Samsung Galaxy S21 Gallery
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Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra, main camera. This photo has a great mix of sharp details (if you zoom all the way in), pleasant colors, and a well-balanced exposure. Nothing is shrouded in darkness. The main 108-megapixel sensor merges pixels so they can absorb more light, resulting in photographs that are 12 megapixels by default. Compare this shot with the following one.
iPhone 12 Pro Max, main camera. I prefer the colors in this photo. There's a nicer separation between the blue sky and the setting sunlight. Zoom in though and you'll notice the Samsung photo is a hair sharper, and it's not as dark as some parts of this photo. The bushes are mostly pitch black, whereas you can see details on them in the S21 Ultra photo.
Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra, 100x Space Zoom. The S20 Ultra can zoom in up to 100x, and nine times out of 10 you'll get pretty useless results. But the fact that I was able to get this shot of the moon freehand—without the use of a tripod—is amazing. If you put it on a tripod, you'll get an even better result.
Photograph: Julian Chokkattu01Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra, main camera. This photo has a great mix of sharp details (if you zoom all the way in), pleasant colors, and a well-balanced exposure. Nothing is shrouded in darkness. The main 108-megapixel sensor merges pixels so they can absorb more light, resulting in photographs that are 12 megapixels by default. Compare this shot with the following one. 
Photograph: Julian Chokkattu02iPhone 12 Pro Max, main camera. I prefer the colors in this photo. There's a nicer separation between the blue sky and the setting sunlight. Zoom in though and you'll notice the Samsung photo is a hair sharper, and it's not as dark as some parts of this photo. The bushes are mostly pitch black, whereas you can see details on them in the S21 Ultra photo.
Photograph: Julian Chokkattu03Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra, 100x Space Zoom. The S20 Ultra can zoom in up to 100x, and nine times out of 10 you'll get pretty useless results. But the fact that I was able to get this shot of the moon freehand—without the use of a tripod—is amazing. If you put it on a tripod, you'll get an even better result. 
Photograph: Julian Chokkattu04Samsung Galaxy S21, 10x zoom. Compare this photo with the following one. The standard S21's 10x zoom doesn't produce photos that are as sharp as the S21 Ultra's 10x optical zoom. Here, the image is just not quite in focus and very grainy.
Photograph: Julian Chokkattu05Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra, 10x optical zoom. It's almost like putting glasses on for the first time. This shot is dramatically sharper, with wonderful colors. Remember, this is zooming in 10 times further with the camera—I'm really far away\!
Photograph: Julian Chokkattu06Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra, 3x optical zoom. There are two telephoto cameras on the S21 Ultra, allowing you to get crisp photos at 3x or 10x zoom. This shot is a little lacking in contrast, but it's still sharp.
Photograph: Julian Chokkattu07Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra, 3x optical zoom. Compare this photo with the following one. This is the 3x version of the earlier 10x zoom photo. I snapped this same photo on several competing phones, and the S21 Ultra was one of the few where the bridge wasn't completely dark. 
Photograph: Julian Chokkattu08Samsung Galaxy S21, 3x optical zoom. This is closer to what I saw coming out of Apple and Google's phones. Things are just a little bit more dark, like the underside of the bridge, and there's more noise.
Photograph: Julian Chokkattu09Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra, 10x optical zoom. This high level of zoom allows for more versatile photography, especially if you can't get closer to a subject. This image is well detailed, and you get a nice compressive effect that makes the background appear closer to the subjects in the foreground. 
Photograph: Julian Chokkattu10Samsung Galaxy S21, selfie camera. Compare this photo with the following one. The 10-megapixel selfie camera can snap some pretty great photos on the S21. This one is sharp, though the background feels a little flat.
Photograph: Julian Chokkattu11iPhone 12 Pro Max, selfie camera. I like Samsung's selfie photo more. The background here is overexposed, and zoom into my mask and you'll find the details aren't as sharp. I can count strands of eyebrow hair on the S21 photo but I can't quite do that here. 
Photograph: Julian Chokkattu12Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra, main camera. Compare this with the following photo. Here's an instance where I like the iPhone photo more. This S21 Ultra shot is great, but the colors feel a little flat, and there's a decent amount of noise (look at the left base of the bridge).
Photograph: Julian Chokkattu13iPhone 12 Pro Max, main camera. Punchy colors and sharp details. That's what you'll see here. Compare the base of the bridge alone and you'll see far less noise on the iPhone shot, and a much more appealing sky. 
Photograph: Julian Chokkattu14Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra, 10x optical zoom. The level of detail you can get with 10x zoom when there's good lighting is impressive. This photo of my dog is tack sharp.
Photograph: Julian Chokkattu15Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra, Night mode. Compare this photo with the next three photos. Out of all its competitors, the S21 Ultra came out on top here when it comes to detail. The statue is sharper here than in any other image, but the whole scene is lit well. 
Photograph: Julian Chokkattu16Samsung Galaxy S21, Night mode. The standard S21 doesn't have as big a sensor as the Ultra, so it's only natural for it to fall short. Zoom into the statue and it'll look slightly blurry.
Photograph: Julian Chokkattu17iPhone 12 Pro Max, Night mode. The iPhone comes close to the detail of the Ultra, but nothing is as well defined. Just look at the tips of trees. The iPhone's photo looks as though someone used the paintbrush tool from Microsoft Paint. 
Photograph: Julian Chokkattu18Google Pixel 5, Night Sight. The Pixel's shot comes similarly close, but it's not quite as sharp. All of these photos are still very good considering how dark it was (except maybe the S21's photo, which is the blurriest), but there's a clear winner: The S21 Ultra.
Photograph: Julian Chokkattu19Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra, Night Mode. Samsung does tend to brighten up shots too much, sapping away a lot of contrast and shadow. The good thing is you can always add that back in when editing, but it's much harder to make a photo more detailed after it's captured. I love the colors here, but if I was going to edit it, I'd crank up the contrast. 
Photograph: Julian Chokkattu20Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra, 10x optical zoom. You can see the quality dipping as light seeps away. That's because of the f/4.9 aperture, which cannot absorb as much light as the other cameras on the S21 Ultra. Still, this is a pretty darn good shot and you wouldn't be able to capture anything nearly as detailed on a competing phone sold in the US.
Photograph: Julian Chokkattu21Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra, 10x optical zoom. You can tell I really loved taking photos at this level of zoom. It just lets you take so many more photos where you might have felt restricted before. I tried taking a similar photo on the iPhone 12 Pro Max and Google Pixel 5, and none came remotely close to being this sharp (even the S21 was very blotchy). 
Photograph: Julian Chokkattu22Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra, 10x optical zoom. Here's that compressive effect in action again. In real life, the Empire State Building looks much further away than this photo implies, but the telephoto lens makes it look like it's much closer (as though I'm in Manhattan\!).
Photograph: Julian Chokkattu23Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra, 10x optical zoom. My girlfriend commented how much she liked the tiles on this roof. So we both pulled out our phones and took a photo. She didn't have a telephoto on her phone and ended up with a standard photo she had to zoom in on (and strip away image quality). Meanwhile, I just took this. She was jealous. 
Photograph: Julian Chokkattu24Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra, Portrait Night Mode. Samsung has enabled Night mode to work with its Portrait mode (formerly called Live Focus). The results are solid\! There's decent detail, a great blur effect, and accurate colors. Portrait mode with people still can use some work, I've found the Pixel still manages to capture the most detailed faces.
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