pixel 6 pro vs iphone 13 pro max vs samsung galaxy s21 ultra 5g: Camera Comparison

                                                                  Pixel 6 pro

                                                               iPhone 13 pro

               

                                                                 Galaxy S21 Ultra

This is the google pixel 6 pros and it 

comes with this giant camera bar which holds three cameras including an all-new main camera and the first periscope zoom lens in the pixel and altogether it's a camera system that can compete with the very best so that's why we brought our good pals the iPhone 13 pro max and the Samsung galaxy s21 ultra to see if Google really has a new camera king on its hands. First let's get the front camera out of the way and start with a quick selfie video so that's what video with the front camera looks like the pixel clearly goes berserk with sharpening while, the iphone and the galaxy are not quite as aggressive in that regard and also interestingly you can zoom up to four times while recording selfie videos with the pixel now it makes more sense to go wider rather than zooming while you're recording front camera video but if you need that in some strange case the pixel has it and the others don't jump over to some selfies, the pixel has this really wide front camera that can capture more than the other two. So if you have a big group of friends that is really nice to have and you can also go of course narrower on all three phones if it's just you for the selfie in terms of quality, the new pixel is definitely going for a darker and more contrasty moody look with very aggressive sharpening while the iphone and the galaxy shoot brighter shots with less contrast than the softer detail our favorite here is the galaxy which has the most pleasing colors and most balanced detail but it's a very close call so let me know if you have other preferences now i personally don't think it's a good idea to take selfies at night as the quality is quite terrible but while the iphone and the galaxy light up their screens as a fill light for your face to capture a nice selfie the pixel doesn't it just takes a longer time to capture a long exposure shot honestly, it's hard to judge these all of them just don't look like something you'd want to share but you have that option and here's a quick low light video just to demonstrate what you can get with the front camera at night the pixel looks quite noisy and by the way so does the galaxy and take a look as i go away from the light this is what the video recording looks like on all three phones let's walk a bit so overall for selfies our personal preference goes to the galaxy which has the most pleasing colors in various conditions but the real improvements that the pixel brings are with the main camera which 

