Galaxy S20 Ultra vs iPhone 11 Pro Max Camera Test Comparison By MacRumors

So, it's that time of the year again we're going to compare cameras from the latest flagships from Samsung and Apple. So in this case we have the iPhone 11 Pro Mac's, going up against the Samsung Galaxy s, 20 ultra, and so we're going to start this video, like we do normally with the front-facing camera video comparison, and so this is the s20 ultra in 4k, 60 frames per second and the same 4k 60 frames per second on the iPhone 11 Pro max, of course, would love to know your thoughts on what you think looks better in the comments section down below, but without further ado, we're going to go ahead and get into the camera test between the s20 ultra and the iPhone 11 Pro Max before we get started, be sure to subscribe and hit the bell to get notifications. Whenever we share a video, so I'm not a huge front facing camera guide. I rarely take selfies, let alone taking selfie videos. So I don't have much of an opinion on image quality, as you might think, but I do think. The audio coming from the iPhone 11 Pro Max is better I.

Don't know what it is about, the audio from the s20 ultra, but it almost sounds a bit like tinny or like someone cranked up the treble on the EQ. It's not terrible, but when you're listening back as we just did in that intro, and you're switching audio sources from one camera to the other, it's pretty noticeable as far as front-facing image quality goes. Samsung is still using that face smoothing effect or Beauty mode and I do recommend going in and turning it off. If you want a more natural-looking selfie, which is what I did in this photo. But for me, selfies are pretty similar in quality and, as I said earlier, I really don't have a strong opinion on either one of the front-facing cameras, but I wanted to include these samples anyways so that you could help formulate your own thoughts on what you might see here and maybe let me know in the comments section which one you prefer: I'll chalk the selfie photos both standard and in portrait mode as a draw, but again would love to know your thoughts.

But let's go ahead and move on to the rear cameras. The star of the show and sticking with video for just a moment, one of the major new features for the s20 ultra or really the entire s.20 lineup, is the inclusion of a video recording, but before we get all hyped on 8k video just know that as of right now, it's not all that it's cracked up to be I do think the image quality from the 8k video is obviously fantastic. But, as I said in our initial hands-on video, which, if you want to watch that you can click on the card up here, there are a lot of trade-offs and most of that comes with rolling shutter and a lack of good image stabilization as well as massive file sizes. So, as you can see here, the iPhone 11 Pro max on the left is shooting in 4k 24 frames per second, in order to keep things fair with the s20 ultra, because you are locked in at only 24 frames per second for 8k video. You can definitely see the huge crop factor.

The lack of stabilization and the rolling shutter all take place while walking down this dock. If you have a tripod or are standing still, the K from an image standpoint works really well, but if you have a moving subject or you yourself are moving I'd- probably just stick to using 4k, so switching to 4k and using 60 frames per second, which is the maximum frames on both cameras. You'll see that you can do an excellent job in stabilization focus, etc. On both cameras, everything looks pretty even I do think. There are less micro jitters with the 11pro max, and things just seem to be a bit more stable overall, especially when you're walking, but for the most part they both look perfect, probably another wash here in my opinion, unless you're shooting 4k 60, and you put it up against that a K 24 frames per second I'd probably have to go with the iPhone.

Then at that point, even though you guys are gonna, get hung up on that.8K number just know that we're not there yet with the s 20 and a K video, but I do appreciate Samsung at least trying it out now before we get into the main still photo comparison portion of this video I do want to briefly touch on the cameras that you get on each phone and both phones for the most part offer up the same selection of a telephoto wide and ultra wide-angle lens, while the s20 does have an additional fourth sensor for depth. Speaking of depth, let's start with portrait mode, and this one was tough for me: I'm, not sure what it is about these photos, but I think the s20 ultra produced the better portrait mode photos over the iPhone 11 Pro Max. It's not a drastic difference, but I do think the sharpness of the photos and the edge detection just came out a little better. As far as edge detection goes. You can tell in this photo of the lamp.

The bottom part of that lamp is much more out of focus or blurry on the 11 probe, but it's a little more in focus on the s20 ultra. Now it's not perfect on the s20, but it is a bit better. The rest of the scene and the dynamic range is obviously a little better on the iPhone, but it is going to come down to your stylistic preference and for this image, I think crushing the shadows, which is what the s20 kind of tends to do in this image. It just works a little better for me and I kind of preferred that look for sharpness. This picture of my son kind of demonstrates what I'm talking about you can see that his hair and his face just isn't as sharp on the iPhone 11 Pro as it is on the s20 ultra the rest of these photos.

It might as well just be a toss-up for some of those who just kind of prefer a different style preference. The s20 does seem to crush the shadows and raise the highlights, which has kind of been the theme for all of Samsung's cameras in the past, and it's a little less obvious with the highlights being overexposed this year, but the shadows just being a lot darker, that's a little more prevalent and something that I've noticed in this year's lineup and so everything kind of desaturates a bit, especially in this photo, which I do not like. As you can see here, the red in this image is much more bright and vibrant on the 11pro max compared to the s20, which again is dulled out, and it makes it look a little orange, not sure why that happened in this specific photo. But I did think it was interesting. So, to sum all of that up for portrait mode, I think the s20 kind of takes the win here for me in terms of my preference and how I, like my photos, to look but I, think if you were just deciding based on which had the best portrait mode available, it's a toss-up I mean again, it's going to come down to your stylistic preference, but I do think edge.

