S23 Ultra camera specs might actually beat out Apple iPhone Pro Max - USA TODAY

Which smartphone camera is better: Apple iPhone 14 Pro Max oregon the caller Samsung S23 Ultra?

In the $450 cardinal smartphone business, camera is king. Which begs the question: who’s sitting atop the throne?

At its “Unpacked” lawsuit successful San Francisco today, Samsung made an ambitious play for the crown. Its caller flagship phone, the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra, boasts a 200-megapixel superior camera, much than immoderate different instrumentality disposable successful the U.S.

It has astir doubly the capableness for item of the 108-megapixel workhorse camera successful past year’s S22 Ultra. And much than 4 times the solution of the iPhone 14 Pro and the iPhone 14 Pro Max, Apple’s existent top-of-the-line models.

“I’m definite that we tin present the champion pictures and video successful the satellite with this (200-megapixel) sensor,” Joshua Sungdae Cho, Executive Vice President of Samsung’s Visual Solution Team, told me.

As the 15-year-old smartphone marketplace matures, the camera has emerged arsenic 1 of the fewer features that manages a sizable leap forward, twelvemonth aft year. And aft ostentation and a slowing system sapped user spending connected big-ticket items past year, Apple, Samsung and others are pinning their hopes connected the latest camera exertion to assistance reinvigorate demand.

Make nary mistake, carrying a ace high-resolution camera successful your backmost pouch tin beryllium life-changing. When I was evaluating the S22 Ultra past year, I took immoderate beauteous breathtaking photos from a region that smartphone cameras successful the 50-megapixel scope conscionable can’t match.

But there’s a acheronian broadside to each that resolution. And it mostly comes retired astatine night.

Night shots and the mathematics of bully photos

In bid to battalion much pixels into the sensor beneath 1 of the solid lenses connected the backmost of your smartphone, you’ve got to marque the pixels smaller. And the smaller the pixel, the little airy it tin capture. That’s not a occupation successful wide daylight. But it is successful low-light situations.

When snapping pictures astatine an evening barbecue, for example, the camera’s shutter has to enactment unfastened longer truthful that it tin seizure capable light. The extended unfastened clip risks blurring shots, either due to the fact that your subjects move, oregon you shingle the camera.

For the past 4 oregon 5 years, smartphone makers with astatine slightest 40-megapixel cameras counteract the low-light conundrum by pooling airy from 4 oregon much pixels. The effect of the technique, called pixel binning, is simply a lower-resolution changeable – but with capable airy to support things sharper.

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With the S23 Ultra, Samsung volition fto you excavation either 4 oregon 16 pixels, depending connected however overmuch airy is available. If you’re keeping score, that would effect successful pics with either 50-megapixel (200 divided by four) oregon 12.5-megapixel (200 by 16) resolution.

Apple iPhone Pro camera vs. Samsung

Until the iPhone 14 Pro and Pro Max, Apple steadfastly stuck with 12-megapixel solution for its superior cameras, undoubtedly due to the fact that it believed determination was nary substitute for large pixels successful low-light situations.

No longer. The superior camera successful the iPhone 14 Pro and Pro Max has 48 megapixels. In debased light, Apple employs four-pixel binning to nutrient 12-megapixel shots.

There are different ways to guarantee that nighttime shots are arsenic crisp arsenic possible. Apple and Samsung employment antithetic methods for representation stabilization. And some person improved their exertion with the latest phones. As well, some thin connected much almighty representation processors and artificial quality to get the astir retired of their cameras.

But wait, there's more...

There are different camera enhancements successful the S23 Ultra arsenic well. For example, it volition grounds stabilized 8k video astatine a afloat 30 frames per second, alternatively of 24 frames with the S22 Ultra. Not galore radical are making 8k videos yet. But if you’re editing video, 8k recordings springiness you the quality to harvest – and inactive nutrient afloat 4k videos. And the S23 Ultra’s extra-wide tract of presumption adds much flexibility for that.

Cho pointed retired that contempt the immense leap successful resolution, the S23 Ultra takes little clip – nether a 2nd – to marque photos and video disposable for reappraisal and edit.

“This time, we were peculiarly focused connected the way from the camera to the gallery,” Samsung’s Cho said. “That way has been precise overmuch shortened. “

Is each of that capable to crown the S23 Ultra the caller camera king? Cho thinks so. We’ll find retired soon enough. The S23 Ultra comes disposable connected Feb. 17.

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USA TODAY columnist Mike Feibus is president and main expert of FeibusTech, a Scottsdale, Arizona, marketplace probe and consulting firm. Reach him astatine mikef@feibustech.com. Follow him connected Twitter @MikeFeibus.