Hey guys, Adam Lobo here from Adam Lobo TV. So, while we all know that there are lots of differences in terms of the hardware and software for both of these phones, the camera’s on these two is still one of the industry-leading, especially when it comes to the camera lenses’ hardware specs and image processing. So, in this video, we will take a look on how the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra’s camera is compared with another camera king, the Huawei Mate40 Pro.
(video transcript available below)
Camera Specs
Let’s first look at the camera’s specs sheet. The Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra comes with:
- a 108 MP, f/1.8, 24mm (wide lens)
- a 10 MP, f/4.9, 240mm (periscope telephoto lens) with 10x optical zoom
- a 10 MP, f/2.4, 70mm (telephoto lens), and
- a 12 MP, f/2.2, 13mm (ultrawide)
where the camera arrays have the dedicated laser autofocus
Then looking at the Huawei Mate40 Pro, it comes with
- a 50 MP, f/1.9, 23mm (wide lens),
- a 12 megapixel f/3.4, 125mm (periscope telephoto lens) with 5x optical zoom, and
- a 20 MP, f/1.8, 18mm (ultrawide lens)
Now please keep in mind that, the exact colour and details may or may not be compressed due to YouTube’s compressions, but just so you all know that I used the ASUS Zenbook Flip S 4K OLED laptop which I am going to be reviewing really soon, as the laptop has a 100% DCI P3 Color gamut colour accurate screen. All right, let’s get started!
High Megapixels
As expected, since the S21 Ultra has a higher 100 Megapixels as opposed to 50 Megapixels on the Mate40 Pro, you will get more details if you zoom and crop in post but without zooming, it both looked and performed very similar, so does come down to how often you need to zoom in and cropped into the images to know which devices are “better” in this category.
Ultrawide
Now I did mention that I always loved the focal length of Samsung devices as the S21 Ultra is wider at 13mm instead of 18mm on the Mate40 Pro because as a content creator, I can tell you that an 18mm lens is not really considered as an Ultrawide Lens as opposed to a 13mm, so thus as seen on these images, you will get more focal length on S21 Ultra.
The colours on the building towards the top are also more colour-accurate on the S21 Ultra, where the pictures on the Mate40 Pro had a slight blue tint in the images.
Main Lens
Similar like the ultrawide lens, the pictures on the Mate40 Pro had a blue tint on the images. Yes you can adjust this in post but keep in mind that again S21 has produced more colour-accurate photos once again and the same can be said on the 10 times zoomed images as well.
Speaking of zoomed images the S21 Ultra can go up to 100 times zoom and the Mate40 Pro can go to 50 times zoom and comparing on the 50 times zoom, since Samsung has introduced the Zoom lock feature to lock into the image to make the subject be less shaky as seen on the Mate40 Pro, you will get better results on the S21 Ultra, even at the 100 times zoom as well.
Macro Mode
There is no dedicated macro camera on both phones, where the ultrawide lens “converts” into a macro mode when going close to the subject where the colour accuracy and details on the fabric is more pronounced on the S21 Ultra.
Rear Portrait
Humans
So I have tested the rear portrait mode both on human and on subjects as well, where Samsung had a better subject to background blur, which can be adjusted after taking a shot which was nice. Colours on the skin tones seem a bit saturated and details can be a bit soft as seen at the T-shirt and the mask area, where there are more details on the Mate40 Pro, so I have to give this to the Mate40 Pro.
Object
As for taking photos of objects, the background blur was the same and the ONLY difference is that the blacks are darker on the Mate40 Pro, so this does come down to a personal preference.
Night Mode
As for the Night mode, focal length aside, the good news for the Mate40 Pro is that it is brighter on the overall images as Huawei was very well known for their lowlight capabilities for years.
But yet again, the skies this time around had a blue tint, which we all know how a dark sky looks like, it’s black, not blue….so I am not sure what Huawei is doing here and if you really want to pixel peep, I noticed that there was some chromatic aberration towards the shadows as well.
Colours for non-sky images have better colour accuracy on the S21 Ultra once again, as seen on the tiles flooring of these shots.
While both phones have Night Mode for selfie shots, I personally don’t favour any of it. But if I was forced to make a choice I’d go with the S21 Ultra, because of the extreme exposure emitters from the Huawei Mate40 Pro’s screen, where it has a bright white light surrounding the whole phone gives a weird exposure to the shots and again it’s the same blue tint as seen on my t shirt, because my t shirt was black NOT blue as seen in the Mate40 Pro.
You can also zoom accordingly but images were not very usable beyond 10x zoom but the S21 retains highlights better as seen on this building logo.
I also took pictures of my pet Leopard Gecko Joaquin in a super lowlight situation, almost complete darkness, as the boy is nocturnal and while both images were bright which was good news, yet again we still see better details on the S21.
Front Camera Specs
Now looking at the selfie camera specs, on the S21 Ultra it comes with a 40 MP, f/2.2, 26mm (wide lens) and the Mate40 Pro comes with a 13 Megapixelf/2.4, 18mm (ultrawide lens).
There is a high Megapixels mode for the front camera on the S21 but I thought it was unfair to compare that and in this selfie test I have tuned off beauty mode for both, so keep that in mind on the results.
Regular Selfies
On the regular selfies, the dynamic range on both phones were equally as good. However Samsung has way much details on the skin and when zoomed in close you can see that the images are looking a bit softer as seen at the forehead area and the colours of the T-shirt is also more close to real life.
Portrait Selfie
Samsung has better subject to background on the edge detection and details are also clear on the subject for this case my face of course.
Backlight Selfie
While the background is properly detailed on both images but yet again the S21 UItra gets better details on the skin compared to what you see on the Mate40 Pro.
Video Recording Capabilities
Now when it comes to video, the S21 Ultra can record up to 8k resolution where the Mate40 Pro can’t so I just tested the quality comparison on the 4k video recording.
Quality and dynamic range was very similar with slightly different colours between the both, so this is down to your personal preference.
Image stabilization is better on the Ultrawide lens for the S21 Ultra but it was very similar on the main lens on both phones.
Then as for the front video selfie, both records up to a 4k resolution and while image stabilization was really gimbal-like, if the light is towards you, both of the video footage has great quality but where the Mate40 Pro suffers is when there is backlight present, where it overcompensates on the whole image including the subject where you can see my skin were overexposed.
[end of video transcript]
All right guys, that’s my comparison between both phones and with this, do let me know which you guys think is the better phone at the comment sections below? And let’s chat over there!
