Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra vs Galaxy S24 Ultra camera shootout, part 2

Yesterday, we showed you a Galaxy S25 Ultra vs. S24 Ultra camera shootout – now it’s time for part two. Yesterday, we could only shoot photos at the event venue, but today we went wandering around San Jose with both Ultras in hand, so we have more photos to share.

Many of the changes (if not most) will be coming from the new Snapdragon 8 Elite ISP – Samsung kept most of the camera hardware the same, all but the ultra-wide module.

Starting with the main 200MP camera set to its default 12MP mode, the difference in image processing is more noticeable than it was indoors. The older Galaxy S24 Ultra produces sharper images – it can go overboard in places, though. The color rendering is similar enough, even if the two phones don’t always agree on white balance.

Main camera: Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra

Main camera: Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra

The difference in sharpness becomes more pronounced in the dark. Color rendering is different too, with the S25 Ultra leaning more towards warmer hues.

Main camera, night: Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra

Main camera, night: Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra

Moving over to the mid-range zoom camera, the results are much more similar though not identical – the older phone tries to boost the shadows more and it ends up with more noise. These are small differences, though.

3x camera: Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra

3x camera: Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra

Using the same 3x camera in the dark, the difference in noise is more pronounced with the new S25 Ultra producing cleaner-looking images while preserving more detail too.

3x camera, night: Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra

3x camera, night: Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra

We dial up the zoom level to 5x and find that the difference between the two generations shrinks even further. The older model again produces a slightly noisier image, but only just.

5x camera: Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra

5x camera: Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra

This carries over to the nighttime photos taken with the 5x cameras.

5x camera, night: Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra

5x camera, night: Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra

Next up is the 10x camera – a 50MP sensor paired with a 111mm lens. It’s the same hardware, as far as we’ve been told, but the new Galaxy S25 Ultra produces noticeably more detailed images and does a better job of reining in aberrations from the lens.

10x camera: Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra

10x camera: Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra

In the dark, the gap closes again, but the older S24 Ultra leaves more noise in the image and manages to preserve a bit more detail in doing so.

10x camera, night: Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra

10x camera, night: Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra

Now, let’s look at the camera that actually got new hardware this generation – the ultra-wide. It now pairs a 50MP sensor with the 120° lens, up from 12MP, though it bins its output down to the same resolution.

The older Galaxy S24 Ultra has to lean more heavily on the sharpening and sometimes it’s quite noticeable. It does manage to show more detail in places, though.

Ultra-wide camera: Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra

Ultra-wide camera: Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra

In the dark, the older model produces noticeably noisier images – no surprises here, noise reduction is one of the advantages of pixel binning.

Ultra-wide camera, night: Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra

Ultra-wide camera, night: Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra

On the Ultra phones, the ultra-wide camera is also responsible for macro shots. Here is a sample – including a 50MP macro shot to flex the new sensor.

Macro shot from Galaxy S25 Ultra: 12MP • 50MP

Macro shot from Galaxy S24 Ultra: 12MP

The final camera on-board, the 12MP selfie camera, is the same as last year. As a result, the images are quite similar, though shots from the new S25 Ultra once again have less noise.

Selfie camera: Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra

Selfie camera: Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra

Finally, here are 4K videos shot with the main camera at 30fps:

We also shot 4K videos with the main cameras at night:

This was just our first extended photo shoot with the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra – the first of many, probably. There are more in-depth tests to come to figure out what has changed and what has not in terms of image quality.

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