Mobile Photography - iPhone 13 Pro vs S22 Ultra vs Pixel 6 Pro

Article written by 1x Hardware Reviewer and co-founder Jacob Jovelou

Introduction

On 1x.com, almost all photographers use a stand-alone camera to take their photos. As little as less than 1% of the images published have been taken by a smartphone camera. This is probably not a surprise for those of you who are well-acquainted with 1x and our tough requirements to get an image published/awarded. But still, if we look at the world outside 1x, the smartphone camera is by far the most used. In fact, over 99% of all images are snapped with a phone.

The phone has several obvious advantages over the stand-alone camera. The most important one is described perfectly by the cliché phrase - "The best camera is the one you have with you". It is very true. It is also the most discreet camera which is great for street photography or other situations where you don't want to attract too much attention to the fact that you are taking photos. The third major advantage is simplicity. The term "Point and Shoot" is refering to how easy it is to get a great photo without touching one single option or making adjustments. This might sound horrible for the enthusiast photographer who enjoys the manual work. But in some cases, it is very valuable to be able to take a photo quickly that comes out as good as possible with good processing. We don't always have the time to prepare.

Of course there are just as many advantages with a good DSLR or compact camera. The most important one is perhaps that when we carry a "real" camera, we become a photographer. We change our mindset to look for that perfect light, composition and scene. Another important difference is that a big part of the end result is in the hands of the photographer. We control how much light we want to let in with the shutter speed. We define the depth of field with the aperture. We can get exactly the result we want with easy to use physical controls. Lastly but also important is the quality of the image. The size restrictions in a phone makes it hard to compete with real optics and big sensors.

Today we are going to take a look at three of the best mobile phone cameras on the market - iPhone 13 Pro, Samsung S22 Ultra and Google Pixel 6 Pro. Given what I just wrote about the advantages/disadvantages and the requirements to get published on 1x you might ask, why? I doubt no one who reads this review will sell their real camera, but we all need a phone, and why not carry a phone with a competent camera system as a complement? The camera systems in mobile phones are perhaps the major focus of manufacturers like Apple, Samsung, Google, Huawei, Xiaomi, Sony and more. So how good are they, and how big are the differences in end results? This review can perhaps guide you while making your next phone purchase and who knows, maybe you will be inspired to start shooting more mobile photos.

Computational Photography

I want to spend a little time explaining the concept of "Computational Photography". A mobile phone is really a portable super computer with an extremely powerful processor. It is not only used for graphics intensive gaming but also when taking photos to overcome the big hardware limitations of the small camera.

When you are shooting using a modern smartphone, it is actually not taking just one photo but rather hundreds with different exposure settings. In fact, at the press of the shutter button, the camera has already started capturing in case you were a little late. The different versions of the same photo are then processed by the powerful hardware and the sharpest ones are aligned, merged together to create the best possible image (according to the programming of the camera software). This gives photos with a wide dynamic range, superb details in low light, accurate colors and you rarely get portraits where the subject has their eyes closed or a blurry face from movement.

Photo of the northern lights in Uppsala, taken with 4x zoom camera on Pixel 6 Pro

This is perhaps a bit of a controversy for the conserative "classic" photographer who wants to have the ultimate control of everything. You can even go so far as to discuss who is the actual photographer - is it the person pressing the shutter or is it the computer? For me personally I have no problems with this technology. I am still in charge of when a photo should be taken and I have found the scene and composed the photo myself. The computer is just helping me to get the best results, and in a camera this small, it is needed to get good results.

In fact, it is possible to take really amazing photos that would require lots of manual editing to get a smilar result when using a stand-alone camera. The photo of the northern lights above is a good example of something that is really simple to snap with the mobile phone and although the sharpness and technical quality would be superior from a DSLR, I managed to get a very good result with no time spent in editing software.

Technology

There are many technical differences between a smartphone camera and a DSLR. The most obvious one is that you cannot change lenses on a phone. It usually comes with different lenses for various focal lengths and they all have their own image sensor. If the phone has three lenses on the back, it can be considered as three different cameras entirely, usually with different sensor size, quality and resolution. Also the lenses in a phone is made of plastic and usually has a much worse optical performance than even the cheapest kit lenses for DSLR.

The thin construction of a phone gives almost no space for a zoom lens. Both S22 Ultra (10x) and Pixel 6 Pro (4x) has something called a periscope lens to achieve great magnification. This works by mounting the lens horizontally inside of the phone and then bending the light from the lens into the optics by using a periscope.

