𝟵𝟬𝟬𝟬 𝗶𝗣𝗵𝗼𝗻𝗲 𝟭𝟭 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗳𝗿𝗲𝗲 𝗶𝗻 𝗜𝗿𝗲𝗹𝗮𝗻𝗱! 🇮🇪 𝗗𝗼𝗻’𝘁 𝗺𝗶𝘀𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗼𝗽𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁𝘂𝗻𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝘁𝗼 𝗴𝗲𝘁 𝗮 𝘀𝗺𝗮𝗿𝘁𝗽𝗵𝗼𝗻𝗲 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗳𝗿𝗲𝗲!🔥

Folding displays are a disaster, 5G is a work in progress and phone makers still haven’t found the next stage of design to make glass seem out of date. The camera is still the biggest area of competition among top-end phones.

Studying spec sheets and even sensor models only tells you part of the story. We gathered five of the best smartphones around - most with 'pro' in the names - to test and see which is best.

We also worked with, Rebecca Scheinberg, a still-life and portraiture photographer, who helped us decide on a winner with a focus on picture quality across various environments. Her day-to-day experience of cameras is very different to our own, which boils down to snapping anything that looks interesting as we go about our day.

“I tend to work in relatively controlled environments with still life, so I can adjust based on the image, the aesthetic, colour and texture,” says Scheinberg. “I tend to use a digital back that I put on to either a large format or medium format camera. It’s a big shift to walk around with it in my hand and change angles easily.”

How we tested

Our approach to testing these cameras was designed to mirror these two styles of photography. We started off in a white-walled photography studio. Scheinberg set up the kind of still life she might shoot for a style magazine or high-end advert. After experimenting with a few different setups we settled on a few sticks of rhubarb tied together with rope, sat on a gold occasional table.

Rebecca Scheinberg

What may seem arbitrary is actually exacting in still-life photography. This arrangement also let us see how the phones would deal with the colour of the rhubarb and the texture of the rope. We then closed the blinds in the studio to test their night modes. “This is really challenging their cameras because it’s dealing with complicated textures and interesting colours,” says Scheinberg.

After several hours in that controlled environment, we went outside to one of London’s green squares with one of the most difficult subjects of all: a dog. Dogs rarely stop moving and our dog’s dark fur is a particularly tough challenge for any processing-led camera. Should it expose a shot to bring out the texture detail, or to make the fur appear as dark as it does to the eye?