- Telephoto lenses with a 100 times zoom,
macro shots on the ultra wide,
portrait modes using AI Stereo Depth Maps,
and cinematic video in 4K.
The cameras on our phones have gotten incredibly advanced
and full of features.
So I decided there was no better way to test these cameras
than to take a thousand photos with each of them.
We're gonna be focusing on three cameras this year.
The iPhone 14 Pro, the Pixel 7 Pro,
and the stylist touting Galaxy S22 Ultra.
This is the thousand photo smartphone camera shootout.
Welcome back to Full Frame, buds.
(upbeat music)
Just as packed with features as they are with megapixels,
are three contenders in the best smartphone camera
of 2022 contest,
all have multiple lenses that provide perfectly good images.
But to crown the very best smartphone camera,
I'm gonna be going through each lens,
and whatever camera has the most winning lenses,
well, they take the crown.
Let's start with the widest one, the Ultra wide.
Our three contenders all have 12 megapixel f2.2
ultra wide lenses with macro modes.
And with similar specs, come similar photos
that are only differentiated
by the processing each camera does after the photo is taken.
Although many, and I mean, many of these photos
are hard to tell apart,
the iPhone wins narrowly
by allowing the shadows to be shadows.
An ultra wide lens can create a great deal of impact
by exaggerating the frame, warping those edges just a bit.
And what makes that drama stronger is contrast.
And at night, when all of these cameras
have their own downfalls,
I mean the iPhone and Pixel's reflections here,
the total lack of clarity here,
the iPhone reproduces an image
that most looks like what I was seeing, irl.
The iPhone also preserves a bit more detail
in the highlights.
You can see it here in the clouds
or on the side of this church.
And it's this small difference
that makes the iPhone the winner of the ultra wide,
but so, so narrowly.
And unfortunately, that contrast and clarity
can't make up for the iPhone's lack of a telephoto lens.
So the iPhone 14 Pro,
it does have a 12 megapixel f2.8 telephoto lens,
but it optically only extends to a 3x zoom
or a 77 millimeter equivalent.
The Pixel 7 Pro has a 48 megapixel Quad Bayer,
so that's a 12 megapixel equivalent
five times or 116.2 millimeter, f3.5 telephoto lens.
And the S22 Ultra,
well, it has both a 10 megapixel, 3x f2.4 lens
and a 10 megapixel, 10x f4.9 lens.
For this test though, I'm only gonna compare
each camera's farthest reaching lens
since it's the telephoto comparison.
And that 10x telephoto lens on the S22 Ultra,
it's equivalent to 230 millimeters,
and it is very crisp in great light.
Far crisper than the iPhone and the Pixel
digitally zoomed to 10 times.
I have had so much fun taking photos with this focal length.
The contrast levels are dramatic, but not too much,
so the image is nicely flattened out,
but quite plainly, this camera can see further than my eye
and it's just fun to show off.
But at night, that f4.9 aperture
really slows this lens down, and it is shocking
how much the image quality drops.
Even with its optical and digital stabilization,
images are pixelated, obviously over-processed,
and just flat out blurry.
In dark situations, you can get a much clearer photo
from the Pixel's 5x lens,
which is a bit sharper than the iPhone's 3x.
The Pixel does a nice job of smoothing the image
while also capturing enough light to preserve the details.
So for daylight shooting,
nothing comes close to the S22 Ultra's telephoto lens,
but at night, that Pixel 7 Pro, it still can't be beat.
So both of 'em get a point.
Wow wee, so whether I'm checking
if there's something stuck in my teeth
or I'm on a Zoom call, the front facing camera is
by far the most used camera on my phone.
And on the iPhone, you have a 12 megapixel
f1.9 true up camera.
The Pixel has a 10.8 megapixel, f2.2 front facing camera.
And then the S22 Ultra has a 40 megapixel
f2.2 front facing camera.
Also, the image is incredibly sharp and clear,
almost too sharp, some might argue, I happen to love it,
but when you compare it to the iPhone, well,
the iPhone's just not as sharp.
That's not to say it's blurry though either.
I like the way the Apple's, you know, not over sharpening
the image at all.
And ah, man, this Pixel, I don't know,
it's just like too contrasty for me.
I wish that they would tone it down a bit.
But how do all of these cameras look when it's a bit darker?
Okay, welcome to the dark.
What you'll notice right off the bat
is the iPhone is dark.
Much like it's photos, it's really not afraid
to keep the shadow shadows.
And when it comes to video on the front face camera,
I'm not sure that's the best idea,
but it does have the least amount of smoothing and noise.
The Pixel, it kind of sits
right in between these two, right?
I mean, you can kind of see my face a little bit better,
but it's a lot of noise and grain happening.
And then on the S22 Ultra, you can see me the best.
It really is gathering a lot of light,
but with it comes a pretty fair amount of noise.
On the photo side, more megapixels
doesn't always mean high resolution photos,
but in good light, the S22 Ultra's front facing camera
is a step above the competition.
The naturally blurred background is subtle,
yet adds a great deal of value.
And overall, this camera provides more detail
than the iPhone or the Pixel.
If you do want even more blur though,
Samsung has the best cutout and portrait mode too.
Lower light situations can cause the S22 Ultra to be
a bit less predictable and fall into some bad smoothing.
For example, the iPhone did a much better job here
of providing a clear image.
But overall, I love the level of contrast detail in depth
the S22 Ultra provides.
It gets the win.
It's time for the title match, folks.
The most important round, the wide lens.
And right off the bat, I'm gonna knock one camera
out of the competition completely.
Although the Pixel every so often has a big win
in low light, I have found that overall,
it's continually a step behind the S22 Ultra
and the iPhone 14 Pro.
The system's choices are incredibly inconsistent,
with photos either leaning too magenta or too blue.
