 3.3 x, the iPhone, giving you a 2.5 x and then the Samsung Galaxy s21 ultra, giving you a pure 3x optical zoom amongst all three. Interestingly, it's the Samsung that gives the best optical output from a telephoto lens for multiple reasons, one it's a stabilized lens. Second, when the light dips and the telephoto lens doesn't have enough light, Samsung will pull in the resources of all the cameras on board all the sensors and just do this magic trickery. To give you a very good-looking image. Additionally, when you go past 3x into the 10 or the 30 or even 100x, zoom range, which, by the way, none of these other phones can offer.

Well, you get a very interesting stabilization system where your frame is kept stable basis on what you want to focus on, which has actually allowed us to shoot some very crazy things like the moon, OnePlus 9 and the OnePlus 9 pro. Where do they stand as long as you're shooting in good light? You should be totally fine. If your subject is not backlit, you will not have focusing issues, it's something that we faced uh, while shooting some the red flower that we talked about at the beginning of this review. So as long as you're, not in those conditions, the telephoto lens delivers, the stabilization is actually quite good. Uh did not face any problems there, but at the end of the day it is still a hybrid.

So there is a factor of digital manipulation being applied and therefore resulting in not the best image quality, but definitely usable in good light. Once you go into the low light mode and that's where we're gonna talk about all three cameras in one go: let's do that once the sun sets the nature of all of these phones completely changes, the cameras are no longer snappy, they're, no longer fast and responsive everything turns to a slow mess. All of them kick into night mode, uh to get the best results. But here's the interesting thing: the OnePlus phones and the Samsung Galaxy s21 ultra- will not switch over to the night mode on their own. On the OnePlus 9, you actually have to select night mode if you're shooting in low light and want the best quality result honestly, not the most intuitive thing, but I can totally understand why OnePlus would give you the option to choose that, but well what actually matters the most is at the end of the day, the image quality when shooting from the OnePlus 9 pro and the OnePlus 9 in low light.

You definitely have the process slowed down quite a bit. Taking the photo itself is a long process, one because it's taking multiple long exposures and two there is time taken to process the image as well before it is saved on the iPhone. It's just the amount of time taken to take that shot, which is maybe anywhere between one and three seconds and then after that the processing is super quick on the s21 ultra. On the other hand, you take the long exposure, and then you also have to wait for the image to be processed saved, and then you know be shown to you as the output. What we notice in the images that we've shot in low light mode from all four cameras is that well, the OnePlus 9's output is actually again quite impressive and here's why one it produces a bright frame, uh, which too many will appear unnatural because hey it's nighttime.

Why is the frame so bright, but well? The whole point of night photography is to be able to see details at night. So that's what they deliver. A good exposure on your frame. That's point number one frankly, quite well-preserved details. I was actually very surprised to see that the detail coming out of the night mode images is far more than what we've seen in the past, and I'm not talking about budget phones.

I'm talking about from expensive phones as well. The iPhone delivers stunning low light results, but only from the primary lens, because that's the big sensor, that's the one. That's got all the imaging power attached to it on the OnePlus 9 and the nine pro you get the same thing, but from both the ultra-wide and the main camera, because well large sensor, large megapixel count pixel binning at its best and Hasselblad software, so you've got that the s21 ultra again primary camera does produce good images, but they seem to be lacking the saturation and also tend to have far lower contrast. What we've seen coming from the iPhone and the OnePlus 9. So in the low light section, the Samsung Galaxy s21 ultra does lose out for sure, with the nine uh siblings.

I guess with the OnePlus 9 siblings, winning out this test for sure. But there is one big catch and that is in terms of the user experience. So let's talk about that. The user experience of these four smartphone cameras is actually quite unique, they're all very different from each other, and all of them will take some level of getting used to the OnePlus 9 pro and the OnePlus 9 do offer a fairly clean user interface, which is definitely customizable. But there are some key elements of the shooting experience that are unintuitive and hidden in the wrong places.

For example, switching from the bin mode to the full resolution mode is an obscure icon for some reason, which makes no sense it could have. They should have just done what everybody else does and given it as 12 megapixels, 48 megapixels. It's easiest to understand and should be right there in the image settings menu. But at the same time there are other issues as well. The other problem with the OnePlus 9 camera apps.

As of testing right now and at the same time, we've been told that there will be significant updates coming out in the following weeks, but as of testing the shutter button and the shutter response is on the slower side. If you keep tapping on the shutter button to take photos, there is a distinctive lag which I have never seen in a smartphone of this price bracket ever before. When you do the same thing on the iPhone, it just keeps shooting non-stop same thing with the Samsung Galaxy s21 ultra. While you don't have to tap on the button repeatedly to take a burst of photos, you just slide the shutter button to a corner, and it keeps taking the shots as you need them. So in terms of the burst mode capabilities or relying on that catching that decisive moment, the OnePlus 9 and the OnePlus 9 pro do have significant room for improvement.