for the first time in years uses a 

bigger sensor right now we have a 50 megapixel on the pixel 6 pros now you cannot actually shoot 50 megapixel photos that's good to know the phone actually combines 4 pixels into one for a final image that is 12.5 megapixels and just looking at the default shots with automatic settings on all three phones the pixel kind of stands out with this cooler color tonality and the way it very aggressively lifts up the shadows and you get these kind of flat looking photos the iphone goes in the opposite direction with much warmer colors and deep dark shadows for a more contrasty look and the galaxy takes a bit of the middle ground here now if we had to pick a favorite we'd say that thepixel sometimes really nails a photo but often it captures a kind of flat looking image that doesn't really look that good while the iphone and the galaxy are more consistent with what you get and would give the iphone a slight edge for daylight photos we just prefer the colors and that's the time to mention the new photographic styles on the iphone that basically allows you to choose whether you want warmer or cooler colors whether you want deeper shadows and more contrast or lighter shadows with more detail in them and you can keep that look for all your photos. The other two phones do have manual controls but you cannot save these controls and use them to create a new look for all your future photos and you kind of have to redo the controls every time you open the camera app which is not convenient at all so photographic styles I think are a big win for the iphone especially if you want to customize the colors but in terms of detail looking at some crops from photos you can definitely see the aggressive sharpening on the pixel and the galaxy goes the opposite direction trying to smooth detail and remove excess noise and finally the iphone kind of strikes the middle ground here okay you also have an ultra wide a camera on all three phones and  the ultrawide camera on the pixel is not quite as wide as the galaxy and especially not as wide as the iphone but still, it's quite wide and it actually has less distortion and crisper detail at the edges take a look at a few shots captured with the ultra wide camera and pick your favorite here but come night and the pixel shows that it can match and surpass the other two but with two big caveats first one is that having all that processing power and all that over processing really means that just shooting a photo takes a long long time on the pixel while the galaxy and especially the iphone can often capture a picture in a second or two seconds the pixel often takes twice the time or even longer to just capture a photo at night and the other problem is just its inconsistency sometimes it would get white balance completely wrong for For example, other times the photo would look just fine and what about zoom quality the galaxy is the zoom king to beat here but let's take a look at some shots that we've captured on all three phones first at two times zoom where all phones use digital zoom then we go to three times zoom where the telephoto cameras on the iphone and the galaxy kick in and of course, you have a cleaner photo while the pixel still uses digital zoom and doesn't look nearly as good but then at 4 times zoom the pixel periscope. The camera kicks in so the pixel does look sharper it's only when you reach 10 times zoom where the second zoom camera on the galaxy kicks in and the pixel gets its match but even at 10 times and further the difference between the galaxy and the pixel is not all that huge in fact it's minimal and when you get something brighter in the frame the galaxy gets captures it with a bit of glow while the pixel maintains highlights actually even better so it's a toss-up when it comes to zoom quality but we'd say that the pixel might actually, be more practical with its cleaner photos all the way from 4x to 9.9 times zoom which is a really great zoom range to be in and the iphone here really it's not a great phone for zoomed in shots the quality is just bad it's not in the same league alright next up let's look at portrait mode. I love using it and you can use it not only for people but also for food shots and other objects for  a more dramatic effect so it has various uses now what's peculiar with the pixel imported mode is that it doesn't show a preview of the effect as you capture it in your viewfinder and the effect is only applied after you take a shot which is a bit weird but okay you get used to it so using the one exported mode that's a bit of a misnomer because while the iphone and the galaxy do indeed use the one x main camera the pixel actually crops in quite a bit and that results in less detail of course it looks mushier you don't get such a clean image while the iphone and the galaxy look a lot crisper and as for the colors we have the same cooler colors and somewhat exaggerated contrast on the pixel which is not our favorite look especially for portraits but what I personally find particularly strange is that google doesn't allow you to use the periscope forex zoom camera for portraits that would have been amazing while on the iphone and the galaxy you can use their three times zoom cameras for close-up portrait shots and yes just using the forex camera alone without the portrait mode actually gives you quite a bit of natural bokeh but it doesn't look quite as good as the portrait mode on the other two so that would have been a really nice thing and probably something that google can add via software update so we also took a few portrait photos of objects that are not people and a few portrait shots at night where we got this actually crazy artifacting on the iphone around my head just noticed that that's just another a reminder that portrait mode is still far from perfect on all of these phones and is still a work in progress one thing that we have absolutely fallen in love with are the two new motion photo options on the pixel 6 pros that usually take experienced photographers quite a bit of preparation to capture . The first one is the long exposure photos that just look stunning take a look at that these look particularly great with moving water and you also have the action pan that also looks nice. This is also a good moment to mention that the pixel lacks a macro mode which i wouldn't call is something you would use often but it can be a cool thing to have and both the iphone and the galaxy have it so that's an advantage so what about video capture has the pixel called up here and can it match the other two so the galaxy remains the only phone in this bunch to support 8k video capture with the most detail and even if you don't use it all the time the files are too big having that option is actually awesome for those special moments when you really want that extra detail but most of the time we would record at 4k on these phones and interestingly we noticed that at 4k60 there are some limitations on the pixel for example at 4k60 you cannot use the zoom camera on the pixel which is a weird but we wouldn't judge it too hard and we'll be comparing actually 4k 30 footage where all the cameras are available since that's what we personally use the most and it seems that the iphone has the best video stabilization among the three it's a very close call as all three phones have great video stabilization but there is a bit of a jitter that you can notice on both the pixel and the galaxy so we give that slight edge slight advantage to the iphone on the galaxy you can also enable the super steady mode but that actually uses the ultra wide camera and looks far less detailed and similarly the pixel has an active stabilization mode which gives you better stabilization but again that also comes with worse quality that i don't think is really worth it and here's how switching between the lenses looks like on these three phones while recording video there is a bit of a hesitation and jitter on the pixel on the galaxy 2 while the iphone really seems a bit more refined in the camera and how fluid it is and it also maintains colors looking quite the same while you do notice a bit of a change in colors as you switch the cameras on the pixel anyway here is a look at the zoomed in video interestingly the iphone can only go to nine times zoom in video while both the pixel and the galaxy can zoom up to 20 times and you can notice how all across the four to nine 9.9 times zoom range the pixel looks great and we would say that it's a close call between the galaxy and the pixel here and it's super impressive on the part of the pixel because it just uses one camera while the galaxy uses two zoom cameras and the iphone well it's not a match for these two when it comes to zooming i also want to quickly touch up on my quality because the iphone microphone in particular sounds great indoors but when you take it outside where you have a lot of wind that wind is not filtered out properly and it's really hard to hear anything in such conditions here's what it sounds like all right so right now we're testing my quality on all three phones so right now I'm talking to the google pixel 6 pro okay and right now i'm talking to the samsung galaxy s21 ultra and finally, i'm talking to the iphone 13 pro max keep in mind with the side voice there might be some differences in the mic quality so it's really interesting to hear which phone does best so let me know about that in the commentsso is the pixel 6 pros the new smartphone camera king well we think it's really close and it certainly deserves to be in that conversation but it's probably not quite there yet photos on it mostly look great but sometimes they'll turn out surprisingly flat or have some issues in low light when with the white balance for example, it's just a bit inconsistent it's also frustrating how slow the pixel was to take photos in low light but then what was really surprising was just how good that four times zoom camera is and it gives the pixel a big  advantage in both zoomed photos and videos so at the end of the day the pixel 6 pro is almost there as the ultimate camera phone but the iphone and the galaxy do look a bit more refined and more consistent but we have to once again say how close of a call this is and let's not forget how much cheaper the pixel is then these other phones so what do you make of it all do you like the new pixel 6 pro camera and  Are you getting a pixel yourself. .