iPhone 12 Pro vs Huawei Mate 40 Pro vs Galaxy Note 20 Ultra Camera Test By Danny Winget

What's up everybody: this is Danny, and today I'll be doing the camera comparison with the new Huawei Mate 40 pro the iPhone 12 Pro and the Samsung Galaxy note 20 ultra. So look at how wide this Huawei camera is. It is absolutely amazing. Let me know what video looks better. Let me know what microphone sounds better, and then I want to test out all these cameras in every condition to see which we can crown as camera king in late 2020. Let's do this first, let's talk about the testing process.

All of these images were shot in auto mode. They are untouched unedited straight out of the camera. The mate 40 pro does not come with master AI mode enabled, so that was left off so to make things fair scene. Optimizer was switched off on the iPhone 12 Pro and the Galaxy Note 20 ultra the Huawei and Samsung phones do have a pro mode built into the stock camera app. If you have time to dial in for that perfect shot, let's start with the daytime photos and video, just as you would expect all three take fantastic photos with great dynamic range.

Colors sharpness and detail, but after looking at a ton of pictures side by side, there are some differences. So here are the major ones. First is the color representation, even with the master AI mode turned off in certain scenarios, the Huawei likes to represent a more stylistic look with punchy and saturated colors. Now this doesn't happen all the time. So it's not consistent, but it goes to show you that computational side is still working without the master AI feature, but it really does go back and forth.

Sometimes the iPhone comes out with the brightest overall scene. Sometimes the note 20 ultra does have the best representation out of the three and if you keep looking at even the way that the three cameras render the sky color every shot is different. Here, the Huawei looks like the more accurate color. Even though it's something in between and here all three just look totally different, but I do feel like the iPhone 12 Pro has the more consistent colors without the drastic changes, but this one's going to be a preference thing for sure. But me personally, I would like Huawei to dial the saturation back some because in some shots, it's just too high for my liking and then in some shots.

This contrast and extra color really works and is ready to be shared immediately to social media. So I guess it's a double-edged sword. Let me know what you think in the comment section below when it comes to dynamic range. This also happens in some shots. I was surprised to see the iPhone fail with smart HDR, and this was shot with the ultra-wide camera and in some shots the Huawei comes out with better dynamic range, but I am still seeing that overall, slight clipping here with the Samsung camera.

I hope that highlight control can be tweaked in the future. It's gotten better over time. So don't get me wrong. Samsung has really tuned their cameras well this year, but in certain scenarios the Huawei Mate 40 pro just had stunning dynamic range. I mean just look at the background on the sunset: it's almost unreal and when you look at the sign, the iPhone did the best in accentuating and highlighting the sign, which is the foreground, but I felt that the overall balance was compromised, where the other two did better with the balance, but the mate 40 pro just has the best overall dynamic range on these scenarios.

All three cameras have an ultra-wide option, but you will notice that the Huawei still has the smallest field of view. Look at here at the other two you can see so much more of the building, but the quality of the ultra-wide shots are great on all three. During the day, I think you'll be very happy with them, even with the Huawei having the largest sensor, I found that the note 20 ultra does have the deepest background, separation or both out of the three, but I do like Huawei's approach where you don't get as much edge fringing that you do on the note 20 ultra sensors, but I guess the trade-off is that the minimum focusing distance on the main sensor is not the strongest on the mate 40 pro, but there is an advantage to the iPhone smaller sensor where it pretty much nails these type of shots with no issue. The edges are super crisp on the iPhone 12 Pro you do sacrifice some background separation, but it still looks great the Samsung Galaxy note.20 ultra has the highest resolution sensor with 108 megapixel capture, while the Huawei has the second highest at 50 megapixels and the iPhone 12 Pro with just 12 megapixels, but when cropping in heavily, you can see just how well the iPhone keeps up with detail. Clearly, the note is better, and it should be with all of that resolution, but I'm really surprised at the iPhone here in the higher resolution mode captures.

You do lose some dynamic range. So keep that in mind. Look at the highlight clipping now on the clouds that's introduced with the higher resolution, because you're not using binning to maximize dynamic range but punching in heavily again. The note just kills it when it comes to the detail. The Huawei also looks good, but again look at the iPhone for the resolution.

It's almost unbelievable. Here's another shot of a building with high-res enabled on both AI 50 megapixels, this time on the Huawei. When you punch in heavily and look at the brick detail again same outcome. Apple's processing is quite impressive when it comes to the details. Another difference is in the zoom capabilities.

The mate 40 pro has five times: optical zoom, with 10x hybrid zoom. The iPhone 12 Pro has a 2x optical zoom, and the note20 ultra also has a 5x optical with a 10x hybrid zoom, and I really do like having that extra reach. The Huawei and Samsung. Both look great on the 5x zoom, but when it comes to the 10x hybrid zoom, the Huawei looks sharper and more detailed, but again the iPhone, not horrible for 10x digital. Next, let's talk about portrait mode in general.

