After its official announcement at Galaxy Unpacked last month, the Galaxy S25 Ultra has a long read ahead of itself, as it’ll no doubt face increasingly tough competition from other phones for the rest of the year. It’s clearly a best camera phone contender, which is why a 200-photo shootout between the Galaxy S25 Ultra vs. Galaxy S24 Ultra is needed to see what improvements Samsung has made year-over-year.
In my previous 200 photos shootout with the Galaxy S24 Ultra vs. Galaxy S23 Ultra, the gains were marginal, with the S24 Ultra dispelling the so-called "downgrade" with its telephoto camera. Don't get me wrong, I fully expect the Galaxy S25 Ultra to win this camera shootout, as a newer phone should. But the question is to what degree?
For a refresher, I’ll quickly detail their camera setups, but you’ll notice how they’re very similar with exception to their ultrawide cameras. The Galaxy S25 Ultra packs a 200MP main, 50MP ultrawide, 10MP 3x telephoto, 50MP 5x telephoto, and a 12MP selfie. On the other hand, the Galaxy S24 Ultra features a 200MP main, 12MP ultrawide, 10MP 3x telephoto, 50MP 5x telephoto, and a 12MP front camera.
In typical fashion, I capture all of the photos in this Galaxy S25 Ultra vs. Galaxy S24 Ultra shootout with both phones on me under the same conditions. Later on, I look at the photos on a monitor for a proper side-by-side comparison to detail all of their differences.
Galaxy S25 Ultra vs. Galaxy S24 Ultra: Main camera
Frankly, I’m really bummed that there isn’t a more profound improvement with the Galaxy S25 Ultra’s 200MP main camera over its predecessor. The only difference I can see in the shot of the tree in my backyard above is that there’s a tiny bit more contrast with the S25 Ultra’s shot. Details, sharpness, and colors look identical with the S24 Ultra’s shot, which delivers the same details around the branches and the homes in the background.
In the other images below, the differences between their main cameras are marginal at best. Neither one boasts the quality that clearly pulls one camera phone substantially ahead over the other.
Winner: Tie
Galaxy S25 Ultra vs. Galaxy S24 Ultra: Ultrawide
Both ultrawide cameras offer 120-degree field of views, and while the Galaxy S25 Ultra gets an upgrade to a 50MP sensor, the downscaled 12MP photos it produces look similar to the S24 Ultra. The only slight difference is the warmer color temperature of the S25 Ultra’s shot, which I can make out with the color of the sand. That’s not enough to say it’s necessarily better, since color preference can vary from person to person.
However, I would think that the upgraded camera would pull in more detail and sharpness with the Galaxy S25 Ultra shots, but I don’t see much of it in the wooden post and dunes. In the other ultrawide comparison shots I captured in the gallery below, I don’t see much difference between them.
Winner: Tie
Galaxy S25 Ultra vs. Galaxy S24 Ultra: Dynamic range
Now this one’s a shock because as I’ve seen in the performance above with their main cameras, I notice that the Galaxy S25 Ultra tends to have slightly more contrast in its images. But if I’m judging their dynamic range performance, I like how the Galaxy S24 Ultra boosts the shadowed areas in the shot above at the train station. If you look in the shadowed area with the tracks closer to the foreground, the details of the rocks in that area are a little bit more exposed.
This isn’t isolated to just those snapshots because in all of the photos, I can tell that the S24 Ultra boosts the shadows a bit to draw out the details that are hard to make out with the S25 Ultra. This could simply be attributed to the image processing, so the result could very well change with future software updates.
Winner: Galaxy S24 Ultra
Galaxy S25 Ultra vs. Galaxy S24 Ultra: Colors
There’s a ton of color in the images above with the flower arrangements, but after inspecting everything, it’s almost a deadlock in terms of the phones' color reproduction. The red flowers near the middle of the shot appear just a pinch more saturated with the Galaxy S24 Ultra, but all the other colors look identical in tone.
I really like both, but the small difference in the red isn’t enough for me to say one is better than the other. I tried looking at all the other photos in the gallery below, and they all show that Samsung’s color science doesn’t have a dramatic change.
Winner: Tie
Galaxy S25 Ultra vs. Galaxy S24 Ultra: Macro
Finally! Here’s where the Galaxy S25 Ultra gets a meaningful update that delivers results. Now that the Galaxy S25 Ultra has a 50MP ultrawide camera (versus the 12MP one in the S24 Ultra), it captures a lot more fine detai in macro mode.