Another important difference is that all lenses on phones are fixed focal length. If we take S22 Ultra as an example, it has four cameras with 0.6x, 1x, 3x and 10x focal lengths. If you zoom between them, for instance 5x magnification, it will use digital zoom (cropping) from the 3x lens which gives worse quality than a variable DSLR zoom lens.

The aperture is also fixed, so there is no way you can change or control the depth of field or limit the amount of light like you can on a regular camera.

The Contestants - Apple iPhone 13 Pro (Max)

Apple created the first smartphone in 2007 and is in the top of smartphone manufacturers. They release new phones once per year and the major developments from year to year are camera improvements. The 13 Pro and 13 Pro Max are the most expensive in the series with the most advanced camera system consisting of three lenses:

Ultrawide, 0.5x, 13mm, f/1.8, autofocus with a 12MP sensor
Wide, 1x, 26mm, f/1.5, autofocus with a 12MP sensor
Tele, 3x, 77mm, f/2.8, autofocus with a 12MP sensor

iPhone 13 Pro starts at $999 and is available in 128GB, 256GB, 512GB and 1TB configurations with colors graphite, silver, gold, blue and green.

The Contestants - Samsung S22 Ultra

Samsung has a long history of mobile phone development, releasing their first smartphone in 2009. Like Apple, they release phones once per year and the Ultra model has the most powerful camera system with four lenses:

Ultrawide, 0.6x, 13mm, f/2.2, autofocus with a 12MP sensor
Wide, 1x, 23mm, f/1.8, autofocus with a 108MP sensor
Tele, 3x, 70mm, f/2.4, autofocus with a 10MP sensor
Super-tele, 10x, 230mm, f/4.9, autofocus with a 10MP sensor

S22 Ultra starts at $1199 and is available in 128GB, 256GB, 512GB and 1TB configurations with colors black, white, green and red.

The Contestants - Google Pixel 6 Pro

Google, being the software company they are, started the trend with "Computational Photography". Their camera is widely acclaimed to be the best at maximising the potential of the limited hardware thanks to smart algorithms and machine learning. They release two versions of the Pixel with two different sizes each year. The bigger of the two (Pro) has the more advanced camera with three lenses:

Ultrawide, 0.7x, 17mm, f/2.2, fixed focus with a 12MP sensor
Wide, 1x, 25mm, f/1.9, autofocus with a 50MP sensor
Tele, 4x, 104mm, f/3.5, autofocus with a 48MP sensor

Worth noting is that the Pixel is not available in all countries. It starts at $699 and comes with either 128GB, 256GB or 512GB storage in black, gold or silver.

Comparing the technical specs

The easiest difference to spot is that Apple is sticking with a 12MP sensor while Samsung and Google has equipped their phones with higher resolution for the main lens. With the Samsung it is possible to take photos in the full 108MP resolution while Google use a technology called pixel binning to merge 4 pixels into 1 to produce a final image with 12MP resolution. The default setting on the Samsung is also to use pixel binning, so unless you manually enable the full 108MP mode, the images will be 12MP. It is also worth noting that the processing is limited when shooting full resolution on the Samsung which gives a less appealing final result.

The resolution of the sensor is not really critical to the end result. Since the optics in mobile phones have a limited performance, this will be the main limiting factor and not the amount of pixels.

Another difference worth noting is that both Samsung and Apple have a much wider ultrawide than Google. In fact, the ultrawide and wide lenses of the Pixel 6 Pro are so similar in focal length that you barely notice the difference while switching between them. If you like doing architectural photography, this can be an important point to consider.

Also the zooming capability differs and Apple has the smallest optical zoom range limited at 77mm. The addition of a "supertele" with 230mm in S22 Ultra makes this phone special. It opens up possibilities for creative compositions and different perspectives. It is also powerful for nature photographers who wants to keep a distance from the subject. while shooting. Google has the highest resolution (48MP) on their 104mm telephoto camera which makes a difference when you zoom longer than 4x. More pixels means that the digital zoom produces higher quality results. Still, the Pixel 6 Pro cannot compete with Samsung when you reach 10x magnification.

The 10x (230mm) lens of S22 Ultra makes it possible to take detailed photos in long distances to give buildings a greater

scale or take photos of animals without scaring them

Photo comparisons

Lets cut to the chase and compare these cameras in real life. I invite you to a photo walk in Uppsala, Sweden, where 1x.com was founded in 2007.

By clicking on an image it will open in a new tab where you can compare the different photos by pressing the arrow keys on your keyboard (or using the thumbs below the big image on a mobile phone). You can also see all EXIF data for each photo. Press escape or the icon with an X to return to the review.