The best camera phones versus Spring

I carry the best camera phones with me every day, but sometimes, a special event provides an opportunity to compare. The New York Botanical Garden in New York City is hosting its annual orchid show, so I brought my favorite camera phones and my own dedicated camera to see how these phones perform.
I used theApple iPhone 16 Pro,Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra, andOnePlus 13to take hundreds of photos – more than 300 samples each – of the thousands of blooms to see how they managed to capture these perfect spring memories, and the results shocked me!
Why? Because the OnePlus 13 held its own against both of the top contenders and my Fujifilm X-T5. I was surprised by how buggy the Apple iPhone 16 Pro camera has become and how inconsistent the color accuracy on the Galaxy S25 Ultra can be. While I wouldn’t call the OnePlus 13 my clear winner, you can see the results below, and the competition is tight.
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How I judge the best camera phones

This photo was taken with the OnePlus 13

This photo was taken with the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra

This photo was taken with the Fujifilm X-T5
To judge these images, I look for color accuracy and lighting foremost. I want to see the natural colors of the flowers. Then I want fine details. Finally, I expect a dreamy, blurred bokeh background that looks natural and isolates my subject without distraction.
What surprised me most on this trip was how much the camera software matters. As expected,Samsungoffers the most camera options, though some features require additional software and downloads. I was disappointed that the OnePlus 13 offered very little control – I couldn’t force the camera to shoot at its highest 50MP resolution using the native app.
The Apple iPhone 16 Pro, however, was the worst of all. Its Camera app crashed often, especially if I used the new Camera Control button to open it. It also had trouble focusing on the proper subject.
I also brought along my dedicated camera, aFujifilm X-T5, with a 23mm f/2 lens. That’s the exact same specs you’ll find on Fujifilm’s incredibly popularFujifilm X100VI, and I wanted to see how today’s best camera phones compared to today’s hottest point-and-shoot camera performance.
The Fujifilm has impeccable color accuracy and soft bokeh, so it offers a great comparison to see which smartphones produce images that look like a real camera.
A focus on focus with phalaenopsis and dancing lady orchids

This is my ideal shot, with the moth orchid in focus and the dancing lady orchids floating in and out of the focal plane
Taken with Fujifilm X-T5 w/ 23mm f/2 lens

The iPhone 16 Pro could only focus using its macro camera, which produced terrible color results

The Galaxy S25 Ultra produced nice results with dreamy looking dancing lady orchids, but the image is underexposed

The OnePlus 13 crafted the superior photo, with more of the moth orchid and dancing lady orchids in focus
The first photo is my reference shot, taken with my Fujifilm X-T5. The colors are perfect, with bright white on the moth orchid, crisp yellow on the dancing lady orchids, and a pleasant royal blue on the background wall.
The iPhone 16 Pro had immediate problems with this shot. When I used the main photo mode, the camera app was unable to focus on the moth orchid alone. I allowed the iPhone to turn on macro, which reduced the resolution, and I got this terrible shot with too-warm colors and a seemingly narrow aperture that brought most of the flowers into focus instead of just a few.
The Galaxy S25 Ultra was more accurate with its color, though the image looks underexposed, considering the wealth of natural light in the Botanical Garden. The focal plane is also a bit narrow for my taste, and it was hard to bring all of the moth orchids into focus.
The OnePlus 13 created the best photo among all the camera phones, with excellent color, bright details and lighting, and the right focus on the flowers I want. It’s the lowest resolution of the bunch, though, so printing later may be problematic.
- Best Photo:OnePlus 13
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Finding drama, not detail, in a mysore clockvine

Taken with Fujifilm X-T5 w/ 23mm f/2 lens

The iPhone photo lacks some detail, but produces the most pleasant bokeh results and accurate colors

The Galaxy S25 Ultra captured plenty of detail, but the image is underexposed and looks a bit warm compared to the real thing

The OnePlus 13 forced this capture as a Macro image, which means the background blur is mostly absent
While the iPhone 16 Pro doesn’t capture the most detail in this shot, sometimes detail isn’t exactly the point. I wanted accurate colors, enough detail to see the fine strands in the filaments, and a little bit of blur on the background buds to make the clockvine stand out.
The Galaxy S25 Ultra and OnePlus 13 had trouble focusing on just the clockvine, so I let those phones default to macro mode. This was a big mistake, as you can see. The colors and details may be there, but there is no blur to the background, and everything seems flat.
- Best Photo:Apple iPhone 16 Pro
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Tuning into the blues and hues of a jade vine

Taken with Fujifilm X-T5 w/ 23mm f/2 lens

The iPhone 16 Pro did the best job capturing the real color of this jade vine

The Galaxy S25 Ultra rendered this jade vine a bit flat, though it was easier to see the details in the petals.

