Pixel 8 Pro vs iPhone 15 Pro Max Camera Test Comparison
– What’s up, guys? Saf here on SuperSaf TV and welcome to the SuperSafStyle camera comparison between the iPhone 15 Pro Max and the Google Pixel 8 Pro. We’ll be testing out all aspects of the cameras, images, video, low light, telephoto, all of it. So let’s kick off with images from the primary cameras. Now, both have excellent primary cameras with lots of detail and dynamic range. I’ve taken hundreds of pictures with both devices and I did start noticing some trends. Now, the Pixel has what I call the Pixel look. You can generally tell when a picture
has been taken on a Pixel. It’s quite punchy, lots of contrast. The iPhone usually goes towards more of a flatter image, which you can edit later. However, if you’d like, you can choose some photographic styles, give it more contrast and give it a more punchy look if you’d like. I generally tend to leave this as standard because I believe most people will be doing that as well but I’ve just been really impressed with how good both of these cameras are. Now, one area where I did lean towards the Pixel more is with dynamic range. You
can see here in this example, we’ve got a lot of light coming from the background, but the Pixel, in my opinion, has maintained the shadow detail better.
the Pixel, 48 on the iPhone and when we do compare these side-by-side at 100%, once again, I do think because of the processing, the Pixel does appear sharper. Now, I really wanted to test this, so I did some really tricky tests at the high resolution and I did find that the Pixel did perform better overall. If you look at this image, if we go in 100%, the detail has been better maintained on the Pixel compared to the iPhone. Now, moving on to low light images from the primary cameras I think both do really well once
again. In this example, I do prefer the Pixel. I think it’s maintained the lights better and it’s sharper. However, in this example, I do prefer the iPhone and I also prefer the iPhone indoors in low light, as you can see from these two examples here. Now, when you are using night mode on both devices, they do opt for a few seconds, which they feel is best. And for example, in this image, I do prefer the iPhone. Both did around three seconds. The iPhone image is sharper with more detail in the brick areas. It’s also not
blown out the highlights in the window. Now, let’s look at ultra wide images. Once again, both have excellent ultra wide cameras with lots of detail and great dynamic range. The Pixel is slightly wider and once again, I do think it has overall better dynamic range. If you take a look at this example, you can see that the iPhone image does appear to be brighter but it has blown out the highlights towards the sunset. The Pixel, on the other hand, has maintained all of that detail without losing anything in the shadow areas. Here’s another example. Once
again, I think this demonstrates how good the HDR is on the Pixel. Now, for the ultra wide camera in low light, this image I would say is a bit of a draw but here the Pixel does have more detail and it’s a sharper overall image. And once again in this image, although it’s very close, I think the Pixel is sharper. Now, you can take macro shots with both devices and I don’t know how this fly stayed still while I was actually switching cameras but both do a great job. You can go in a little bit
closer on the iPhone compared to the Pixel, but overall, I think both do very, very good when it comes to the macro cameras. Now, before we continue, just a quick reminder, if you’re enjoying this video so far, then please do consider subscribing. We’re almost at two million subscribers and I am working on a detailed comparison between the Pixel 8 Pro and the iPhone 15 Pro Max where we’ll be looking at all of the other differences, as well as the cameras. So you’re not going to want to miss that. Now let’s talk about zoom because this
gave me some really interesting results. So both devices have by default 1x, 2x, which is using the middle part of the sensor to give you lossless zoom and it is very, very close when we are shooting at 2x but when we switch to 5x, that’s when the optical zoom cameras of both kick in. And once again, I do think it is very close but of course, I really wanted to test out which one of these will be better for zoom. So I did lots of tests and I also tried extending the zoom. So when we
do go to 10x, although it is very close, I started to notice a trend where the iPhone did manage to capture more detail. This is more obvious when we go all the way to 25x. If you take a look at this hotel, on the walls, you can see the square textures on the iPhone way better than you can do in the Pixel. The Pixel has kind of blended them all in. The Pixel can also go up to 30 times but it’s not really doing much for the detail. I still prefer the iPhone. And just to