Detection just overall, is sometimes a better job on the s20, the rest of the photos that I took definite leaned more towards the iPhone 11pro, but again, that's mostly because of the balanced color and the color temperature, and also the better dynamic range. The highlights specifically coming from images with the Sun and the clouds. You still get that overexposed look like I mentioned before on the s20 compared to the 11pro and then again those shadows of these images with overexposed highlights you just get that crushing darker look, and it does give you a lot of contrast, but that's not always a good look. Sometimes I do prefer it, but more often than not the natural image from the iPhone 11 Pro. It just looks better I will say a lot of images where the Sun is not directly in sight, which kind of helps out the s20 not overexposed the photo again.

It could just go either way in terms of your overall preference or which one, you think, looks better now. The weird thing to me here is when I switched over to the ultra wide-angle lens, a lot of what I just said with the temperature and the dynamic range that all still holds true, but the s20 seems to give up a sharper image overall. If you look at the buildings in this photo, I think you can see a lot more detail in the windows and the texture of the building on the s20. Then over the 11pro, the iPhone seems to go a bit soft in all of these ultra-wide photos. Again, most ultra wide-angle cameras are just naturally soft, but it's more evident here with the iPhone, so I have to have to say that I think the s20 has the better ultra wide-angle lens.

Before we end this, video I do want to quickly touch on some other features that the s20 ultra can offer, and one of them is the crazy 100x spaces some feature. Now: it's not something. That's really going to be usable all the time or really, if at all, because the 100x zoom rarely gives us a usable photo. But if you have steady hands, or you're using a tripod, you can see here that you'll cover a lot of ground and going from ultra-wide to 100x. You can really zoom in on something.

If you need to now. The iPhone stops in at 10x zoom and the images really do not look nearly as good as the 10x zoom on the ultra it's much more crisp and clear, and you can really get a good image compared to the iPhone. Even at 30x zoom on the ultra looks a lot better than the 10 on the iPhone, which is kind of amazing. That Samsung was able to give you good photos, wall zooming in from further distances. Now, if you want to take a really nice picture and crop in I suggest taking a look at the 108 megapixel camera feature on the s20 ultra.

Now we touched on this briefly in our last video again it'll be in that card. But the images that can come from these photos can look really, really good, but there are still some focusing issues, and it's not something that you kind of want to do all the time, because the file sizes are massive. If you do get a good picture using the 108 megapixel mode, then you can obviously zoom in quite a bit without losing a lot of quality. If at all, and these pictures can create some natural depth of fields, and it'll, just look better than the image processed both. Look that you get from something like portrait or live focus mode.

Samsung also has a unique feature called single take which takes photos, videos and even suggest you to move around and capture different angles in a certain amount of time, then the phone will turn around and give you a bunch of different images which will kind of pick the best one that it thinks using a saying here. Here's the best picture that we were able to capture for you and also other different types of shots like boomerang style, videos, videos with music, that's already added images with different effects and filters added, etc. Now it's kind of cool honestly if you're shooting something that's moving a lot like a pet or your children, and you want some reassurance that you're going to get some sort of usable photo or video. The single take feature is your best bet and last, but certainly not least, is night mode. I, didn't really want to make a huge deal about night mode or focus a lot on it, because I didn't want to focus on features that consumers had to kind of go out of their way to turn on, because I think a lot of people don't really do that and what I mean by that is.

If you want to use night mode on the iPhone when it's dark enough. This feature just automatically turns on, and you don't have to do anything with the s20. You actually have to actively seek out that mode in a different settings menu, and you have to switch to that shooting mode. So as much as some people might find it important I didn't want to make a large portion of this video focused on you know using the night for both cameras, but I do think. Both cameras do a good job at giving users a somewhat usable image and extreme low lighting conditions which what I mean by that is I walked outside it's pitch black there's, maybe a light from another house in the distance, but that's really the only light you're getting and, as you can see here from when you don't have night mode on to when you do, there's a huge difference now Apple just kind of blows up the highlights all around increases sharpness, and it gives you the ability to see everything while the s20 tries to preserve kind of a more natural look.

It does also try to boost everything up so that you can see everything again. I think this is gonna, come down to preference, I really don't have a strong feeling, one way or another I guess. If you're looking to see everything, the iPhone does a better job, but I think the s20 looks just a little more natural now in low-light conditions, not extreme where there is some light available, but it's not a lot of light. The iPhone, with its great dynamic range, seems to carry that over again for a more even look while the s20 crushes the shadows even harder when it's darker outside and it sort of focuses in on the clouds or the sky or whatever light source it can really find, and it boosts that a little, so I'm, probably gonna, go iPhone here but again, I don't have super strong feelings, because it's just not something to be honest with you that I really take I, don't really take a lot of real low-light pictures, but you might, so I wanted to give you that information so to wrap it up. The s20 ultra I think it's much better than some other Samsung cameras and iterations we've seen in the past.

It's a pretty big jump from last year's s10 lineup. In my opinion, it's kind of reminiscent of the camera quality bump up that we got from the 10s max to the 11pro this year. There's kind of a big difference and I feel like that's the same thing: it certainly bridges the gap with the new iPhone, and if this was the s20 ultra compared to the 10s max I'd, say I'd probably prefer the s20 ultra, but more often than not and in more circumstances I think my preference kind of is with the iPhone I think it just has the better camera system overall. As far as video goes, it's iPhone for me right now, and I would say, don't get hooked on that 8k number. It's really not that useful at this moment in time, so I'm probably going to pick if I had to pick one it's going to be the iPhone 11 Pro Max.

Yes, please do not roll your eyes. It's not a biased thing. I! Just think that it is a better camera system overall, but again, that's not always going to lead to the better photo. It is just kind of a preference thing here with a lot of the images that you might have seen today, so we'd love to know your thoughts, which one did you like better? Why? All of that, in the comment section down below this, has been down with Mac rumors thanks so much for watching, and I hope to see you around in the next video you.

Source : MacRumors