iPhone 15 Pro Max Camera vs. Galaxy S23 Ultra: Which Is Best?
The iPhone 15 Pro Max has one of the best cameras it’s possible to get on any phone, with its main camera and new 5x telephoto zoom lens letting you snag incredible images in any condition. It’s an overall photography beast, but it isn’t the only great camera phone to buy. Samsung’s Galaxy S23 Ultra has remained one of our top picks for photographers since it launched earlier this year. It can take glorious images, and its 10x zoom offers even more creative options.
But how do these two phones compare when it comes to photo-shooting prowess? To find out, I put both devices through their paces in a series of tests in London and Edinburgh, including night mode imagery, zoom tests and portrait mode challenges.
The long story short is that both phones are incredibly capable when it comes to taking photos that’ll wow your Instagram followers, but read on to see how each phone fares under different conditions.
Both phones have captured this bright, vibrant scene well with their main cameras. But the iPhone 15 Pro Max has produced more realistic colours in both the sky and in the main building to the left of the scene. The S23 Ultra’s sky looks particularly oversaturated, with a yellow tinge to the scene that I’m less keen on.
It’s the same story when switching to each phone’s wide-angle lens. The S23 Ultra’s shot is more vibrant, but it looks almost unnaturally saturated as a result. The iPhone 15 Pro Max’s shot looks almost a little drab by comparison, but I prefer its more faithful reproduction of colours.
Beyond a slight shift in white balance, there’s very little to choose between either shot here.
I focused closer-up on these pretty pink flowers using the main cameras on each phone, and the iPhone is the clear winner. It’s provided an attractive out-of-focus bokeh to the background while keeping the subject looking nice and sharp, which helps the foreground flowers stand out. The S23 Ultra doesn’t have the same depth effect and its colors are extremely saturated. The green leaves to the bottom left of the image in particular look almost toxic against the iPhone’s much more realistic tones.
Color balance isn’t an issue here, with both phones producing well-exposed shots and the vibrant artwork on this bridge looking well-produced in both images.
There’s not a lot of immediate difference here, so I really have to nitpick to draw any conclusion. On the one hand, I slightly prefer the brighter, higher-contrast exposure the S23 Ultra has managed. However, the iPhone 15 Pro Max has a more attractive shallow depth of field, with softer bokeh noticeable on the chairs and light sources in the background. As a result, we can call this one a tie.
Switching to the ultrawide cameras on both phones, the big difference is the shift in white balance on the S23 Ultra. Samsung’s phone has opted for an image with a strong magenta colour cast that I’m not particularly keen on. While the iPhone’s shot is a little darker, its colour tone is much more accurate.
Both phones have portrait modes that can be used with different lenses but still capture that attractive bokeh effect around your subject. Taken with the standard 1x lenses, the S23’s shot is wider than the iPhone’s, while also producing richer contrast and stronger colors. The iPhone’s looks quite washed out, either due to lens flare or simply through software processing, and the result is disappointing.
Things change when we look at the zoomed-in shots. The iPhone Pro Max’s 5x zoom lens has captured a lovely portrait here, with great exposure and a really natural-looking bokeh around the subject that could easily have been taken on a DSLR with a telephoto zoom. The S23 Ultra’s shot still looks good though, with rich contrast and deep colours.
The iPhone 15 Pro Max’s 5x zoom has delivered a much better-looking shot than the S23 Ultra’s 3x lens, with more natural-looking colours and exposure. Things improve for the S23 Ultra at 10x zoom though, with a far nicer colour tone overall, not to mention being able to see more detail on the sign, thanks to the longer zoom range.
The S23 Ultra’s extended zoom range can be beneficial, especially for those occasions where you really want to fill your frame with a distant subject. However, I personally find 5x to be a real sweet spot. It allows me to find more interesting compositions than I could with a wide-angle lens, but without being too restrictive.
That’s why I prefer the iPhone 15 Pro Max in this scenario rather than the Galaxy S23 Ultra’s closer 10x zoom. This largely comes down to personal preference, of course, but I find the iPhone’s zoom (as I did with the Pixel 7 Pro’s 5x zoom) much more useful on a day-to-day basis.
