iPhone 12 Pro vs. Galaxy Note 20 Ultra camera comparison By CNET

It's camera comparison time: this is the iPhone 12 Pro versus the Galaxy Note, 20 ultra everything you see in this video was shot either on the Galaxy Note, 20 ultra or the iPhone 12 Pro. Everything is straight out of the camera, no edits, no adjustments, including the audio, so you get a real idea of what these phones can do now, of course, personal preference and the screen you view it on does make a difference in how you see the photos and what you like might be totally different to what I like. But all that said, let's go see some photos, I'm going to take you to some of my favorite spots around San Francisco to test out these cameras. Let's start with landscape photos and no surprise they look fantastic on both color and detail, and dynamic range is excellent in well-lit situations and each phone's HDR mode called smart hdr3 on the iPhone or HDR on the note, 20 ultra looks really balanced on the main rear camera. The note can also shoot at 108 megapixels on the main wide camera, which does give you a lot of scope to crop in and change your framing or get a more shallow depth of field effect. Thanks to that large sensor.

But a technique called pixel binning on the note means that the regular 12 megapixel shots look great and honestly, I usually take all my photos on this. Setting the iPhone's 12 megapixel sensor uses another computational method, called deep fusion on all its cameras to bring out more detail and texture zoom into the 100 crop on this shot, and you'll see that they're both sharp and retain detail really well, even in lower light, especially on the tiles on the windmill and again on this photo. Take a look at the side by side, then zoom in again, and you'll see it's pretty hard to tell these apart in terms of detail. But when the lights get a bit lower. The colors white balance, and especially the HDR effect from both of the phones, does look a bit different at sunset.

Looking out over the Pacific Ocean, the notes photo looks warmer and pinker than the iPhone thanks to the scene, optimizes sunset mode, and you can also see a bit more detail in the sand area as well. Moving to the ultra-wide camera and the iPhone is the only one that can film at 4k 60 on all its rear cameras, including the ultrawide. If you do want to film on the ultrawide or the telephoto on the note, you'll have to switch down to 30 frames a second, so the ultrawide is a tricky one, because the colors and the exposure from both of the ultrawide cameras are actually really different on every single shot that I took in this image, in particular, the iPhone's photo is more saturated than the note, but the ceiling of the palace of fine arts does look more accurate to what the scene actually looks like in real life. The iPhone's lens also controls distortion, a little better in general, especially around the edges of the frame. It's no secret that the note 20 ultra has crazy zoom five times optical or up to fifty times, hybrid.

Here's. What the image looks like from the note from one times on the main camera, then at five times the camera shifts out to a hybrid digital zoom from ten times 20 times and finally 50 times which isn't really usable, but it's pretty cool that it's there. The five times zoom, though, is superb as long as you have enough light, and definitely the sweet spot is the ten times zoom. Now all this being said, the note can get a lot closer than the iPhone's two times: telephoto camera in the same situation, here's the progression again from the iPhone from one times two times optical five times, digital and finally 10 times. Digital zoom live focus on the note and portrait mode on the iPhone blur the background behind your subject, human or otherwise, now edge detection is perfect on both and there's no glaring issues there that I can see, but the iPhone does a much better job of retaining shadow and highlight detail overall, say, for example, in this shot, just take a look at the logo on the hat that gets blown out and lost.

On the note, the iPhone's portrait mode is also sharper overall on your subject, especially on details such as here on the sweatshirt. The same generally applies for non-human subjects like flowers, the iPhone is sharper overall. I also wanted to try a backlit portrait, and I was really impressed with the results from both I personally like the golden glow from the iPhone, and it keeps the detail on my hair where that sun hits it. But you might like the notes. Look a bit more.

This one is completely personal preference for the front camera. The iPhone's white balance and exposure is more pleasing to me, but the note actually makes my hair look a bit darker than it actually is and with a strong backlight. The front camera's dynamic range is better on the note, because you can definitely see some of that blue sky, which is totally washed out on the iPhone. But the skin tone is not quite as accurate on my face and the iPhone also has an ace upper sleeve with night portraits, which keeps your subject sharp and well lit, while blurring the background. The note doesn't have an equivalent.

So you can either take a regular night photo without the blur, which looks good, or you can use live focus. But let me tell you: the result is pretty messy. Speaking of night photos, the new LIDAR scanner on the back of the iPhone 12 Pro means that the autofocus at night is super snappy, and it generally feels a bit faster than the note. The iPhone also has a slightly faster main rear camera at f 1.6, which does let in a bit more light than the f 1.8 camera on the note which you can clearly see the advantage in this shot, but the inky blue sky on the note, is more pleasing to my eye in this shot, both also let you take photos on the ultra-wide in night mode, and they're actually really close in this photo. The note is a bit brighter overall, especially in the foreground, and I think I prefer its shot overall for night photos, I'm actually really torn.

It does depend on the photo as to which one looks better. Sometimes the iPhone takes it and other times. The note looks a lot better. You've seen lots of examples of video shot on both of these phones so far, so, hopefully you're keeping track of which one you like the most. What you need to know is the iPhone 12 Pro supports HDR, with Dolby Vision, recording when you play back the video on a supported screen like on the iPhone itself.

It looks fantastic, just FYI. This video you're watching now is not on a HDR timeline. But if you do want to see some samples on your HDR screen, we have some clips on our highlights channel right now. The note can also record in HDR, and you can only film at 30 frames. A second for focusing the note uses a laser autofocus system, but it is pretty noticeable when the camera changes focus when you're, filming or say if something enters or exits.

The frame. The iPhone overall is smoother with exposure and focus transitions. I had no complaints about stabilization on either at 4k, but for handheld pans. The iPhone does look a bit smoother to me. Audio is good on both again the iPhone sounds more full and a truer stereo experience than the same track from the note, especially when you're listening in headphones.

But all that said the note 20 ultra offers much more in its stock camera app, especially for video, including live focus, video and pro video mode with full exposure and mic controls. A histogram 8k recording lots of aspect ratios, and you can also record at 120 frames a second now you can do some of this on the iPhone, but you do need a third-party app. All right. You've watched the comparison, and now you get to choose the winner of this one, but I think that you will not be disappointed with the results from either of these two flagship phones, because they are such good all-rounders and just the capabilities that are on board on both of these phones is incredible. That said, I think there are a few categories in which one phone definitely is stronger.

For example, the Galaxy Note 20 ultra, I think, definitely takes it for zoom five times optical versus two times optical on the iPhone. It's just not really a comparison there, and I do prefer the night mode photos from the note 20 ultra the iPhone 12 Pro was definitely stronger for video, in particular, just having that flexibility of 4k 60 on all of those rear cameras was great. Dolby HDR was also a little easier to work with than the equivalent HDR 10 on the note 20 ultra and for portrait mode. It definitely felt like the iPhone was a stronger performer overall, especially in low light and focusing speed. I didn't talk about that much throughout the video, but I definitely noticed the iPhone was a little snappier and more responsive overall than the note 20 ultra.

But don't forget there is the iPhone 12 Pro max, which is coming out in a few weeks. So I'm looking forward to testing that against the note, 20 ultra and a couple of other flagship cameras, because that actually has a few more camera tricks up at sleeve than the iPhone 12 Pro thanks for watching. As always, you got to, let me know which phone you think won in the comments below and stay tuned. We have lots more comparisons with this phone, the iPhone and all other flagship phones coming your way really soon.

Source : CNET