be sure, I did do an extended zoom test on multiple different subjects and every time, the iPhone just produced sharper results. The Pixel, in some occasions, did also struggle to focus at those extended zoom ranges. Now, of course, we had to test out zoom in low light as well. So when we do go to 2x, the iPhone here is doing better. You can pretty much read the text that I’m holding up whereas the Pixel is starting to struggle. Now, this is more obvious when we kick to five times zoom. So here on the iPhone, you’ve
got really good usable image. You can clearly read the text that I’m holding up. It’s actually quite a bit of a struggle here on the Pixel. Now, I think this might be because the Pixel is actually still using the primary camera to get in more light and then cropping in. Whereas the iPhone, because it has a wider aperture for the telephoto camera, it’s actually able to capture in more light. Now, if we go to 10 times, once again clear win here for the iPhone and then I did extend all the way to 25 times and
the Pixel really did struggle to focus at 25 times. Even after tapping multiple times, it just got one photo in focus and still, I do prefer the iPhone. Now, let’s talk about portraits. So the Pixel has, by default, either portraits at 1.5 or 2x whereas the iPhone has 1x, 2x, as well as 5x. So using the first stop at 1.5 on the Pixel, on one on the iPhone, both are doing good overall but if you do look closer at the Pixel image around my hair and my ears, it is struggling. Now, this is exactly the
reason why I don’t dye my gray hair or shave it off. It’s purely for these camera comparisons. I’m joking. If you look at the iPhone, it’s actually isolated me really well and it hasn’t got these errors that we’ve got on the Pixel. Now, if you do compare like for like, 2x versus 2x, the Pixel once again is struggling a little bit on my ears and my hair, whereas the iPhone has done such a good job. Now, I do think this might be coming down to the LiDAR scanner that the iPhone has which measures depth information.
And a new feature that we’ve got on the iPhone, which you may have heard about is the fact that when you are taking regular photos of people or if you tap on a subject, then it’s also going to save depth information and you can turn those pictures into portraits later. What you may not know is that Google has been able to turn normal photos into portraits for quite a while. This is within the Image Editor on the Google Photos app and it can do a good job. So you can actually shoot at 1x and then
turn that into a portrait later on both devices. Now, here, both are actually doing really well overall but I still think that the iPhone has better edge detection. Now, if you do take some regular photos at 5x, you’ll notice that we do get a natural bokeh effect because of that focal length. And although you don’t have the 5x portrait option on the Pixel, I’m not sure why they don’t do this, they should, you can once again go in and add the depth after the fact. And this actually looks really good on both devices. I really
can’t pick a winner. The Pixel also does do a better job at 5x of making portraits compared to the 1x and the 2x. Here’s another example at 5x. Again, I think both are doing really, really good, although I do prefer the iPhone because it hasn’t blown out the highlights on my forehead as much. Now, portraits in low light, 1.5 versus one, the iPhone, once again, great with edge detection. The Pixel is really struggling with my gray hair. Now, I know a lot of you guys are probably saying the Pixel does great portraits for me and
I don’t have the gray hair, but guys, I am a tech reviewer. I have to test out tricky situations to really see which one does better. And even at 2x, once again the iPhone, although there is more noise on the iPhone image, when it comes to edge detection, it is better. And final example here again, more noise on the iPhone image in that low light situation but the portrait mode is doing much better for the depth. I do think this comes down to the LiDAR scanner. Right, now, let’s move on to selfies. So I think
both take really, really good selfies but there’s a few things I noticed straight away. The Pixel mostly does better when it comes to maintaining accurate skin tones. Google has this thing called real tone where it’s really going to try to maintain your skin color and you can really see this here. Now, I would say in this particular example, the dynamic range on the iPhone is better. If you look at the Tesla logo in the background, it’s been blown out a little bit on the Pixel, whereas it’s been maintained on the iPhone. Here’s another example, the