Now OnePlus says that the pro camera app on the OnePlus 9 and the nine pro are, like you know, the Hasselblad design pro app, but at the end of the day, it's no different from the pro mode on any other smartphone, you get the same settings, ISO control, focus, control, the ability to set your own shutter, speed, etc. , and that's fairly standard of what you would expect from the pro board. What they do lack, however, is access to any of the other cameras when you're shooting in pro mode, the OnePlus 9 and the OnePlus 9 pro only allow you access to the primary camera, you don't have access to the ultrawide or the telephoto, which makes no sense on the iPhone. However, if you do decide to use the pro mode well or a third-party app, you get full control over all the settings of all three cameras, and you also get raw output from all three cameras, which is exactly what a pro mode is supposed to do. Similarly, on the Samsung Galaxy s21 ultra, if you do decide to use the professional mode, you do get access to all the lenses and that's basically maximizing the potential of your camera hardware on the OnePlus 9.

Surprisingly, they have still stuck to the same old thing that pro mode only gives you the primary lens and nothing else, which is itbeing about time. One plus you guys change that you've been doing this for years. You've got Hasselblad on board change it. Last but not least, we've got one very critical aspect of camera performance and that's the focusing capabilities. So, in our time shooting with these cameras, we tried everything from close-ups to macro portrait ultra-wide telephoto, you name it.

We shot it and across all of these shooting scenarios in good light and low light. Surprisingly, the OnePlus 9 throws focusing system does deliver. It retains not just its speed, but also its consistency. The only area where it faltered a little is when shooting against the sun, where the subject was actually backlit. So if, but moving the camera a little around, maybe adjusting the frame a little getting a little more contrast in the frame and boom it locks focus just fine.

The nine. On the other hand, the OnePlus 9 required a few extra tries to lock focus on subjects that were one either too close or were brightly colored. The iPhone focusing problems basically non-existent, but there is one big caveat to the camera's focusing system, which is the fact that it cannot get close to a subject. The iPhone 12 Pro max has one of the longest minimum focusing distances on a smartphone camera. I have tested so far.

The Samsung Galaxy s 21 ultra. On the other hand, one of the best focusing experiences hands down. There was not a single situation where the s21 ultra would not lock, focus and do so reliably. One tap is all it took, and you can actually see why Samsung leads the spaces when it comes to cameras, because they're not only using dual pixel AF on the sensor, but they've also got laser. Aft hey've got all of these different lenses pulling in light and guiding the camera focusing system to make sure that your subject is locked every single time.

So when it comes to focusing the s21 ultra is definitely the king to beat, but the OnePlus 9 pro comes very, very close with the nine definitely a little behind it and the iPhone 12 Pro max sort of making its own space in this place being reliable, but also not offering you the kind of flexibility that the other phones do now to kind of conclude what this entire camera section has been all about for the four devices: okay, let's just get one thing straight: the s21 ultra and the iPhone 12 Pro max cost as much as a down payment on a half decent car, there's, no denying it the OnePlus 9 pro and the OnePlus 9. On the other hand, do not cost an arm and a leg. You don't have to make kidney jokes about them and for phones that will be costing maybe half or even less of what these two flagship devices from apple and Samsung cost. These phones are giving you some crazy good camera experience. Sure there are a few areas where they lag, but if we've learned anything from OnePlus, it's that these guys are constantly improving their camera.

Argos I've seen that we've visited their camera test lab in Taiwan and seen the kind of work that goes into improving the camera software over the year. They've continued to push out updates improving the camera performance, so I no doubt believe that over the next three to four months, you will see camera performance improve drastically. We will, of course, revisit this topic at that time, but as of now, if the iPhone was a 10 on 10 camera experience, the OnePlus 9 pro comes about eight and a half on ten. For sure this is not an objective metric. It's like we'll be doing an objective scoring later, but just to give you an idea, the OnePlus 9 is a close.

Eight, the Samsung Galaxy s21 ultra is a mixed. Eight. There are things it does extremely well like focusing shooting from its primary camera, giving you an excellent telephoto experience, but definitely falters when it comes to the ultra-wide experience. The OnePlus 9 pro, on the other hand, gives you an excellent ultra-wide and primary camera experience, but the telephoto experience is lacking, and the macro mode is definitely limited in significant ways. So as far as versatility goes, the OnePlus 9 pro does offer the right mix of features and performance going to an acceptable mark, whereas these two phones do excel at it.

So that's our camera review of the OnePlus 9 and the OnePlus 9 pro. If you guys have any questions you want to see large-scale samples, we've got everything up in our Flickr gallery, so you can check that out, but for your questions, leave them in the comment section below, and we will get back to them as soon as possible. So there you have it. Thank you guys for watching this video before you leave, make sure to hit the subscribe button and also hit the bell icon so that you don't miss any future updates from us. As for me, well maybe you'll see me in another video.

Maybe you won't. Who knows. Thank you guys for watching.

Source : Digit