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Although the eclipse has passed, it was still a great opportunity to see a rare natural phenomenon. Like everyone else within the narrow path of totality, I was excited about the opportunity to photograph the eclipse with my smartphone. Since we tested many of the best phones in an astrophotography showdown last fall, we thought the eclipse was the perfect time to test out new phones.
So, we’re bringing the Apple iPhone 15 Pro, Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra, Google Pixel 8 Pro, and OnePlus 12 into a proper shootout of eclipse flagship phones to find out which ones are best suited for the occasion and which ones in terms of service. I had to see if I could come out on top. Best results. I’ve compared many of them to each other, but never directly compared how well they capture the sun.
Although I didn’t have the sweet spot of seeing 100% of the total solar eclipse, the forecast for me was still a modest 88% to 90%, more than enough to darken my backyard. While doing this camera shoot, I learned a few things about the best way to photograph a solar eclipse.
First of all, I used a suitable solar filter and carefully secured it to the camera. Then I found that I got the best results using the respective manual mode instead of sticking to automatic. Each has some quirks and nuances, such as requiring macro mode and night mode to be disabled at all times, but we’ll get to that later. But overall, I think almost everyone captured the different stages of the eclipse very well.
Apple iPhone 15 Pro
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The iPhone 15 Pro is a contender in every way for our best camera phones guide, despite having a shorter zoom lens than its sibling. In particular, his main 48MP camera did a good job of capturing some of the sunlight filtering through the clouds, at my estimated 80% total light intensity, but fell flat on other parts. .
The biggest problem I found with photographing solar eclipses with the iPhone 15 Pro was the lack of a manual mode, resulting in long exposures almost every time. Even when using a tripod and phone holder to keep it stationary, I didn’t get any better results with the iPhone 15 Pro. In fact, the eclipse taken with a 12MP 3x zoom camera was noisy and full of artifact effects. For almost every zoom shot, the iPhone 15 Pro was shooting at his 1/15th shutter speed, which resulted in the sun being more overexposed than I would have liked.
samsung galaxy s24 ultra
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Impressively, the Galaxy S24 Ultra delivered some of the sharpest eclipse photos I’ve taken. I think automatic mode is sufficient for most people, but I got even better results by switching to pro mode. This allowed me to adjust the shutter speed and ISO level to my liking, giving me the clearest sun photos. Interestingly, the telephoto camera’s zoom is limited to 20x in Pro mode, which I think is more than enough for the shots I took with his 100x zoom on auto.
Because it’s hard to believe that this camera captures details that other cameras can’t, such as a single sunspot near the center of the sun. It’s hard to believe that a 50MP 5x optical zoom camera and sensor can portray that much detail, so I wonder if there’s some help going on in the background. I also admit that capturing the sun with 100x zoom is very difficult. Therefore, we recommend using a tripod for stability.
google pixel 8 pro
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My favorite camera phone, the Pixel 8 Pro, did a surprisingly good job in this shootout. It was definitely better than the iPhone 15 Pro, but not enough to beat the Galaxy S24 Ultra. On the other hand, the manual controls were useful for fine-tuning the shutter speed just enough to keep the ISO level relatively low. That way, I didn’t suffer from the same awful artifacts that plagued the iPhone 15 Pro.
The only weird thing about using manual controls on the Pixel 8 Pro is that the exposure of the scene through the display can sometimes appear brighter than what you actually see. So I had to compensate for this by shooting at a slower shutter speed, but at least the image stabilization kept things stable. One of my favorite shots of him of the eclipse is the one where clouds cover the sun for a while and the silhouette of a plane passes nearby.
one plus 12
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And finally, we have the OnePlus 12. I will admit that I was most surprised by this underdog. Because this is a perfect example of what a difference manual control can make in photographing a solar eclipse. I would also like to point out that, like the iPhone 15 Pro, its telephoto camera has a 3x optical zoom, but thanks to manual controls we got much better results.
With the main 50MP camera, the eclipse looks like a small pinhole in the shot, but when you switch to the 64MP telephoto camera, the 6x zoom shows the frame clearly. In some photos, the sun is slightly overexposed, but this is the result of automatic shooting. In contrast, using manual controls will give you a more toned-down image. And like the S24 Ultra, I was able to take very close photos of the eclipse – complete with sunspots that looked blurrier than those I got with Samsung’s flagship. Technically, it can zoom up to 120x automatically, but it was nearly impossible to center the eclipse without a tripod.
samsung galaxy s23 ultra
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Before I finish photographing this eclipse, I’d like to share some additional photos taken with the Galaxy S23 Ultra. Why include last year’s flagship phone? It’s because of its longer telephoto range, his 10MP telephoto camera with 10x optical zoom. It certainly has a much longer range than all previous phones, but I wouldn’t say there’s a huge difference.
Manual control definitely helps, but if the sun looked like a crescent, I had to increase the ISO level, which introduced some noise into my shots. It’s usable, but I think the S24 Ultra would have been a better shot.
Flagship mobile phone eclipse showdown: Verdict
After looking through all the photos and considering my experience using them specifically for this occasion, I’m going to hand this one over to the Galaxy S24 Ultra. Obviously, it handles images better at long zoom ranges than other phones, helping to preserve details without introducing a lot of artifacts and noise like we’ve seen on other phones. .
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