A new video has hit the internet today that features a competition between the cameras of Apple’s flagship iPhone 6s and Samsung’s Galaxy S7. Numerous websites have also featured side-by-side shots taken by each and the clear winner is the Galaxy S7.
iPhone 6s falls to Galaxy S7 Edge
Let’s be clear, these are both great phones that have drawn heaps of side-by-side comparisons in the tech press. As a whole they are largely equal and those that prefer the Android OS and those that prefer iOS don’t have any decision to make if choosing to purchase one over the other. But, the Galaxy S7 Edge’s camera clearly wins this contest between them.
Now, to be fair, the Galaxy was just released and the iPhone 6s has been around for awhile. I more telling test will come if and when Apple releases it’s next flagship, likely the iPhone 7 that is rumored to have dual-lens capabilities as well as a likely improvement on its overall camera quality. But since all we have to work with is the iPhone 6s, let’s begin.
Samsung, and all power to them, really went out of there way to make their new flagship phone appeal to both the selfie taker and the semi-professional photographer. I bring up the semi-professional photographer for a reason. I’m a full-time freelance writer that does everything in my power to pay for vacations with travel writing and the phone from either Samsung or Apple is sufficient to get an image quality that could be used on a proper website rather than a blog. Or, for that matter a newspaper or magazine assuming they still exist.
Professional photographers were disqualified from the conversation, as a professional photographer, well, they have cameras. YouTuber SuperSaf , somehow got himself a hold of a Galaxy S7 and kudos to him for the comparison photos he’s recently posted.
The Specs for the Galaxy S7 camera
The Galaxy S7 is packing a megapixel rear camera with Phase Detection autofocus (PDAF), OIS, an f/1.7 aperture, and 1.4 µm pixels. The iPhone 6s features a 12 megapixel rear camera with f/2.2 aperture, PDAF autofocus, and 1.22µm sized pixels. Each of the phones are equipped with a 5 megapixel front cameras, but there’s an f/1.7 aperture with the Galaxy S7 against an f/2.2 aperture with the iPhone.
But specs don’t tell the whole story by any means.
Have a look at the video
Yes, Samsung did, indeed, lower the resolution on it’s primary, rear-facing camera but at the same time the phone-maker made the pixels bigger. You can certainly tell the difference. The colors really pop out of the OLED screen by themselves, but when compared to the iPhone 6s, they absolutely blow the figurative doors off Apple’s flagship.
The low-light performance of the Galaxy S7 is sufficient to show the iPhone’s biggest fan that the Galaxy S7 is the true winner in this shoot-off. If that’s not enough, the front-facing camera on the Galaxy S7 is also just better.
But returning to the low-light performance of the S7, it’s truly remarkable and often the reason you know an image came from a phone as opposed to a camera. Smartphones just don’t generally handle those shooting situations well.
When you add the Galaxy S7’s dual-pixel autofocus technology and its 720p 240fps slow motion video capture, there is a clear winner.
I need to stop now before my iPhone 6s simply shuts down in shame later tonight.
