Yesterday, we showed you the Galaxy S25 Ultra vs S24 Ultra camera shootout – now it’s time for part two. Yesterday, we could only take photos at the venue, but today we went for a walk around San Jose with both Ultras in hand, so we have even more photos to share.
Many (if not most) of the changes will come from the new Snapdragon 8 Elite ISP – Samsung has kept most of the camera hardware the same except for the ultra-wide module.
Starting with the main 200MP camera set to its default 12MP mode, the difference in image processing is more noticeable indoors than outdoors. The older Galaxy S24 Ultra produces sharper images – although, it can go overboard in some places. Color rendition is quite similar, 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 apparent in darkness. Color rendition is also different, with the S25 Ultra leaning more towards warmer colors.
Main camera, night: Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra
Main camera, night: Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra
Moving on to the mid-range zoom camera, the results are pretty much similar, though not identical – the older phone tries to accentuate the shadows more and it ends up with more noise. However, these are small differences.
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 apparent with the new S25 Ultra producing cleaner looking images while preserving more detail.
3x Camera, Night: Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra
3x Camera, Night: Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra
We dial the zoom level up to 5x and find that the gap between the two generations has narrowed even further. The older model again produces a slightly noisy image, but only reasonable.
5x Camera: Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra
5x Camera: Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra
It displays night photos taken with 5x cameras.
5x camera, night: Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra
5x camera, night: Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra
Next is the 10x camera – a 50MP sensor paired with a 111mm lens. As far as we’re told, it’s the same hardware, but the new Galaxy S25 Ultra produces significantly more detailed images and does a better job of reining in lens aberrations.
10x Camera: Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra
10x Camera: Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra
In darkness, the gap closes again, but the older S24 Ultra leaves more noise in the image and manages to preserve a little more detail in doing so.
10x camera, night: Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra
10x camera, night: Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra
Now, let’s take a look at the camera that’s actually got the new hardware this generation – ultra-wide. It now adds a 50MP sensor with a 120° lens, up from 12MP, although it limits its output to the same resolution.
The older Galaxy S24 Ultra has to put more emphasis on sharpening and at times it’s quite noticeable. However, it does manage to show more detail in places.
Ultra-wide camera: Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra
Ultra-wide camera: Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra
In the dark, the older model produces quite noisy images – no surprise 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 Ultra phones, the ultra-wide camera is also responsible for macro shots. Here’s 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, remains the same as last year. As a result, the images are largely identical, although there is once again less noise in the shots from the new S25 Ultra.
Selfie Camera: Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra
Selfie Camera: Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra
Finally, here’s a 4K video shot from the main camera at 30fps:
We also shot 4K video with the main camera at night:
This was our first extended photo shoot with the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra – perhaps the first of many. More in-depth testing remains to be done to find out what has changed and what hasn’t in terms of image quality.
