Pixel 8 pro vs iPhone 15 Pro Max vs S23Ultra astrophotography 

As an Aussie who lives in a rural area im glad i went for pixel once again with the 8 pro, the astrophotography mode is class leading above all others for years in pixel phones, i just set it and forget it for ~4 minutes and the results speak for themselves...its also a very handy tool for capturing lightning shots too.

PIXELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL😍

Pro mode is still my go to on my S23 Ultra. I think the sensor and optics are solid enough that these kinds of night shots don't really need the ExpertRAW. Those 200MP photo-sites binned to 50 or 12MP, are some kind of magic, the high-iso noise responds extremely well to noise reduction without taking much of a hit to the quality. Only time I really use Expert RAW is when I am shooting in extreme contrast situations. Otherwise the standard single straight-from-sensor RAW shots are just far more pleasing to work with and imho are the closest thing I've had to my dedicated m43 mirrorless camera. Those Pixel astro shots are mind-blowing though. The processing and AI is so transparent that I think I would be happy in that mode as you can still take it into Lightroom without too many artefacts. Adding to this, it blows my mind that ExpertRAW can't get better results with that quality ISOCELL sensor. Good news is that it's software, and can be improved. Fingers crossed they watch your videos haha.

I got out last night with the 15PM and Pixel 8 Pro - and yeah, the moon was chased closely by the core. Very interesting playing with the 48 v 12 MP options (Raw and Raw Max) on iPhone and the 12MP/50MP options on the Pixel. Also interesting to see the differences between the 24, 28 and 35mm options on the iPhone

Your videos are always informative and on point. Keep the great content coming!

Haven’t done any star photos but your videos have me thinking about. Great video, thanks 🤩👍

Would love to see you stacking method video! Thanks for sharing the info!

Very interesting video! I'm truly impressed with the final result from the Galaxy, because the Pro Mode photos you've taken didn't benefit from the same algorithms and computational techniques you would get in Expert Raw or with the other phones. The pro mode has always been very good and natural-looking, but I didn't expect it to perform that well on astrophotography.

As you know I'm a massive pixel fan thanks to you, but I watch all the phones you use because you teach so much, I'm learning loads, much appreciated, awesome video as always shayne, that pixel is insane 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿

thank you so much. i was waiting for this video

Would love to see that layering technique of sky and foreground you mentioned. Thanks!

Awesome, makes me want to go out and try to capture the ✨.

Great work sir! Looks like a lot of fun 😊

The iPhone photo looks like it needs a trip trough Lightroom to pull down the sky more than the foreground.

Brilliant as always!!!

Nice sharing…about the Pixel Phone,how many times did you use the strobe light to light up the subject during the default astro mode..thank you.

I have always wanted yo do this and i snatched he google pixel 8 not knowing it was this good. Oh my.. I AM EXCITED to try this

Layering two photos together would be a good video for sure. I want to try it but not really sure how it works I've never tried it.

Yes, we want that new video !

The iPhone pic has heavily crushed blacks in the shadows, as you said, it really looks like a smartphone pic. But it still looks better than what ExpertRAW was pumping out for you, so there's that.

I'd love to see a S23U stacking video 🙏 I really enjoyed the comparisons in this video 👍🏻

I wish i could be there to shoot some photos with you. Thank you so much for amazing content

Hi mate, yes please make a tutorial on how to stock /layering photos. Im using S23 Ultra in a bortle 5 area in Portugal and i think if i do that i can get a way better photo. Love your videos man. Keep up your amazing work. Love you

Can the night cap camera app for iPhones do a good job for stacking photos like the google pixel 8 pro for astrophotography ?

Thanks for this great video...i was just wondering which Sony camera did you use? it looks SOOOOOOOOO GOOOOOOOD!!! :)

Amazing just love how a phone can capture that. Wonder how the pixel 8 pro manual mode will do in astral photos

love your work mate, I wish I could get out of the big smoke to have a go at this , I look up into the Melbourne night sky often , and it’s just crap for Astro 99.9999999 % of the time, although you could probably still do something with it with your skills.

All the three camera phones did great. Samsung better that Astrophotography mode. The Pixel 8 Pro impressed me the most. I'm curious, if the Huawei P60 Pro capture a good astrophoto as it has varible aperture on the main cam f/1.4 to f/4.0. Hope you will test that phone Shane.

Of course we want the multi exposure video. 👍👍👍

I can't wait to go out of town and take photos of the stars on my Pixel 8 Pro.

I like your channel, I am thinking about a trip to south Africa armed only with an iPhone 15 max. I wanted to see a full res image on the night sky taken with the afore mentioned camera/phone but could not find one. Can you help me?

