I did an iPhone 16 Pro Max and Galaxy S24 Ultra camera test. The results shocked me

The iPhone 16 Pro Max and the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra are both big phones with big screens, big power, and big price tags. The cameras are also impressive, but which one of these two archrivals takes better photos?

I’ve been using the Galaxy S24 Ultra again over the past few weeks and have put it against Apple’s latest top iPhone to find out. And the results are pretty shocking.

The cameras

Apple iPhone 16 Pro Max Andy Boxall / Digital Trends

Before we look at the phones, let’s look at the numbers behind the cameras, starting with the iPhone 16 Pro Max. There are three cameras on the back, starting with the main 48-megapixel camera with optical image stabilization, which can also take 2x zoom photos. It’s joined by a 12MP telephoto camera for 5x optical zoom photos and a 48MP ultrawide camera with a 120-degree field of view.

The Galaxy S24 Ultra has four cameras. It’s led by a main 200MP camera, along with a pair of telephoto cameras — a 10MP camera for a 3x optical zoom and a 50MP periscope zoom for 5x optical shots — plus a 12MP ultrawide camera. Unlike previous Galaxy Ultra phones, the S24 Ultra has “optical quality” 10x zoom shots, which have proven to be just as good as optical zoom shots.

Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra Andy Boxall / Digital Trends

For reference, I used the Standard Photographic Style on the iPhone 16 Pro Max for all the photos below, and each phone’s camera was used in auto mode. All the photos were downloaded onto an Apple Mac mini and examined on a color-calibrated monitor. They have all been resized for friendlier online viewing.

Main camera

When using the main camera, the iPhone 16 Pro Max consistently took more visually pleasing photos than the S24 Ultra, apart from its long-time issue with exposure occasionally rearing its head. In the first photo of the leafy lane, you can see where it causes the camera problems and where the S24 Ultra’s colors are punchier and more vibrant.

However, as you can see in the second photo of the Aston Martin Valkyrie car, the S24 Ultra’s eagerness results in noise, which is entirely absent from the iPhone’s pin-sharp, more accurately colored image. Although its exposure can cause issues sometimes, here, it gets it exactly right — to the point where I can easily read the Vehicle Identification Number (VIN) on the windscreen, which is blurred and jumbled in Samsung’s photo.

The Galaxy S24 Ultra often gets a certain type of photo right, such as the example at the top, but everywhere else, the iPhone improves. The photo inside the church shows the wonderful tone and warmth of the iPhone’s camera, rather than the starkness of the S24 Ultra, right down to the color of the padding on the seats and the wooden beams on the ceiling.

Take a look at our final photo to see how the iPhone’s super-sharp focus and depth of field help it take detailed, emotional shots, even of the simplest subjects. The foam and bubbles on top of the coffee are so sharp, and the depth of field is exactly right, making for a more realistic, attractive photo than the S24 Ultra’s photo, which seems less aware of its subject.

Winner: Apple iPhone 16 Pro Max

Ultrawide camera

On paper, the iPhone 16 Pro Max’s ultrawide camera should easily improve on the Galaxy S24 Ultra’s camera, but in reality, it’s the opposite. The S24 Ultra’s ultrawide camera shows up the iPhone’s camera really badly. The first photo of the Ferrari FF was taken indoors in good lighting (the same environment as the Aston Martin Valkyrie photo above), and the iPhone’s photo is full of noise and blur, while the Galaxy S24 Ultra avoids most of the same issues to produce a sharper, less blurred image. It’s not perfect, but it’s far better than the iPhone’s photo.

Outside, things don’t improve much for the iPhone 16 Pro Max, but it can still impress with its warm tones. The photo of the fields and sky shows the S24 Ultra’s vibrant colors but overall coldness. However, it has a less noisy foreground and more detail, such as around the fence post. In the distance, the two cameras introduce some blur and noise.

In the final photo of the church, you can see how much sharper the S24 Ultra’s ultrawide photos are, with the stonework on the spire far clearer and less muddy than in the iPhone’s image. Yes, the S24 Ultra does use quite a lot of software enhancement, but it’s easier to forgive it when the balance and sharpness is right.

Winner: Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra

2x zoom and 3x zoom

The two phones have different “short” zooms, with the iPhone 16 Pro Max offering a 2x optical zoom and the S24 Ultra a 3x optical zoom. You can see examples of them both here, and we’ll be judging this category as one rather than two separate categories. The 2x zoom is fairly consistent across both cameras for balance and focus, but the iPhone can introduce some noise, while the S24 Ultra’s photos have a softer look.

Move on to the 3x zoom across the two cameras, and the iPhone 16 Pro Max can’t match the S24 Ultra’s performance. Shots are far noisier and less sharp, while the Samsung phone’s 3x zoom produces excellent photos with plenty of life and detail. This is to be expected, given Samsung’s dedicated optical 3x mode.