Pixel once again trying to maintain my accurate skin color whereas the iPhone is more towards the red side. Now, one thing that I did find is that I think the iPhone tries to give you more of a pleasing selfie, whereas the Pixel tries to give you more of an accurate selfie. But in doing so, when we do have a tricky situation like this, it can struggle. You can see in the Pixel, it’s really grayed things out and it’s not looking very flattering. And this is something that was similar with the Pixel 7 Pro. Now, on
the iPhone, although it’s not giving you accurate colors, especially if you look towards my top, it’s not really maintained the black that the Pixel has, the skin tones are more pleasing and it is a more pleasing selfie overall rather than that sort of desaturated look that the Pixel’s gone for. Now looking at portraits from the selfie cameras, again, both excellent, great edge detection but I would have to give the edge to the iPhone and that’s because it does really well with hair. With the Pixel, it kind of gives you a solid cutout, which can look
quite fake, especially if you look at this example here. The iPhone gives you a much more natural cutout and it still maintains the hair. Now, selfies in low lights, I think both are really struggling here. The Pixel, once again, doing that thing of completely desaturating the image and giving a bit of a weird color. The iPhone is giving a very red skin tone here but I still think it’s doing better compared to the Pixel. However, when we use the front facing flashes where they illuminate the displays, the Pixel doing much better here, maintaining the colors
of the black and just giving a overall more pleasing shot compared to the iPhone. Now, a few things I do have to mention about the Pixel are the new software features. Google is all about the software and we’ve seen Magic Eraser before where you can remove things from, say the background. I wasn’t a huge fan of this but Magic Editor has really improved with AI. So now not only can you remove things from the picture, which actually does a pretty good job, you can also move people around and change the scale of things as well,
which works really well. But a new feature which is super impressive is Best Take. So for instance, if you’re taking a group photo and you’ve taken multiple images, but in some images, somebody thinks they look better compared to other images where somebody else thinks they look better or maybe you’ve got kids and you’re trying to take pictures with them, they keep looking away. But in the one photo that’s good, you’re looking away, the Pixel will actually look at the series of images and allow you to pick different faces from different images. And I think this
is going to be such a popular feature because not only can you use it with images taken on the Pixel, you can use this for images that you’ve taken on an iPhone or maybe images that you’ve taken a few years ago. Right, now for video. I think both take excellent quality video from the rear-facing cameras. The Pixel has actually improved quite a bit compared to the Pixel 7 Pro, which I noticed did have quite a lot of noise in shadow areas. But once again, I do still prefer the iPhone overall, especially when it comes to
tricky situations with dynamic range. The iPhone just does such a good job of maintaining the detail in the highlight and the shadow areas. And this is also the case when we use HDR video, which has been shot on both devices and then converted to standard dynamic range. So you can see it here. Once again, the iPhone are doing a better job with dynamic range. This was also the case with the ultra wide camera, better overall dynamic range on the iPhone compared to the Pixel. Now, I know what a lot of you guys will be saying,
that Google did announce that they’ve got a new feature called Video Boost, which will give you much better dynamic range after being processed in the cloud. This is not here yet. I’m looking forward to testing it out in December when it does come. You’re definitely going to want to subscribe to see that. Now, I’m not sure how practical that will be because every single time, you’re going to have to let it process in the cloud and then come backwards on the iPhone. You’re going to get better dynamic range straight out of the box. But we
shall see at the time. For low light video, both of them do have those lens flare balls if there are some light sources in the video. So that’s pretty much the same on both. But when we did get to extreme low light situations, then the iPhone was better with less noise, as you can see from these examples here. Once again, when we do have Video Boost, this is supposed to improve low light on the Pixel as well, so we’ll take a look at that when it’s out. With the iPhone, you can also record in ProRes
with Log. So this is a flat picture profile. It’s great if you’re a pro filmmaker and you want to use some of that footage, which you want to grade later on and for stabilization. So after doing lots of testing, both are very, very stable at 4K and when we do use the respective stabilization modes, then once again, both are very, very good. However, the iPhone does let you do action mode at around 2.7K, which is a higher resolution compared to the 1080p when you’re doing stabilization on the Pixel. For slow motion, both are okay. Slow