I like to play around with my phone while my camera is busy capturing images. I have the s21 ultra, and I'm always impressed by what it can do, although I then look at what my Nikon can do and it's no comparison. But it's fun. I may be in the market for a new phone, and I'm tempted by the iphone for the emergency satellite communications (i live in the outback and a friend was saved by it recently). The pixel is cheaper and has a great camera, but I also use the 10x lens on my Samsung a fair amount. Mind you, I am thinking of going back to a smaller phone. The big ones are a pain!

Amazing video 👍❤️

Ive had a pixel 8 pro for a couple months now, i had no idea it was this good at astrophotography!

Still using the S22 Ultra and to be fair, I do get better results with Expert RAW than Pro Mode. You are right that the astromode is total rubbish, but when you use the exact settings in the Expert Raw and Pro Mode, I found that the former captures more light or more "information" into the picture and I got way better results than with the Pro Mode. That said, I have Exynos, so maybe that has an influence. Other than that, great video as always, you got a new sub

On the iPhone screen captures why does the Raw Max indicator have a line through it? I am still trying to work out the defaults and settings I need to adjust, but when I do this on mine it saves in HEIF format. I also just noticed that the resolution in night mode is reduced back to 12MP.

Your videos are an important point of reference, I would buy the Pixel 8pro tomorrow but I want to wait for the Vivo x100 pro, will we ever see a test of the vivo from you?

Great video! Have you had a chance to try iPhone on a star-tracker? I was wondering if on these phones we could try 2X or 5X for astrophotography. Thanks.

Your videos are very good. I would like to see you take separate sky and foreground and blend them in Photoshop. Thanks

Why on the iPhone exposure is -2?, that’s why is too dark in the shadows

Quality contents ❤

Good work. But try it without the Exposure -2.0 and Photo Warm Style settings on the iPhone.

Great comparison i go tomorrow pick up my p8p after using p6p one year im very satisfied what i saw 😊

i want to know how to edit the pics if you can do a video that would be helpfull also thanks for this video and all the others

Thank you so much for sharing this. Literally you are answering my questions right in front of my eyes. I have been searching desperately. What's the name of that light please? If you have a link that would be great I am trying to make a astrological photo with my 80-year-old aunts original 57 Chevy in the background for a birthday present coming up in November just awesome! I hope it works out. Thanks again for the info and any additional you can supply. ✌️❤️🍻

The King is Back!!!☝️

love your comparison videos, but please let us download the raw files to play with by ourselves, please

Do you have any S23 Ultra astrophotography videos on your channel before the software update arrives?

50 megapixel astrophotography mode from the Pixel 8 Pro could be interesting. It would be also nice to see the periscope camera in its 48 megapixel mode (possibly one needs to choose a manual exposure time).

Pixel looks great! The iPhone sky looks a bit strange for me, I think it's the white balance :( Great video, tho. As always!

Pixel all the way. 4mins of ya time and it stacks them for you ACE. Less time mucking around in pp. Awesome post Shayne👍👍 Happy snapping mate

awesome work but I find it strange that you qualify these as mint and great etc. Any mid range DSLR will blow all of this out of the water. But it is very much awesome to have that quality accessible in your pocket at all time while the DSLR needs a cart and thus is always at home when you'd like to have it.

As always great vid. For me the pixel won out of the 3 but that sony 😍. I would very much like to see you do this but also edit them all on there native editing app

What are your thoughts about Huawei P60 pro seen lots of photos clicked by it. Is it better or equivalent to these phones??

Okay so these phones have their strong suits iPhone js hands down video Samsung zooming but pixel absolutely distroy's in Astrophotography what a photo from a smartphone🙌🙌🙌🙌🙌🙌🙌😤✋😱😱😱

WOW I was REALLY trying to compare the 3 But I ended up liking your Sony one lol WOW

Have you had a chance to use Sony’s Xperia phone’s camera for astrophotography? I’m curious to see how it stacks up against Apple, Google and Samsung.

Do you think the s23U is better now with the new software updates like one Ui6.1 ?

My fav is the iPhone wide photo, especially after dehazing and colour going less warm, because showed the dark sky between galaxy the most clear, and it is most similar as the Sony one too, right?

can you upload the original files to google drive and post the link here?

im kind of sad about samsung (i have a samsung) whenever I use expert raw, the stars can be blurry and I get some very bad purple tint / vignette? (using s22 ultra) also for focusing in pro mode, I found that it worked to choose your camera, then zoom in and do manual focus once it is zoomed in to the max

I have the pixel 4a 5g, and one issue issue I have is that the raw file is always really poor, and I find I get better edits with the jpeg version than the dng version. Does anyone else have this issue?

you should try those 1" inch sensors of the vivo x100 pro ...