But because the S24 Ultra’s 2x mode isn’t awful compared to the iPhone 16 Pro Max’s 2x shots, it’s going to win this category for being more versatile, as you could realistically use both zooms on it, but would want to stick with the 2x on the iPhone 16 Pro Max.

Winner: Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra

5x zoom

Both cameras have 5x optical zooms, and Samsung continues its run of zoom superiority here too. The iPhone 16 Pro Max has a problem with sharpness and focus, resulting in grainy, blurry, or noisy images that look worse the more you crop them down. These issues are missing from the S24 Ultra’s camera, and its photos look great at 5x zoom.

Take the wooden angel as an example. Not only are the colors and textures far more realistic in the S24 Ultra’s photo, but when you crop it down, there’s detail in the wood that the iPhone struggles to capture. The overall sharpness makes the depth of field pop more, while the iPhone 16 Pro Max’s photo appears flatter.

Photos taken outside have similar issues, but the iPhone does win a few points with generally more realistic colors. Many will like the S24 Ultra’s fairly saturated colors, which stay consistent across all lenses. The donkey’s fur is sharper and more defined in the S24 Ultra’s photo, and there’s clearly less noise on the wooden fence post and the red strap. Samsung wins the 5x zoom category, so will it make it three-for-three as we move to the 10x category?

Winner: Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra

10x zoom

Neither phone has a 10x optical zoom, but Samsung does make a point of highlighting its optical quality photos at 10x and does include a shortcut in its camera app. The iPhone does not, and things do start out quite well.

The horse photo reveals a similar level of detail, but when you get very close, there’s far more evidence of software enhancements in the S24 Ultra’s photo, with some haloing visible along the horse’s back and ears. This glow is not in the iPhone’s photo at all, giving it a more natural appearance.

But the iPhone does not always win here, as seen in the next photo of the wooden pub sign. The S24 Ultra’s photo has less noise than the iPhone’s photo, particularly on the green board, and its more dynamic coloring means the fall leaves glow more attractively.

The Galaxy S24 Ultra is far more consistent when shooting 10x photos, as the final photo of the car proves. The differences are clear — accurate colors, spot-on white balance, and no obvious noise. The iPhone can’t keep up at 10x zoom.

Winner: Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra

Night mode

When it came to shooting photos in low light, the Galaxy S24 Ultra’s preview on the phone made me expect the worst, as it did not show a truly representative image straight after taking it. The iPhone didn’t have any such problem, so when I was collecting photos, I feared for the S24 Ultra’s performance. However, the images looked totally different in the gallery, and at first, the two appeared quite evenly matched.

The outside of the brightly lit pub is a great example. The iPhone overexposes in many places while showing more detail than the S24 Ultra’s photos in others. However, in most other areas — the seating and foliage, for example — both cope with the low light well. The iPhone’s photo does have a little more blur, though, and the overexposure hides details, such as in the pub’s signage.

In the photo of the village shop, the iPhone’s more accurate colors shine through, and it’s also less blurry than the S24 Ultra, where the software smooths out a lot of detail, showing both are very sensitive to lighting conditions when taking photos in the dark. The two trade blows like this in all the lowlight images I took, and while the iPhone’s overexposure often caused problems, the S24 Ultra’s smoothing often did the same.

However, the S24 Ultra was great in difficult, harsh lighting conditions. Shooting into the sunset, the S24 Ultra captured the golden glow in the sky, the blue sky, the green of the grass, and the scene as a whole. The iPhone 16 Pro Max’s photo contains so much shadow that it robs it of emotion and detail. The real-world environment was somewhere in between the two, but the S24 Ultra’s photo is the one I’d keep or share.

Winner: Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra

Samsung’s flagship comes out on top

Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra Andy Boxall / Digital Trends

It may come as a shock to some, but the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra — a phone released at the beginning of the year — has taken a victory in all but one category against the new Apple iPhone 16 Pro Max. It has by far the superior camera when you want to take any zoom or ultrawide photo.

It couldn’t quite match the iPhone 16 Pro Max in the main camera category, though, and I consistently preferred it to the S24 Ultra. Still, it should be noted the iPhone’s exposure and contrast can still upset the balance of some images, especially in challenging light. This has affected iPhone cameras for several generations, so it is not unique to the 16 Pro Max.

Apple iPhone 16 Pro Max Andy Boxall / Digital Trends

What’s very interesting is that the iPhone 16 Pro comprehensively beat the Google Pixel 9 Pro in a recent test, proving its top camera credentials. It also showed several improvements over the iPhone 15 Pro. The Galaxy S24 Ultra has been a winner from the start by improving on its predecessor, beating the Google Pixel 8 Pro, and equaling the performance of our favorite Android camera phone, the Xiaomi 14 Ultra.

It may not be the latest on the market, but the Galaxy S24 Ultra continues to take on the very best camera phones and easily holds its own.