motion hasn’t really changed over the past few years. I’m assuming not many people really use it that much. Here you can see in this example the Pixel is sharper. However, the iPhone does have the ability to shoot slow motion from all of the different lenses, the ultra wide, the primary, as well as the telephoto. On the Pixel, you can only shoot slow motion from the primary camera. Now, for the front facing camera, both are very good but once again, the iPhone, better dynamic range overall. The iPhone also has better detail. If you look towards my
beard, the Pixel is starting to go a little bit soft. For stabilization from the selfie cameras, I’d say it’s a bit of a draw. I’ve watched them again and again and I think both are very, very good. And for cinematic video, so you saw a preview at the start of this video and I think it’s easy to say that the iPhone is superior for cinematic video. You’ve got that LiDAR scanner, which in my opinion, gives you better edge detection but also, the Pixel only can do the cinematic blur at 1080p, whereas the iPhone can do
it at 4K. You can also use continuous zoom when you are filming with cinematic mode on the iPhone. And the iPhone also lets you use cinematic mode from the front facing camera. You can’t do this on the Pixel. And finally, with the iPhone, you can also edit the amount of blur that you want, as well as the point of focus after the fact. This is something that you cannot do on the Pixel. Right, for auto focus, it was very, very close. I’m going to call it a draw even in low light with a black card.
This is my extreme test that I do for auto focus and both actually did really well. Finally, audio, which one records better audio? You can have a listen. Audio test on the Google Pixel 8 Pro and the iPhone 15 Pro Max. There’s a lot of background noise going on here with all of the cars, so this will be a really good test to see and hear, which one sounds better? Now, I think it was pretty clear that the Pixel had cleaner audio with less background noise and that’s because the Pixel does have something called Speech
Enhancement and this is on by default from the selfie camera. The Pixel also has Audio Magic Eraser, which uses AI to remove background noises and things which you can apply after the fact. And you can use this on videos that you’ve shot many years ago or even not on the Pixel, as long as they’re in the Google Photos app. So we have a lot of background noise, which you can maybe hear or maybe not thanks to the Audio Magic Eraser. Now, I know some of you guys are going to be saying yes but the iPhone
has the Voice Isolation. However, this only works when you’re making a video call or a phone call. It works really, really well but I couldn’t find a way to apply this when you are shooting video. I’m sure it’s something that will be possible and maybe Apple will introduce it at a later point. So that is the SuperSaf style camera comparison between the Google Pixel 8 Pro and the iPhone 15 Pro Max. What are my overall conclusions? Well, I think both of these have excellent cameras with amazing images and video, but a lot of it is
going to come down to your personal preference. I think the Pixel does take the edge when it comes to dynamic range, especially from the ultra wide camera, which I do prefer. It also goes for more realistic skin tones compared to the iPhone, which you might find a little bit more pleasing. And it has lots of these really useful software features, which will allow you to do things that you’re simply not going to be able to do on the iPhone, such as the Audio Magic Eraser, Magic Editor, as well as Best Take. The iPhone, on the
other hand, very consistent, a better telephoto camera, in my opinion, better portraits, as well as better low light images. And once again, I still think it has the best video on any smartphone. That’s what I think anyway. What do you guys think? Drop me a comment below. Let me know your thoughts. If you found this video useful, then once again, do consider subscribing and hitting that bell icon. These camera comparisons take so long to do and I’ve been doing them for many, many years and they keep getting more and more complicated with all of the
new features. I’m also working on that detailed comparison between the Pixel 8 Pro and the iPhone 15 Pro Max, looking at all of the other aspects as well. So you’re not going to want to miss that. I’ll leave some related videos linked here and here. I hope you enjoyed this video. and found it useful if you did. Do smash that like button for me. Thanks for watching. This is Saf on SuperSaf TV and I’ll see you next time.