This OnePlus 13 image has bad color reproduction, rendering the flowers more green than they were in reality
Taken with the OnePlus 13
This was purely a test of color to see which camera phone could properly render the remarkable hue of this jade vine in bloom. The flowers are shimmering and almost metallic in color, a blue-green that will test the limits of what you consider blue or green (and you canIs My Blue Your Blueif you want to see your blue-green boundary).
The iPhone 16 Pro may lack the detail of the Galaxy S25 Ultra, but the iPhone produced colors that were true to life, while the Galaxy phone struggled to recreate the real thing. Usually, Galaxy phones oversaturate colors, but here, the jade vine looks a bit duller.
The OnePlus 13 simply flubbed this shot. It got the colors wrong. This is a problem with the OnePlus 13. When it works, it produces photos that look spectacular. When it goes wrong, it goes very wrong, and it makes you wonder if you accidentally switched to a different phone.
- Best Photo:Apple iPhone 16 Pro
The big problem with macro on smartphones

This is a 50MP image from the Galaxy S25 Ultra main camera. The colors are inaccurate and too warm, though the background has a pleasant blur

This is a ‘macro’ image from the Galaxy S25 Ultra. The color is good, but the image is mostly in focus, with little pleasant background blur.
Taken with Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra
Macro photography is when you get very close to a subject, and smartphones today will all try to switch to a macro mode when you are trying to shoot close up. Whenever possible, you should turn off this macro mode because it will ruin your photo.
First of all, macro is usually handled by the ultra-wide camera, not the main camera. That means it uses a much smaller sensor, which ironically means it cannot capture the same high level of detail. On the iPhone and Galaxy phones, your macro photos will be around 12MP even if your camera is set to shoot at 48MP or 50MP, respectively.
Worst of all, it’s clear that these phone makers don’t take macro photos very seriously. When the camera shoots in macro mode, you can see an obvious shift in quality, both in terms of resolution and color accuracy. Here are some examples below.

This is from the main camera on the iPhone 16 Pro. The color is slightly warmer, but the background is nicely blurred to isolate the orchids in front.

This is a ‘macro’ image from the iPhone 16 Pro. The color is fine but the background is so jumbled and distracting that it’s impossible to appreciate my subject.
Taken with Apple iPhone 16 Pro
The OnePlus 13 does a better job with its macro mode. You can see here that the color remains consistent, and the only thing that shifts is the focal plane and the details in the image. Still, the photo from Macro mode is unpleasant, with a noisy and distracting background, while the main camera image is much nicer, with a pleasant background bokeh blur.

This is an image from the OnePlus 13 main camera in Photo mode. The background is pleasantly blurred, and the colors are consistent.

This is an image from the OnePlus 13 in ‘macro’ mode. The color is good, but the background is noisy and distracting.
Taken with OnePlus 13
- Best Macro Photo:OnePlus 13
Which phone is the best? All of them (but they all have issues)
Which of these camera phones is the best? The Apple iPhone 16 Pro produced images that looked closes to my Fujifilm X-T5 camera, with color that was true to life and a depth of field that made photos look like they were taken by a real camera.
However, the iPhone 16 Pro was buggy. The Camera app crashed often, especially when I tried opening the camera through the newCamera Controlbutton. Also, Apple offers far fewer camera control options and shooting modes than the other phone makers. It also had trouble focusing on a subject as close to the lens as the other camera phones without switching to the dreaded Macro mode.
The Galaxy S25 Ultra produced results that looked fantastic, most of the time. It did a much better job focusing and capturing details than the other two cameras, but it had a very hard time producing accurate colors. Shooting thousands of orchids, the Galaxy S25 Ultra often blew out the red portions of flowers so that all detail was lost. It tended to render images warmer than reality, and the difference between image quality when you switch modes can be vast.
The OnePlus 13 was pleasantly surprising. It shot images that had plenty of colorful pop, and photos were mostly accurate – until things went wrong. That’s the big problem with the OnePlus 13. I’d call it the best camera phone, but things go wrong too often and the results can be terrible, with colors that are simply inaccurate. I also wish there was a way to force the camera to produce high-resolution images, instead of only 12MP shots.
In the end, I’d have to recommend the iPhone for its more consistent photos and better color accuracy, even if the app has problems. If I could trust the OnePlus 13 with more consistent results or take advantage of the full resolution of the camera, it would be my favorite, but for now, the iPhone remains the camera phone to beat.
Best Overall:Apple iPhone 16 Pro
Apple iPhone 16 Pro Sample Photo Gallery

Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra Sample Photo Gallery





OnePlus 13 Sample Photo Gallery




