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Cameras compared: iPhone 7 Plus vs. Galaxy S7 vs. iPhone 6S Plus

We had our own professional photographer put Apple's best iPhone camera ever to the test in a Bay Area shootout versus last year's iPhone -- and the Samsung Galaxy S7.

James Martin Managing Editor, Photography
James Martin is the Managing Editor of Photography at CNET. His photos capture technology's impact on society - from the widening wealth gap in San Francisco, to the European refugee crisis and Rwanda's efforts to improve health care. From the technology pioneers of Google and Facebook, photographing Apple's Steve Jobs and Tim Cook, Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg and Google's Sundar Pichai, to the most groundbreaking launches at Apple and NASA, his is a dream job for any documentary photography and journalist with a love for technology. Exhibited widely, syndicated and reprinted thousands of times over the years, James follows the people and places behind the technology changing our world, bringing their stories and ideas to life.
Expertise photojournalism, portrait photography, behind-the-scenes Credentials
  • 2021 Graphis Photography Awards, Gold Award, Journalism, 'The Doorway' Graphis Photography Awards, Silver Award, Portrait, 'Cast of film '1917'' Graphis Photography Awards, Silver Award, Environmental, 'Upper Lola Montez' ND Awards, Architecture, 'Taj Mah
James Martin

The iPhone 7 Plus gets a new camera, and this one is a big deal. Actually, it's two big deals: two 12-megapixel cameras on the back, one wide-angle and one telephoto. Our very own professional, CNET Senior Photographer James Martin spent six days with the iPhone 7 Plus and its cameras. He worked in and around San Francisco, taking shots with the new phone, plus the current leading phone cameras on the market: 2015's iPhone 6 Plus and the Samsung Galaxy S7 so that you can compare the results yourself -- just drag the slider to compare the cameras. After all, a picture's worth a thousand words.

Technical note: These images are compressed for the Web (like all online photos), and we shot with default modes on all the phones for a fair comparison. Compression affects a number of aspects of photos -- you would see different results from from RAW images and uncompressed JPEGs.