Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra vs. Google Pixel 6 Pro camera shootout: Which flagship takes the best photos?

It's a close race

The wait is over: Samsung's Galaxy S22 phones are finally on store shelves. Like it always does, the company's making a lot of hay about its new phones' camera prowess — and the S22 Ultra in particular has a very robust camera setup, with a 108-megapixel primary camera, a wide-angle, and two telephoto shooters at different focal lengths. But how does it stack up to the reigning champ of Android photography, the Pixel 6 Pro? Let's discuss.

Primary cameras

The Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra's got a 108-megapixel primary camera at f/1.8, binned down to 12 megapixels. The Pixel 6 Pro's got a 50-megapixel primary at f/1.9, binned to 12.5 megapixels. Here's how they stack up.

Individually, both of these photos look very nice, but side by side, you can see that the S22 Ultra's is much warmer — which isn't as accurate to how the scene looked in real life. Google lightens shadows more aggressively, though, which I typically don't like to see.

In bright light — outdoors in the sun, for example — the S22 Ultra's processing can go a little overboard on contrast. I typically like a pretty high-contrast look, but Samsung's photo looks a lot less natural here.

Samsung's warmer white balance really helps the leather and wood in this shot pop against the slate blue walls, and the slightly darker shadows make for a more dramatic look. Samsung's the clear winner here in my book.

Neither of these photos look great — they both misrepresent the actual color of the sky that day, with the S22 Ultra giving it a mild green tint and the Pixel 6 Pro going excessively cool. I think the Pixel's photo looks more natural overall, but the overcast sky wasn't really that blue at the time.

Here, we can see again the S22's primary camera's propensity to exaggerate contrast in bright light. It's not egregious, but the Pixel's photo does look a little more realistic. The clear sky is also a more natural-looking blue in Google's shot; Samsung has it looking a little too green.

You can really see the differences in the S22 Ultra and Pixel 6 Pro's color processing at work in these photos. In Samsung's, the dish is more amber-hued, while Google has it a pale bluish green. The shadows are also darker in the S22's version. Given the warm and dim lighting in the restaurant, Samsung's the winner here — the S22 Ultra took the more lifelike photo.

Here, too, Samsung and Google take very different approaches. The S22 Ultra's version of the scene is notably darker and warmer. Aesthetically, I think I prefer that — but the Pixel 6 Pro's shot is much more true to life.

Samsung and Google took wildly different tacks in processing this shot. The S22's photo is way higher-contrast, and very magenta compared to the Pixel's. Google wins here in my book.

Ultra-wide cameras

Both the Galaxy S22 Ultra and the Pixel 6 Pro (as well as the Pixel 6) have 12-megapixel ultra-wide cameras with f/2.2 apertures. The S22 Ultra's wide-angle is wider, though, at 120 degrees to the Pixel's 114.

The Galaxy S22 Ultra has a wider wide-angle camera than the Pixel 6 and 6 Pro do, and you can see that very clearly here: these photos were taken from the same distance, but the S22 fit more into the frame. The grass is just a little oversaturated in Samsung's photo, though.

These two pictures came out very similarly, but I wanted to include them to highlight the wide-angle distortion in the S22 Ultra's shot. Notice how the bottom corners are curved in the photo on the left. Google's, not so much.

Google's colors here are warmer and more saturated than Samsung's, despite Google typically favoring a cooler look. It's also the more accurate of the two: this was a vibrant outdoor scene with tons of sunlight. Samsung's is actually a little washed out, particularly in the reds.

The Pixel 6 Pro produced the warmer photo here, too. These photos are also a good illustration of the difference in the two cameras' fields of view: there's significantly more of the wall and floor in front of me visible in the S22 Ultra's photo.

Telephoto cameras

The Galaxy S22 Ultra has two telephoto cameras, both 10 megapixels. One's got 3x optical zoom with a focal length of 70 millimeters and an f/2.4 aperture; the other's 10x optical zoom with a 230-millimeter focal length and an itty-bitty f/4.9 aperture. The Pixel 6 Pro, on the other hand, has a single 4x telephoto shooter that's 48 megapixels (binned to 12), with a focal length of 140 millimeters and an f/3.5 aperture.

Because each phone's telephoto setup is so different, it's hard to compare them directly — but let's do it anyway.

Galaxy S22 Ultra's 3x vs. Pixel 6 Pro's 4x

Samsung's less zoomed-in telephoto made for more pleasing framing in this particular shot. The Pixel's photo here definitely doesn't look bad, but the shadows are a little too light and the overall tint is a little too magenta for my taste.

Again, Google's telephoto zooms in farther than Samsung's 3x lens does, so Pixel's photo appears closer to the subject than the S22 Ultra's does. Samsung's also really leaning into that amber hue — this definitely didn't look that warm in person. Google's photo is the better of the two here.

