The Best Camera Phones for Photography and Filmmaking

To Know:

Tim Cook and his team know how to make the most versatile pocket-sized camera, even outweighing some mirrorless cameras in many aspects. Introducing — the all-new 48MP Main camera with an advanced quad-pixel sensor. Apple's increasingly larger sensors and more advanced lenses are paired with their powerful Apple silicon to perfect low light scenarios. With a 65% larger sensor, the iPhone 14 Pro raises the bar for what 48 megapixels can do — delivering 4x the resolution in ProRAW for mind-blowing detail in every crop. Their latest Deep Fusion is implemented earlier in the capturing process to enable more colors and brighter details. The most significant step for low light "Photonotic Engine" will be the furthest step forward in curating images with the most advanced smartphone technology. Best part? It's allowed across all iPhone cameras.

What We Love:

The quad-pixel format allows for imaginative cropping mechanisms, without losing quality to your overall image. This large amount of data opens a world of possibilities.

The Details:

Brand: Apple

Product Type: Smartphone Camera

Best For: Seemingly anyone needing a professional grade mobile smartphone camera for any and all creative use-cases; both photography and filmmaking alike. Especially wonderful for low-light scenarios.

To Know:

The camera, like everything else on the S21 Ultra, is top-of-the-line, with a 108MP f/1.8 primary sensor, a 12MP f/2.2 ultra-wide sensor, and two telephoto cameras, which is almost unheard of on phones. Both cameras are 10 megapixels, but one has an f/2.4 aperture and 3x optical zoom, while the other has an f/4.9 aperture and a whopping 10x optical zoom.

Non-zoomed photos are also impressive, though not always on par with the best competitors. However, when you combine a plethora of camera modes, including new ones like Director's View (which allows you to capture video with both the front and rear cameras at the same time), with a highly powerful 40MP front-facing camera, you have a smartphone photographer's dream.

What We Love:

Amazing Camera Zoom

With dual telephoto lenses, the Galaxy S22 Ultra is a rockstar.

Director’s View

Lets you shoot video with both the front and rear cameras simultaneously.

The Details

Brand: Samsung

Product Type: Smartphone

Best For: Creators on the Go who want to have multiple ways to record on the table.

To Know:

A striking change from last year's iPhone 12 Pro Max to the latest baseline iPhone 13 is its increased sensor size to 47% larger, allowing it to capture more light in low-light conditions and less noise. The Wide sensor comes in at 12-megapixels with an f/1.6 aperture, while the new 12-megapixel ultra-wide camera features a more fast f/2.4 lens with a 120-degree field of view. iPhone 13 additionally boasts a sensor-shift stabilization technology featured in the 12 Pro Max to reduce unwanted vibrations within the sensor.

Overall, this is the most advanced pro camera system ever on an iPhone, boasting a Super Retina XDR display with ProMotion; a massive leap in battery life; A15 Bionic, the fastest chip in a smartphone; an advanced 5G experience; and so much more.

The latest Ultra-Wide camera features a stellar new f/1.8 aperture and improved autofocus to produce cleaner, brighter images in darker environments. Additionally, and with great excitement, Apple now offers a macro-photography feature using advanced software to magnify objects to appear larger than life. Macro also expands to video mode, including Slo-mo and Timelapse.

What We Love

Long Battery Life

Best battery performance we’ve seen on any iPhone lineup.

Fresh Colors, more Clarity

(Exceeding quality in any smartphone camera we've seen.

Rockstar LiDAR Sensor

It has a large sensor capable of capturing a lot of light. Night Mode works with both the main and ultra-wide sensors, without restrictions.

The Details:

Brand: Apple

Product Type: Smartphone

Best For: Crisp photos for everyday life that excellent in quality and true-to-life dynamic range.

To Know:

The OnePlus 10 Pro is probably a first-timer on this list, but it definitely called our attention. It has a48MP (f/1.8) main camera, 50MP (f/2.2) for the ultrawide, 8MP (f/2.4) 3.3x telephoto, and a 2MP monochrome camera for enhancing black and white images. The ultra-wide is perhaps the most notable of these, as it features a freeform lens design that eliminates the "barrel" distortion commonly seen at the edges of ultra-wide shots. The OnePlus 10 Pro's cameras were also developed in collaboration with Hasselblad, though the collaboration was mostly limited to color calibration and the design of the camera app. We expect more from this partnership on future OnePlus phones, but the results are already visible in photos, with accurate colors. While the OnePlus 10 Pro has powerful manual controls, it also performs admirably in auto mode, making it an excellent point-and-shoot option. While not quite on the same level as the iPhone 14 series or Pixel 6 Pro, but it’s rather respectable. OnePlus still has a yellow tinge problem in most of the photos, something that’s especially noticeable outdoors. Inside, however, it makes for a warm, cozy feel.

What We Love:

Great Smartphone Power

8K video quality, and a capable 16MP front-facing camera, the OnePlus 10 Pro is a good all-rounder as far as photography goes.

Excellent Color Calibration

The colors you see are reproduced as accurately as possible

Great Manual Camera Controls

It takes fantastic images, with great-looking colors and masses of detail.

The Details:

Brand: OnePlus

Product Type: Smartphone

Best For: Sharp Photos with impressive color accuracy.

To Know:

Google Pixel 6 manages to capture true colors and is everyone's latest go-to that abide outside the Apple ecosystem.

The Google Pixel 6's ultra-wide lens produces less distortion at the edges of photographs than many other ultra-wide lenses, and it comes with a nice set of photo editing capabilities. Portrait Light is a software function that helps the phone by convincingly brightening faces and other subjects. Featuring a 50MP f/1.9 main sensor with 1.2µm pixels, and many find this smartphone capable of capturing stunning photos with crispy detail, and colors so real it requires a double take.

What We Love:

COLORS

Pixel 6 Promanages to capture accurate strong colors.

CRISP IMAGES

Especially in good light, the Pixel 6 Pro manages to capture incredibly sharp images, which is a 10/10.

PORTRAIT LIGHT

Convincingly brighten faces and other subjects.

The Details:

Brand: Google

Product Type: Smartphone

Best For: Incredibly sharp images with an enhanced portrait mode lighting.