The photos of the wooden stake I captured above look really sharp throughout the photo, but zooming reveals the abundance of definition with the S25 Ultra’s shot. The wooden splinters are much more distinct, plus I can see how the shadowed areas get an exposure increase to make those details more visible.
Winner: Galaxy S25 Ultra
Galaxy S25 Ultra vs. Galaxy S24 Ultra: Selfie
After looking through the countless selfies I captured of myself with both phones, it’s again hard to say there’s a definitive winner because it comes down to color preference. With the strong sunlight hitting my face in the selfies above, their 12MP front-facing cameras capture excellent detail — like my facial features and the fabric of my jacket.
The only difference is the subtle hint of exposure applied to my skin tone with the Galaxy S24 Ultra’s shot, which makes me look just a tad brighter. I don’t think this is good or bad, seeing that the S25 Ultra’s shot is just as clean (and perhaps a more accurate exposure).
Winner: Tie
Galaxy S25 Ultra vs. Galaxy S24 Ultra: Portrait
Apart from the intensity level of their backgrounds, there’s no substantial difference in how either phone captures portrait photos. In the shots above, I can tell that the Galaxy S25 Ultra is a lot more aggressive with the background blur — evident by the wooden fence. Details are rich in both shots, which I can make out from my facial features and the stitching of my jacket.
The edge detection of the Galaxy S25 Ultra looks a bit off, but it’s probably the result of having it set to a high background blur setting in the camera app. Notching it a couple of levels makes it similar to the S24 Ultra’s shot.
Winner: Tie
Galaxy S25 Ultra vs. Galaxy S24 Ultra: Zoom
At 3x and 5x zoom, there’s barely any difference between the wooden sign post I captured above. I’m not terribly surprised given that there’s no hardware upgrade for the Galaxy S25 Ultra, but I was hoping that its new AI-enhanced ProVisual Engine would apply the necessary tweaks to make the final image look much better — but it doesn’t.
Moving onto 10x zoom, this is where I can finally see meaningful differences between the two camera phones, as the Galaxy S25 Ultra’s shot has a little more definition. I see it in the yellow emblem, along with the wooden pattern of the post. This is exemplified a little more with their 100x zoom shots, since more of those textures are more noticeable with the Galaxy S25 Ultra.
Winner: Galaxy S25 Ultra
Galaxy S25 Ultra vs. Galaxy S24 Ultra: Panorama
When it comes to taking panoramas, you get the choice of using either the main or ultrawide cameras to get the ideal composition. There’s not a single thing that pulls me to one shot over the other in the beachside panorama I captured above.
Not only are details of the wooden post and the tracks in the sand identical, but they also appear to have the same exposure throughout the scene. The blue sky complements the golden look of the sand. These are the same qualities I see in all the other panoramas in the gallery below.
Winner: Tie
Galaxy S25 Ultra vs. Galaxy S24 Ultra: Low light
Now comes the category where Samsung can outshine itself because low light has continually been the area that separates the best camera phones from everything else. In the nighttime shot above, it’s another close race between the two phones as they pull in excellent low light shots. There’s a fair amount of ambient light all around, but I’d make an argument for the Galaxy S25 Ultra pulls in a tiny more detail — which I can see from the wooden railing to the right.
Under dimmer or pitch black settings, however, I see more of a difference that gives the Galaxy S25 Ultra the clear advantage. In the gallery below under extreme low light situations, like the shot of the tree, the S25 Ultra has the brighter image and more definition.
Winner: Galaxy S25 Ultra
Galaxy S25 Ultra vs. Galaxy S24 Ultra: Verdict
Well this one’s a little bit disappointing because I wanted to see a wider gap between how the Galaxy S25 Ultra vs. Galaxy S24 Ultra camera performance. Yes, the Galaxy S25 Ultra technically wins this camera shootout, but that’s expected for any new phone to do.The biggest areas of improvement include the S25 Ultra's ability to take sharper, more detailed macro photos. Its upgraded 50MP ultrawide clearly makes a big difference, but strangely doesn’t with landscapes.
The new AI-assisted ProVisual Engine appears to enhance the telephoto camera’s performance. It’s not a tremendous boost, but still enough for me to notice in all the telephoto shots I’ve taken. And lastly, the low light performance also benefits from this new AI-enhanced ProVisual Engine as it tweaks the image to draw out better results.
But even with a win, I was expected to see a boost from the main camera of the Galaxy S25 Ultra. Unfortunately, it was more or less the same as the S24 Ultra’s performance. However, I plan on revisiting this one again because you never know what a software update could bring.
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