Sometimes they lack contrast
and it's hardware creates these strange light reflections,
both during the day and night.
Not to mention that it's added features like cinematic mode
and stabilization often fall flat.
It is by no means a bad camera,
but it is not as consistently good as its competitors.
Okay, but the iPhone 14 Pro,
it has a 48 megapixel wide lens that is pixel bin
to a 12 megapixel sensor,
unless you're shooting in raw mode.
There's also a 2x lens option
that crops in on that 48 megapixel sensor
to create 12 megapixel images,
but since that lens is using the same sensor
as the main wide lens,
I'm not gonna spend too much time on it.
The 48 megapixel photos
from the standard wide lens are gorgeous.
I don't think that the average user is going to tap
on this raw option often,
but for anyone wanting the most amount of detail,
well, you got it.
Photos feel like you can reach into the screen
and just grab this cone right out.
And if you're going to bring them into an editing program,
you'll have more options to punch in
or slightly adjust the colors before the image falls apart.
I love this feature very much,
but Apple is playing a bit of catch up here.
Samsung has used in 108 megapixel sensor
since the 2020's S20 Ultra, and that amount of megapixels
is in the S22 Ultra as well.
The raw photos here are incredibly crisp,
but what makes them even better
is the pro mode that you have to be in to take them.
With the S22 Ultra, you have full control
over iso, shutter speed, white balance, exposure value,
and even focus in this pro mode.
And all that is nicely packaged
and so fun to use in the phone's native camera app.
And I cannot believe that Apple
doesn't have a native pro mode,
especially with a 48 megapixel camera,
it's kind of insane.
We're not taking photos in raw mode though.
The iPhone will pixel bin the sensor
or use software to group four pixels into one
and produce 12 megapixel photos.
These photos are not too punchy, but not too flat either.
And what I love most about them is that they are consistent.
The color tab, mature, the saturation, the contrast,
it all feels the same regardless of time of day or location.
And the skin tones are balanced.
The S22 Ultra, on the other hand,
well, it loves the color blue,
and as soon as it recognizes the sky,
it'll turn that blue up to borderline turquoise.
But not all the time, it's just some of the time
and there's no telling when this might happen.
Samsung has always had a reputation
for creating far too saturated images, and most of the time
with the S22 Ultra, it's able to tame that desire,
but just about every 20 images, it can't hold back.
This unpredictability is it's biggest downfall.
Where the S22 Ultra makes up for this though
is portrait mode.
The S22 Ultra uses an AI stereo depth map feature
to map out small elements
such as pieces of hair on a subject's head
and keep it in focus with the subject
to better sell the applied blur.
This creates far more realistic depth
between the subject and the background,
and leads to photos I truly can't believe
I took on a smartphone.
I mean, in this photo,
it held onto the cat's farther eyeball.
And here, the S22 didn't over correct the warm light
that was present at the table.
The iPhone, however, is quick to seemingly
just draw a circle on what it recognizes as a face
and add a big blur to everything else.
Case in point, Pete's dog tag's here.
Gorgeous day in Brooklyn, let's go.
On the video side, the iPhone 14 Pro is, again,
very consistent with color, contrast, and clarity.
It can shoot up to 4K 60 frames per second in pro res.
And when comparing it to the S22 Ultra's 4K video,
it's just a bit crisper and less jagged.
That's not a professional term,
but when filming small details such as leaves,
you'll notice that the iPhone does a better job
at separating details, but not over sharpening them.
But the S22 Ultra also shoots an 8K 24 frames per second.
And while I don't think anyone in needs 8K, I mean,
where are you actually gonna be watching this footage?
It does look noticeably better than the iPhone in this mode.
There's a crop, but there's also more details.
(motorcycle engine revving)
November something or other, and it's like
70 something degrees, this ain't right,
but I'm not gonna lie, it feels real good.
This is so cool.
At night however, you can see that both cameras
are really working hard to stabilize the image
with jagged details such as on this stoplight.
Although the iPhone does do a nicer job
of smoothing out the grain in the shadows.
And yes, both cameras have a video stabilization mode
and both have some sort of cinematic video mode
that adds depth the field.
But I think both of those features
are still too unpredictable for the average user
to use them.
All right, so who wins?
Last year, everyone got real mad at me
for saying that if you're an iOS user, it's the iPhone,
if you're an Android user, well then it was the Pixel.
So this year I'm promising you a winner,
and that winner is the S22 Ultra.
Because folks, this camera system has so many good features,
not just a couple of great tricks.
When you use this camera system,
you have 108 megapixels to play with,
four great lenses, one of which the three times lens
that I didn't even have time to talk about,
but is equally as sharp and very usable.
You have a portrait mode that'll have you saying,
I can't believe I took this on a phone.
And then on top of all of that, there's 8K video.
But more importantly, and what makes this system feel
like an actual camera and not just a camera
slapped onto a phone is you have pro modes that let you
control every part of it.
Check, check, check, check, check.
And I think that that control is what makes it the winner.
So long as you're willing to pay $1,200 for it,
which I guess in that regards,
it is following along the actual camera path
a bit too closely, but in the age of every phone
having a perfectly acceptable camera,
the ability to then tune that camera
precisely to what you want it to look like
is what makes it the best tool
for capturing the world around you.
And you know, you might actually learn a bit more
about photography while you're doing it too.
I know you got thoughts and I have galleries for you.
There's a pin comment down below
with some of my favorite photos that I took on
all of these cameras.
Download 'em, mess 'em up, let me know what you think.
Who has the best camera,
I'm coming to from the S22 Ultra, the front facing cam,
and I just like cannot get over how good that is.
It's kind of insane.
All right, I don't know if I'll ever do this project again.
It almost kills me every year,
but I appreciate you for watching.