Phone camera face-off

Phone camera face-off

Since the original iPhone was launched, no other smartphone camera has come close to matching Apple's flagship mobile device in speed, details, colours and ease of use.

Until now.

Samsung's Galaxy Note 4 came close last year to matching the iPhone 6 Plus in camera smarts.

Now, with the cameras in its Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 edge, Samsung has done it. With their f1.9 aperture, the cameras in both S6 devices do better than that of the iPhone 6 Plus, especially in low light.

The difference in daytime results is not as marked. But the S6's 16MP camera delivers greater details than the camera in the iPhone 6 Plus.

When Samsung simplified the user interface, options to record video in slow and fast motion are no longer buried under pages of menus.

These following images were shot with default settings and HDR off.

Image Set 1 (click on images to see bigger files; from iPhone 6 Plus and from Galaxy S6)

This indoor shot of Seletar Mall shows the prowess of the f1.9 aperture of the lens of the Samsung Galaxy S6's camera, compared with f2.2 on the iPhone 6 Plus.

A wider aperture allows more light in, producing brighter images in low-light conditions.

In the shot from the Galaxy S6, all levels of the mall are well lit, whereas the image from the iPhone 6 Plus has a blue tinge.

Image Set 2 (click on images to see bigger files; from iPhone 6 Plus and from Galaxy S6)

Under normal indoor lighting, both cameras produced beautiful shots with great details and contrast.

The S6 offers a whiter colour balance, giving it a more natural look. The iPhone image has a more yellowish hue.

 


This article was first published on April 15, 2015.
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