As the Samsung Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 Edge were launched at MWC last month, Samsung's JK Shin promised that the camera would outperform the units currently winning critical acclaim on the iPhone 6 and the iPhone 6 Plus. It was a direct challenge from Seoul to Cupertino, and while the first hands-on pictures showed a lot of promise, judgement was reserved by many until the camera could be taken out in the real world to shoot some comparisons and have the results analysed.
And the conclusion? JK Shin was right, the camera on the Galaxy S6 (and the similarly equipped Galaxy S6 Edge) is not just a match for Apple's iPhone shooter, but in almost every situation performs better.
What Has Samsung Changed?
It's worth noting that the camera software and hardware on both the Samsung Galaxy S6 and the Galaxy S6 Edge are similar - the main rearward facing camera (which I'm focusing on here) has a 16 megapixel resolution, and an f1.9 lens (the self camera has the same lens but just 5 megapixel resolution). This allows in more light than previous Galaxy handsets (up to 60% more, says Samsung), and that makes a huge difference to the images captured.
While the S6 family lacks a dedicated shutter button, you can open the camera with a double-tap on the home key, and the volume keys will pull double-duty and act as a shutter button when in the camera app. The camera app has been simplified from previous Galaxy efforts, with a clearer layout of the functions. The flash, timer, HDR mode, and filters are all available along the top of the screen, while the bottom of the screen allows you to switch to video mode, choose the front or rear camera to use, or to select the camera mode.
These modes include the ability to shoot video in slow motion or at high-speed, to take panoramic pics, to selectively focus areas of the picture, or Samsung's 'virtual shot' mode - which is a cute trick to rotate around an object so you can rotate the image after the fact, but feels like an answer to a question nobody has asked.
There's also a 'pro' mode which adds in another control strop for manual control of exposure, ISO speeds, white balance, focus, and color palettes. For this review I've left the Galaxy S6 in automatic mode, and the HDR imaging off - although the Auto HDR imaging mode is a nice touch, with the software deciding if HDR will make for a better reproduction or not.
Next: Let's take a look at the results....
Looking through my comparison shots, what makes the Galaxy S6 stand out to my eye is the restrained colours that are on show. Rather than force a huge amount of pop and vibrant color into an image, Samsung's software now biases towards a more natural look. Put next to a similar shot from an iPhone and the Galaxy S6 shots have a tendency to look washed out. But the comparison shouldn't be made directly to the other smartphone, it should be made to the original scene. Which matches what I see more closely? And that has to be the Galaxy S6.
I think that part of the reason Samsung can return to a more natural tone in the image is the use of Super AMOLED on the screen. This technology by its nature has a tendency to push colour saturation a little higher than other smartphone screens (which is one reason why TouchWiz still feels like living in a Japanese anime UI), but in terms of photography it means the image on the screen is comparable to an iPhone screen, but once you bringing it back to a monitor or laptop the artificial pop is removed and your more natural tones return.
The Galaxy S6 does not support saving the image in RAW, even in the Pro mode, so getting a good baseline picture for later processing is a key part of the production chain for snappers. That's why staying with a more natural look to the color is an important choice. RAW is supported in the latest Android APIs, so perhaps this may be added in with a software update in the future, but for now RAW is not yet supported by the S6 software.
Samsung Galaxy S6 camera sample - with full scale crop. (image: Ewan Spence)
The biggest difference can be seen in scenic shots. There is more of an authenticity to these images than in competing smartphones. The Galaxy S6's ability to pull in and process more light information really shows up well in these test shots. The extra detail on show allows clearer details on signs and buildings, or similar levels of detail on objects further away than older generation smartphones.
That's partly down to the physical lenses and image sensors, but I suspect that just as much of the wizardry has happened in the software. Just as the amount of color saturation has been tweaked lower to give a more natural result, the amount of processing to define edges has seen an improvement over the Galaxy S5.
Samsung Galaxy S6 camera sample- with full scale crop (image: Ewan Spence)
Throw in less noise in the image (more light coming in means a lower ISO setting can be used) and you have images that feel far less processed than any other Android smartphone. Putting them next to images from the iPhone 6, and while the images are far closer, Samsung's dialling back of the effects for that natural look is more appealing to my eye.
Next: getting close-up and moving indoors...
(Read more about the Galaxy S^ and the iPhone 6 as Gordon Kelly puts them head-to-head).
The extra information captured by the lens means the Galaxy S6 is a clear winner when you go in for a close-up shot. The lines are sharper, you can zoom in and see far more detail. Turning to the iPhone 6 once more as a comparison, the biggest issue is the loss of color. While the S6's natural tones remain, the iPhone presents a much grayer world in close-up, and the loss of detail compared to the Galaxy S6 is clearly noticeable.
The results are not so distinctive when I move indoors, especially if the light levels drop. Unlike previous Galaxy handsets, the image quality does not suffer unduly and the skill set that Samsung has deployed on the Galaxy S6 is still evident. It's just that here the Galaxy S6 is no longer the undisputed leader of the pack. It's now on a par with the iPhone 6, and slightly less accurate than the iPhone 6 Plus (with the phablet's image stabilisation that's perhaps not a surprise).
The color correction algorithms do not feel as polished in these scenarios as the previous. There's a tendency to push the yellows and whites a little too high, and the washing out of the color that gives the outdoor shots their accuracy actually dials down the realism in indoor shots, especially in low light - the ability topic out fine details has been lost. There's also a touch more lens flare around tightly contained or bright image sources. That's fine if you are J. J. Abrahams and filming the next Star Trek film on a South Korean smartphone, but for everyone else the low light performance is the weak point in the package.
Arguably these could all be corrected in a software update, and I would expect the color correction to be addressed in relatively short order, but getting it right over such a broad sweep of scenarios is not an easy task. That Samsung has managed to cover the vast majority of the scenarios is to its credit.
The Camera Is Samsung's Killer Feature
What's clear looking at all the comparison images I have from both the Galaxy S6 and the iPhone 6 is the advantage in the increased amount of light that the Galaxy S6 can capture. More light means more information, more information means the imaging software has far more data to work with, and more data means the pictures are better. The engineering to gather more light at similar camera speeds is not easy, but if there's anything that easily stands out it is this.
Pair up the extra light falling on the more sensitive sensor with the improved lens, and the simple argument is that you get more detail in your images. It's not just a simple matter of scaling up the megapixels, it needs to be in tandem with the lenses and filters already in place, and to work with the software processing, but Samsung has achieved all of this.
While I might be critical of the lack of software support for the curves on the S6 Edge, and the general feeling that TouchWiz has had little more than lip service paid to an update, the camera software on the Galaxy S6 and the Galaxy S6 Edge is top-notch. While I'm not convinced on the whole software package of the Galaxy S6, the camera package is not only the best Samsung has put together for its smartphones, not only the best of any Android device, but the best shooter on a flagship smartphone this year.