They all do a great job. Sometimes it's crazy, knowing that we can take shots like this on our smartphones, but all of them make mistakes in their own ways. Here, the straw hat was better handled by the mate 40 pro, while there are more notable mistakes on the other two, but the Samsung image looks the sharpest. I took a ton of pictures with portrait mode. I think you'll be happy with all three of them.

In most cases when it comes to people and skin tones, I did prefer the iPhone 12 Pro here in most of the shots. The Huawei is a little too washed for me here with a weird yellow tone on the skin. The Samsung picked up way too much of the red same here with me, where the actual pink color on my shirt was best represented by the iPhone along with the skin tone. But here the iPhone went too warm on the white balance, so I do like the Huawei in this one when it comes to selfie lovers, this one is pretty easy to call. The ultra-wide is so cool on the mate 40 pro.

It is super wide. It's the widest that I've ever seen on a smartphone, but I would say that the Huawei has probably the best front-facing camera that I've seen this year. Having that wider field of view will help for group pictures when they're allowed again in the next decade and the image quality is so sharp and pleasing on the mate 40 pro. I think it has the best balance of skin tone and overall scene rendition. The note 20 ultra can produce some great results too.

Don't get me wrong with this portrait mode selfie here, it's really nice. The only problem is that the mate 40 pro sometimes picks up too much magenta on the skin. The iPhone also still with that slight orange tinge, so the note's flat skin approach work better here, but overall, I'm going to give it to the Huawei before we move on to low light. Let's talk about video, they can all shoot, 4k, 60 frames per second video, but the note 20 ultra can shoot in 8k resolution, which is crazy for a smartphone. The mate 40 pro with the more vibrant video like we saw with the photos, the 12 pro with that nice, accurate representation and the note with that nice depth of field which looks fantastic.

I like it best in this scene when it comes to dynamic range, I'm not sure, what's happening here with the Huawei video. The whites look pretty crazy on the clouds, but it is representing the brightest overall image. I'm surprised to see the iPhone with the most contrast, almost crushing the shadows out, where the note 20 ultras in the middle of the two punching in heavily. You can see that the note 20 ultra has the softest video out of the three and the mate 40 pro seems to be the sharpest, but it does look like there's some over sharpening happening here, but you can see clearly it's picking up the most detail, just look at the palm trees and the iPhone is right there in the middle. So this is just to analyze.

No one is going to be peeping in this hard regardless. I think they all look pretty great. You should have zero problem, creating content on these amazing cameras, but here's another punch in, so you can see it again. The mate 40 pro with that detail on the trees, it's even clearer in this scenario, this bird didn't like me filming, so it let me know exactly how it felt by dropping a deuce right there on camera. It sums up 2020 in one shot.

So I had to throw this in can't forget stabilization. They all seem to be doing a great job with optical image. Stabilization I'll be testing this again with the iPhone 12 Pro max since that comes out really soon, and it has a different stabilization system. But let me know which one that you think is doing a better job here. Okay, so let's jump into low light everyone's favorite, they all have different properties.

So let me break down the differences. The Huawei Mate 40 pro has the biggest sensor, and you can see it. The first images are without night mode, just automatic snap. You can just see how much more light is coming in the overall scene is brighter. It's really incredible what the sensor can do.

This image really shows it just wild how much more light is coming in, but the thing that you will notice right away is that the colors on the Huawei are over saturated and in some scenarios it actually helps like when taking pictures of flowers, but a lot of times it can make the picture. Look painted or ultra unrealistic, look at the sky here. This is not what it looked like, and the iPhone and Samsung is picking up more of the accurate view, and sometimes it just lets so much light in the processing just misses the mark, like this. Just not sure what happened with the mate 40 pro here, but for the most part, if you want the most realistic look, the Huawei is not the one to get, but if you want the most information, the Huawei is going to impress you one downside of the Huawei processing is the noise reduction is not as good. So when you punch in you will see more noise in the sky.

The note 20 ultra actually looks the sharpest in this one. So what I did is I took a bunch of pictures without night mode, and then I took those same pictures with night mode, so you can see the difference. They all do what they are supposed to do. They brighten up the overall scene capture more detail, make the images sharper, and they all do that, but you will notice that the mate 40 pros night mode shots, don't look drastically different for the most part, because that big sensor is already capturing that much more light. The thing that you should know, though, is that, most of the time the mate 40 pro was exposing about double the time of the other two phones.

So if the iPhone 12 Pro and the note 20 ultra was exposing for three seconds in night mode, the Huawei would usually go between five and six seconds, so there was always that longer exposure time. So take that for what it's worth this longer exposure for sure creates a sharper image if you can keep still, but this is impressive. Look at how it handled the movement of the leaves. The computation was able to keep that more intact. Look at the moonshot here.

