iPhone X vs. Galaxy S9+: Which Smartphone Has a Better Camera?

[R10k]

20MP? $5500? Sure, ok. I switched from Canon. I've read up on the color thing. It's gotten a lot better for Sony in recent sensor iterations and you can tweak things quite a bit in post if you need to. I think it's completely fine. Canon's lack of dynamic range and massive sensor noise was a huge turn off for me. And no IBIS, with a huge body? No thanks, lol. I like shooting on fast little primes. My everyday carry kit goes with me anywhere in my bag: a7R III, three lenses (portrait tele, mid-macro and wide), a Rode Mic, a filter set, extra batteries and cards, a charging battery bank for gadgets, an iPad Pro 10.5" with Apple Pencil, a 15" MacBook Pro 15" (which I'll often leave out if I'm not going to work to save on weight), 2TB SSD and various cables, adapters and accessories all in a bag that measures 15x10x4 for interior dimensions. I could never do that before. And when I was recently on vacation, I could easily pop a 100-400mm G-Master lens where my mic case went and have four lenses and my camera all stowed away in my bag as a carryon that fit under the seat in front of me. But to each their own…

It’s got nothing to do with the sensor. Sony just have poor colour science compared to Canon or Fuji. It’s so well known the web is full of jokes about needing to shoot in B&W if you have a Sony.

That said, Sony have some of the most impressive tech...

 

[LordVic]

Both sets of photos look atrocious...

I know both these devices can produce much better quality than these samples.

 

[scgf]

Interestingly you chose photos which play on the iPhone X tendency to overblow highlights. The S9 along with the Pixel make a much better attempt at displaying a wider dynamic range - in which case highlights will look a little less bright.

 

[Applemaniac7]

Wow those Galaxy S9 photos look hideously disgusting. iPhone X is so far ahead it's actually embarrassing.

Can you try and take off your redic Apple blinkers please, the X has awful blown out highlights, wheres' the detail? Colour can be tweaked afterwards in a variety of apps to suit taste. You cannot put detail back in. There's a reason all the camera review sites are praising the S9 so much. Can we not all be thankful there's options out there no matter what camp people live in..

 

[kaikai830]

https://www.gsmarena.com/apple_iphone_x_vs_samsung_galaxy_s9_plus_shootout-review-1739.php

 

[definitive]

LOL why don't you get a camera then?

It was sarcasm, aimed at those who put more weight into a phone's camera rather than the overall phone itself.

At this point, a phone's camera shouldn't matter much, because majority of them are of similar quality to the $100-200 pocket cameras, and it has been like this for several years. I find it silly when reviews create in depth articles to review photo quality, and then in the end the difference is minimal.

 

[nitropowered]

20MP? $5500? Sure, ok. I switched from Canon. I've read up on the color thing. It's gotten a lot better for Sony in recent sensor iterations and you can tweak things quite a bit in post if you need to. I think it's completely fine. Canon's lack of dynamic range and massive sensor noise was a huge turn off for me. And no IBIS, with a huge body? No thanks, lol. I like shooting on fast little primes. My everyday carry kit goes with me anywhere in my bag: a7R III, three lenses (portrait tele, mid-macro and wide), a Rode Mic, a filter set, extra batteries and cards, a charging battery bank for gadgets, an iPad Pro 10.5" with Apple Pencil, a 15" MacBook Pro 15" (which I'll often leave out if I'm not going to work to save on weight), 2TB SSD and various cables, adapters and accessories all in a bag that measures 15x10x4 for interior dimensions. I could never do that before. And when I was recently on vacation, I could easily pop a 100-400mm G-Master lens where my mic case went and have four lenses and my camera all stowed away in my bag as a carryon that fit under the seat in front of me. But to each their own…

I mainly shoot sports and this the best tool for the job. I've shot in downpours with no rain cover, been covered in mud, bounced around in a case on the back of a motorcycle, 190xxx clicks and works without any hiccups.

 

[macduke]

I mainly shoot sports and this the best tool for the job. I've shot in downpours with no rain cover, been covered in mud, bounced around in a case on the back of a motorcycle, 190xxx clicks and works without any hiccups.

That is a lot of freaking photos for a camera that is only two years old. Do you just trash most of them when your shoot is done or do you actually store all of that? If I had to guess, I've probably at most shot 100K photos in my life on dSLRs/mirrorless (2005 onwards) that I've whittled down and currently store around 25K in my Lightroom catalog on my Samsung T5 2GB external SSD.

Then again, I don't shoot much sports, just a few SEC football games here and there, so that probably keeps my count lower. Would love to shoot an NFL game someday, but it will probably never happen for me. I mainly shoot landscapes and some wildlife. Though I'm thinking about renting the Sony GM 400mm f/2.8 when it comes out and next autumn go shoot some games with my a7R III to see what that is like. Probably should rent a grip too. I don't see much reason to buy one for what I normally shoot, but it's nice when quickly switching orientation all the time.

