Photo comparison: With two of the best camera smartphones in Hawaii in 2024

Our two test candidates are two high-end smartphones from Samsung and Apple. Both manufacturers have long been at the top of the global smartphone sales charts.

• The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra is currently in 4th place in our list of the best camera smartphones. It has a total of four cameras at the back, with a 200-megapixel main camera. This comes from Samsung, while the rest of the camera sensors on the back are from Sony: An ultra-wide-angle camera, a telephoto camera and a periscope zoom camera for up to 5x optical zoom can be found here. The camera system is described in great detail in the Test of the Galaxy S24 Ultra.
  
  
• The test of the Apple iPhone 16 Pro came too late for the last update of our Smartphone camera best list. The Apple iPhone 16 Pro Max has exactly the same camera system and is currently at the top of our Smartphone charts. This makes it a strong competitor for Samsung's top phone. With the optical zoom, Apple also relies on a 5x magnification.
  

Aloha means "hello" and also "goodbye", but also describes the very special welcoming culture that the Hawaiians immediately convey. It stands as a huge illuminated sign in the garden of our hotel and offers the perfect motif for a first comparison at night. Real differences in image quality only become apparent when you enlarge the photos: The iPhone brings out a few more details and generally has a slightly sharper image. However, the differences are so marginal that we are already looking forward to the next photos.

As we turn off to the excitingly illuminated driveway to the hotel, the next photo opportunity presents itself: dozens of lamps in the trees light up the driveway and draw circles of light on the ground. It is noticeable that Samsung's smartphone brightens up considerably more, but does not capture the nocturnal mood as well.

On the one hand, this means that some treetops can still be seen quite clearly, whereas they are in the dark in Apple's photo, and on the other hand, the lamps are much brighter.

The atmospheric depiction of the night sky is impressive in both photos.

A few meters further on, we encounter a very special inhabitant of the hotel complex: a cat lying in the grass under a palm tree. Samsung takes a much brighter picture of the subject and needs considerably less exposure time than the iPhone. We find the picture from Apple's smartphone camera somewhat more atmospherically lit.

In terms of image sharpness, Samsung clearly wins here, and the shorter exposure time makes blurring much less likely, even in hand-held pictures. However, the cat is not depicted really well by either smartphone, it is not very detailed when enlarged and the Galaxy S24 Ultra also overexposed.

The night sky above the hotel complex at Apple looks much less blurred and also more atmospheric.

Very early in the morning, we set off for our next destination: Haleakala, the House of the Sun. However, this is not a building, but the highest mountain on Maui at 3,055 meters (~10,000 feet), an extinct volcano that once formed the island. It is still sacred to the Hawaiians, the summit region is a national park and you are said to be able to admire beautiful sunrises there.

4 °C (39.2 °F) is an unusual temperature in Hawaii, but at this altitude and so early in the day, it is quite possible. Many people are already waiting for the sun, at the moment there are only bright stars in the sky, but the horizon is already shining. We take an atmospheric picture of the waiting crowd, but the iPhone only manages a slightly blurred shot, while the Samsung photo is grainy but much sharper.

And then the time has come, suddenly the lighting mood changes and a fiery ball rises in the clouds: the sun is rising. Both smartphones capture this majestic scene atmospherically, but if you zoom into the picture, the image from the Samsung smartphone looks a little sharper.

The second shot of the sunrise also looks more detailed and vivid from the Samsung phone. Be it the mountain flank or the wispy clouds: If you zoom into the picture a little, you can discover significantly more details in the picture from the Samsung camera.

We leave Maui with a heavy heart and set off on a new adventure: the urban jungle of Honolulu on the island of Oahu. The city impresses with its hotel complexes on Waikiki Beach and historic buildings from the time when Hawaii was still ruled by kings and queens.

A glance out of the hotel window shows just how different the capital of the state of Hawaii is from rural Maui: skyscrapers, hotels and apartment buildings as far as the eye can see. The iPhone 16 Pro copes better with this completely different environment: it shows much sharper details.

On our first walk through the streets, we spot a great vintage car in front of one of the houses, with a surfboard on the roof of course. When enlarged, the iPhone shows a somewhat sharper display of details, but there are chromatic aberrations, i.e. color errors, on the radiator grille. The display of fonts (e.g. the parking lot sign on the right edge of the screen) also appears strangely distorted in places.

The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra achieves a slightly less sharp, but generally more well-rounded result with its camera and also copes better with the lettering. However, this is displayed with slightly less contrast.

The shot of the park against the sun almost looks like a kitschy advertising photo. The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra creates a harmonious color scheme here, while Apple goes for a cleaner look, which, however, looks a little cool even in comparison with reality.

Finally, we are standing on the world-famous Waikiki beach and can even enjoy the sunrise there. To test the zoom qualities of the two phones, we chose the Diamond Head crater and the hotel buildings in front of it as our destination.

The iPhone 16 Pro struggles to keep up at higher zoom levels. It generally only allows a zoom of up to 25x, whereas Samsung can offer up to 100x zoom. This is hardly usable, as it is an AI-enhanced digital zoom, but at least you can still recognize objects in the distance. With the iPhone, even images at lower zoom levels sometimes appear less detailed.

Both smartphones perform reasonably well up to 10x zoom, after which the digital zoom kicks in and you should refrain from taking serious pictures at higher zoom levels. However, the high zoom of the Galaxy phone is a good substitute for binoculars.

Our two test candidates are actually waterproof, but it's not a good idea to take them into the salty waters of the Pacific. So our exploration of the underwater world is limited to the Waikiki Aquarium. There we discover cuddling sharks, which is of course worth a photo. Despite the difficult lighting conditions, both cameras deliver usable photos. However, Samsung's image once again appears more vivid and is also much more detailed when enlarged.

Jellyfish can also be admired in the aquarium. Here too, the Samsung phone delivers the sharper image. With the other tropical aquarium inhabitants, however, the iPhone can also deliver the better picture from time to time, as our picture gallery below shows.

Diamond Head is an extinct volcanic crater located at the end of Waikiki Beach. The edge of the crater with its fantastic views over the island, the Pacific and Honolulu can only be climbed on foot and marks the end point of our trip. Here the Apple iPhone 16 Pro and Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra show off their camera capabilities one last time.

The view over the endless sea makes you realize that you are on a small island in the middle of a huge ocean. Samsung's flagship once again shows the higher image sharpness and the more vivid image. The iPhone also shows a slight over-illumination of the bright area on the left of the picture.

A look back at Waikiki and Honolulu with the ultra-wide-angle cameras of the two phones concludes our photo comparison. Here, the Galaxy smartphone shows significantly stronger colors for the sky and the ocean; it is a matter of taste whether you like this or whether you prefer the more subtle colors of the iPhone. In the buildings in the distance, hardly any more details are recognizable on both phones; Samsung's phone now shows chromatic aberrations here.