I can see it perfectly on the note, 20 ultra and look at this sign area here. It's blown out on the other two cameras, but it's like magically blended in, so that's impressive on the note 20 ultra in this shot the same with the windows. You can see everything in it and while I like the iPhone 12 Pro's approach to the white balance a little better technically, the note 20 ultra had the better shot when it comes to the ultra-wide. The mate 40 pro lets in so much more light. I mean look at the difference between the three when night mode kicks in, though the note really does the best the iPhone exposes for so long that the sky looks blotchy.

I thought it was an off chance, so I took a lot more pictures, and it did it here again on this shot, so I hope it gets fixed in a software update. But overall I think the Samsung has the best nighttime when it comes to the wide angle, photography. The May 40 pro looks great, don't get me wrong, but I prefer the wider field of view and the more natural white balance that's coming out of the Samsung Galaxy note 20 ultra when it gets super dark, and you are on a tripod, though the exposure times can get crazy. The Samsung and iPhone exposed for about 10 seconds, but the Huawei exposed for over 20 seconds, and you can see it. It looks super artistic and I think it's awesome, but again the note, I think, has the sharpest and most usable shot.

There is night mode across all the cameras, and it also works with the zooms. Here's an example of that 5x zoom at night with night mode. The ultra was able to keep that painting detail more intact. So the note has really improved in low light photography since its release with software updates. Let's talk about portrait mode at night when it comes to accuracy, they all struggle with the chain and light sources.

I know that these are extremely hard scenarios, but I feel like the iPhone had the more natural blend out of the three here, but when it comes to people the iPhone nailed. This is sharp, with beautiful background blur best skin rendition and sharpness. The note 20 ultra looks super muddy and the mate 40 pro. I'm not sure what happened there. The saturation and red accents are just insane.

This picture of the leaf also just shows how good the iPhone knight portrait mode is. I just couldn't get the mate 40 pro to focus here. This is close and the note did a decent job here too, but the iPhone is crazy, good here, here's another one that I can throw in its night and day when it comes to the portrait mode side of things in low light selfies at night without any special modes. They all look pretty terrible. But when you kick in the night mode, it's a different story, but please turn off the screen flash on the Huawei, because then you will look like a greased up alien, it's basically between the note 20 ultra and the iPhone 12 Pro, and while there is some skin smoothing on the note 20 ultra, I prefer it on the skin tone, rendition and night mode selfies.

Let me know what you think, even though I think the white balance and overall detail is sharper on the iPhone 12 Pro last thing. We'll talk about is low, light video. This is 4k 30 frames per second and the noisiest. Video trophy goes to the note 20 ultra. It looks pretty awful granted it's extremely dark here if you've ever been to the japan pavilion at Epcot.

This is a great example. You can see that the iPhone is even pretty noisy, and you can see some slight artifacts as well, but I still think when it comes too low light video, the iPhone 12 Pro has the best color rendition. You can see all the green that the Huawei is picking up and while it does have the best noise reduction, the details are affected. So it's pretty much cancelled out. Here's some walking video.

I know a lot of you wanted to see this, so I included it. I think the iPhone shows again the best video with the smoother stabilization as well. So we can't end this video without talking about the infamous light reflections or the green balls, the comments would call if it's more pronounced on the iPhone 12 Pro it's handled best by the note 20 ultra and the mate 40 pro. You can see it slightly, but it doesn't affect the video at all night mode time-lapse on the iPhone 12 series is impressive. This is nighttime hyperlapse on the note 20 ultra the Huawei doesn't have a night mode version, so it is super noisy, Samsung and apple's version, though, is super usable.

It looks great so when it comes to picking a winner, it's really a tough one, because during the day I think it's going to be highly preference based and while there are differences, I think that won't be the decider. They are all pretty great. I hate that this is a topic that we have to talk about, but Huawei is hard to recommend right now, because, while the cameras and the phone itself is absolutely fantastic, I believe it's one of the best out there. Right now. You have to live without Google services, and while that can be done, it's something that you might not want to do.

The iPhone 12 Pro and the note 20 ultra, give you a very consistent camera experience during the day and at night, and I think the note takes it on photography, but the nighttime video goes to the iPhone so again here you're going to have to look at the bigger picture of which one is actually the better all-around phone for you, instead of just the camera. So the one thing that I can guarantee is that you'll probably be happy with either one as the mobile camera of choice. So I hope this video helped you out should be plenty of samples here to help you make a great buying decision if you enjoyed it, hit that, like button subscribe to the channel for a lot more camera comparisons. Just like this one- and I will see you in the next one.

Source : Danny Winget