Aside from very minor differences in tint (the S22's photo is ever so slightly greener than the Pixel's) and shadows (darker in the Pixel's shot), there's not much qualitatively different between these two photos. The Pixel's is more punched in than the S22's, but it's hard to say either looks better than the other.

The Pixel 6 Pro just has the one telephoto camera at 4x, whereas the S22 Ultra has a 3x and a 10x lens. Given Google's doing all its zooming past the 4x mark in software, it's fair to assume the S22 Ultra will take better shots of things that are far away.

At normal size, these two photos both look fine — though they're exhibiting the same warm/cool dynamic we've seen with most of these comparisons. Zoom in on the Pixel's shot, though, and you'll see the fine detail looks artificially sharpened. That's because it is — remember, while the S22 Ultra has a 10x telephoto lens, the Pixel 6 Pro only has a 4x.

The Pixel 6 Pro did an admirable job keeping up with the S22 Ultra here. Color-wise, its shot was actually the more accurate one — Samsung really overcompensated for the overcast sky. If you squint, you can see some artifacting around where the green roof meets the sky in the Pixel's photo, but it's a closer contest than I expected.

Again, the Pixel 6 Pro's optical zoom is at 4x, so anything past that point is leaning on software to do the heavy lifting. Google calls this software trickery Super Res Zoom, and on the Pixel 6 Pro, it maxes out at 20x.

The Pixel 6 Pro's 4x telephoto camera needs a lot more software help to reach 20x magnification than the S22 Ultra's 10x shooter does, and it really shows here. The texture of the statue looks very artificial in the photo on the right, even without zooming in.

This one's a closer contest. At normal size, it's hard to see much difference between these two photos — other than the fact that Samsung tends to make the sky artificially cool. Zoom in, though, and you'll see that the Pixel's picture gets a little wonky along edges and in shadows. Still, considering Samsung's hardware advantage here, not a bad showing from Google.

Selfie cameras

The Galaxy S22 Ultra's front-facing camera is a 40-megapixel shooter binned down to 10 with an f/2.2 aperture; the Pixel 6 Pro's is an 11.1-megapixel camera, also at f/2.2. The Pixel's selfie camera is technically lower resolution, but it's capable of taking wider photos.

The S22 Ultra and Pixel 6 Pro both take good selfies. At the default crop, they're very similar, although the Pixel's are brighter and more colorful. I like Google's take here, personally.

Both the S22 Ultra's and the Pixel 6 Pro's front facing cameras give you the option to "zoom out" to get wider-angle selfies (really, the default view is cropped, but that's not the way it's presented on either phone). If you compare each of these wide-angle selfies to the ones above, it's easy to see that the Pixel's full wide-angle field of view is a more dramatic change from its punched-in "1x" default view than the S22 Ultra's full-resolution view is from its default crop. Again, I think the Pixel has the edge here.

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Low light and portrait modes

The S22 Ultra and Pixel 6 Pro both, of course, come with the standard smartphone photography tricks of portrait and night modes. We won't go too in depth here, but let's compare a few shots.

Portrait mode on the S22 Ultra and Pixel 6 Pro is, well, portrait mode. It works fine, but even on my short-haired dog, both had some trouble cutting out an accurate silhouette — note the weirdness around his snout in both photos. The Pixel's "1x" view is also a tighter crop than the S22's. I think this one's a toss-up.

Here's a dark outdoor scene shot with each phone's low-light mode on. Both photos are considerably brighter than real life was, but the colors in the S22's version are a little off (notice the green tint on the stone arch), and I think the Pixel over-brightened shadows. If I had to choose one, I'd go Pixel — Samsung's purplish sky is a big turn-off here.

These photos were both taken indoors in near-total darkness without either phone's low-light mode. Obviously, neither is usable, but the shot from the Pixel is a little brighter.

Here's the same scene with low-light modes turned on. The Pixel's photo is again a little brighter — and a little cooler. I think Google has the edge when it comes to low-light photography in general, but it's a close competition.

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It's tough to single out which of these phones definitively takes better photos. By and large, they've both got fantastic cameras — they're at the top of the heap when it comes to Android photography. The Pixel 6 Pro, in my experience, generally produces more accurate colors and performs better in the dark. On the other hand, the S22 Ultra, with a wider wide-angle and two different telephoto cameras, is the more versatile option.

It's worth remembering that the Pixel 6 Pro costs $900 — $300 less than the $1,200 S22 Ultra. And if you don't care about telephoto cameras, the Pixel 6 (which doesn't have a zoom lens at all) is literally half the price of the Ultra at $600, and can go toe-to-toe with it in a lot of situations. Whichever you go with, though, rest assured you'll get plenty of great photos.

Buy the Galaxy S22 Ultra:

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Buy the Pixel 6 Pro:

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Ara Wagoner contributed to this article.

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