Should i buy Samsung galaxy s23 ultra or pixel 8 pro for photography

Hm what happened to the astro mode on the s23 ultra? No good results or whats the issue? Havent tested it in a while

Great video any chance of looking at the p 60 pro

One thing that could have been done here is to set all phones on a self-timer. I have the experience that even touching the shutter makes the phone think it's not on a tripod as it's moving around and thus cut down on the astrophotography exposure time. I've yet to see anyone offer more exposure time ten Google though. They give you a whopping 4 minutes of exposure with stacking, so the results are usually better. Considering getting the Pixel as my dark site astrophotography camera. Another thing here, looks like the iPhone optics have tons and tons of coma, which is making the stars look quite so bad.

Crazy Pixel ❤❤❤🔥🔥🔥

If someone stupid at Samsung really broke the Expert Raw app (and I believe this to be the app not the camera firmware), did you try to use an older app version? APK mirror should still have them all.

How to settle the pixel 8 for a milky way?

Why not use RAW on the phones shots?

Hello and first of all Thank you. Then, I said it, with more than 5000 photos, since this Raw Astro Expert thing, it is no longer good at all on the 22ultra and 23ultra In addition the Raw are compressed, therefore unusable with camera raw or lightroom for denoising. The only thing not too bad is 50Mpix on expert Raw and ISO800-10S BL4200. Otherwise the best is the 50Mpmix pro mode with ISO1600-10S BL4200. Otherwise the only good thing with this raw expert is that you can memorize profiles, so to memorize the focus it's great The same thing should be done in pro mode. And in 50Mpix macro mode this mode is madness! But yes the Pixel 8pro in night mode, wowwww for 4min. Many thanks for your videos. And if you do the S23 for nighttime multi-shot editing, I’ll take it!

I noticed it recently. Since the last update the astro mode has been nerfed on my s22 ultra. It used to be so good. Samsung better fix it soon with another update.

Definitely was observing the core chasing the moon last night myself...and frankly the iPhone 15 Pro Max I have is perhaps the best iPhone I've had for photography in years.

Love your vids and I love pixels Any chance doing a video on the different between astrophotography on your 4a and the 8 pro and any other you have Would be interesting to see the difference in quality Thanks

I'm so into mobile photography!!! BUT I live in the city and it's tough to get my S23 Ultra to do Astro!!! Uhhh I can't get anything to look good from the sky

I don't get it. Why do the first two iPhone photos look so bad and the third one looks awesome? I didn't get it from the video, what did you change?

I like the ease of the iPhone but I think the Pixel 8 pro does the best by a decent margin. But anyway you look at it - it seems like you've got a great phone for astrophotography.

That Pixel though

I think the 15 pro max lenses are dirty or stained or the photo is not clear because it is not focused properly.

thanks for this video really helpful ..... can u make a new test for the pixel 8 pro astrophotography using the manual mode?, also can u test the pixel 8 pro for moon photography? .... thanks in advance

The iPhone has a yellow or green tint to everything. Doesn't look good at all. They need to fix the white balance cause it's ridiculously bad.

Pixel all the way for me. Thanks. 💪🔥

What kind of sony were you using?

On the iPhone you said don’t touch the exposure but u clearly see ur exposer is set to -2.0…..

I think it will end with the 23Ultra - I think it is a waste of good Auroras to wait 4 minutes between each photo...

I'd be intrigued as to how the Pixel 8 pro would do in pro mode without the astrophotography mode.... Typing this on my P8 pro btw 😅

can you please try HUAWEI P30 PRO

If u had use expert raw and ASTRO photography those image could been more better

Ordered first iPhone 15 pro max in my life. Wife decided take pixel 8 pro. Hopefully I'm not regret about 15pro max

Can you try a GCam apk for samsung s23? And then share your opinion with us?!

Would the 15 pro be able to take same photos as the pro max?

Pixel is just KING OF ASTROPHOTOGRAPHY

but you did not clearly explain how you took the photo from iPhone

I'm confused, my Pixel 8 Pro takes astrophotography for 3 mins 31 seconds and not 4 min like my 6 Pro did. So something's not right.

Pixel just crushing competition 😁

Well you can actually save your time.. cuz pixel need only 15-20 sec for photos in astrophotography mode. That extra time is just for timelapse.. so if anybody rocking with a pixel just wait in astophography mode unril the cross ❌ symbol turns into a rounded square. And you can stop that processing and can have a nice looking picture in just 15-20 sec unless you want a timelapse of it

Disappointed my iPhone 15 pro max “lost” overall after that big improvement on astrophotography this year…even though of all 3 I think the iPhone is the easiest point and shooter and overall more consistent camera, when the pixel hits it hits, I’m loving the colors and results straight out of the camera on the pixel how it evens out the photos without making them washed out, it’s not a fair comparison because the pixel took a lot longer to take the photo would love to see the pixel taking the photo in 30 seconds and see how it looks, but overall I would be happy with any of these 3 cameras and the pixel is just excellent this year. And as for you great job again looking forward to see more videos

Omg! Pixel is amazing ❤🤩😍

Pixel in the voice of Darth Vader all too easy