I will give it to you that your camera has much better weather protection than the Sony bodies. Supposedly the a9 is good and the a7R III is ok but doesn't have good protection on the bottom. It annoys me when companies make stupid decisions like that to save a buck. Seriously, how much would it cost to just seal up the bottom properly? Charge me an extra $100, I don't care, just do it.

The only other thing that annoys me is that the second card slot isn't UHS-II so it's slower, which means when writing to both cards at once it slows down the buffer clearing—which is quite a bit at 42MP—so I'll probably only use that functionality for an upcoming wedding that I'm shooting. Right now I have it set to photos on my 300MB/s UHS-II card and 4K HDR video on my 95MB/s UHS-I card.

 

[BigDO]

I find it silly when reviews create in depth articles to review photo quality, and then in the end the difference is minimal.

Couldn't agree more. People who care will use proper cameras, people who don't, phone cameras have been basically indistinguishable for a while now. These in depth reviews are ridiculously irrelevant. I can't even tell the difference between the samples above, and couldn't care less.

 

[nitropowered]

That is a lot of freaking photos for a camera that is only two years old. Do you just trash most of them when your shoot is done or do you actually store all of that? If I had to guess, I've probably at most shot 100K photos in my life on dSLRs/mirrorless (2005 onwards) that I've whittled down and currently store around 25K in my Lightroom catalog on my Samsung T5 2GB external SSD.

Then again, I don't shoot much sports, just a few SEC football games here and there, so that probably keeps my count lower. Would love to shoot an NFL game someday, but it will probably never happen for me. I mainly shoot landscapes and some wildlife. Though I'm thinking about renting the Sony GM 400mm f/2.8 when it comes out and next autumn go shoot some games with my a7R III to see what that is like. Probably should rent a grip too. I don't see much reason to buy one for what I normally shoot, but it's nice when quickly switching orientation all the time.

I will give it to you that your camera has much better weather protection than the Sony bodies. Supposedly the a9 is good and the a7R III is ok but doesn't have good protection on the bottom. It annoys me when companies make stupid decisions like that to save a buck. Seriously, how much would it cost to just seal up the bottom properly? Charge me an extra $100, I don't care, just do it.

The only other thing that annoys me is that the second card slot isn't UHS-II so it's slower, which means when writing to both cards at once it slows down the buffer clearing—which is quite a bit at 42MP—so I'll probably only use that functionality for an upcoming wedding that I'm shooting. Right now I have it set to photos on my 300MB/s UHS-II card and 4K HDR video on my 95MB/s UHS-I card.

When I shoot Gymnastics, I'll shoot 20-30K a weekend. Luckily JPEG. They are stored for about a year then deleted

 

[Applemaniac7]

When I shoot Gymnastics, I'll shoot 20-30K a weekend. Luckily JPEG. They are stored for about a year then deleted

30k? Let' say its an 8 hr event both days.. that a pic every 2 seconds for 16 hrs non stop. Really.. if I've told you once, I've told you a million times, stop exaggerating.

 

[javanni]

I just think, as other pointed out, that all flagships now take excellent pictures and the title of best phone camera is really almost exclusively down to personal preference.

For that matter, it seems the S9 has a better dynamic range, but I'm pretty sure in 95% of situations it will not matter much. Also, HDR can often compensate that, it's called High Dynamic Range for a reason.

 

[macduke]

When I shoot Gymnastics, I'll shoot 20-30K a weekend. Luckily JPEG. They are stored for about a year then deleted

Oh, gymnastics. That makes more sense as bodies are wildly flipping through the air in all dimensions. Have you thought about trying the a9 for that, shooting at 20fps? That speed is ridiculous. I have to wonder if someday we'll just shoot 8K RAW video and grab the best stills from it to process. Sounds crazy but my a7R III is already 7952x5304 at 10fps. 8K video is 7680x4320 at 24/30/60fps. Photography isn't going to require as much skill over time, lol.

 

[TC_GoldRush]

Samsung Galaxy s9+, especially in the photos with blurred backgrounds. The iPhone has better colors though.

 

[nitropowered]

30k? Let' say its an 8 hr event both days.. that a pic every 2 seconds for 16 hrs non stop. Really.. if I've told you once, I've told you a million times, stop exaggerating.

Its more like Friday/Saturday/Sunday for 12 hours. Remember I'm not taking 1 shot at a time, doing bursts while they are in the air.

Oh, gymnastics. That makes more sense as bodies are wildly flipping through the air in all dimensions. Have you thought about trying the a9 for that, shooting at 20fps? That speed is ridiculous. I have to wonder if someday we'll just shoot 8K RAW video and grab the best stills from it to process. Sounds crazy but my a7R III is already 7952x5304 at 10fps. 8K video is 7680x4320 at 24/30/60fps. Photography isn't going to require as much skill over time, lol.

I actually slow my 1DX2 down to 8fps instead of full speed of 14. Otherwise I just end up with too many pictures. We don't have time to cut through video and do frame grabs.