I took over 150 photos with Oppo Find X9 Ultra vs Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra — here's the winner

One of the best things about modern smartphones is their ability to take excellent, almost-professional quality photos with ease. The Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra is one of the best camera phones, packing in a 200MP main camera lens that few others can match. Not to mention a 50MP ultrawide camera, 50MP telephoto lens (5x optical zoom) and 10MP secondary telephoto (3x zoom).

However, the S26 Ultra is far from the only phone with such impressive hardware. The newly-released Oppo Find X9 Ultra also offers a 200MP main camera, but unlike Samsung, that high-resolution lens has not come alone. Oppo also included a 200 MP telephoto lens with 3x optical zoom as well, plus a 50MP ultrawide shooter and secondary telephoto lens capable of 50MP resolution and 10x optical zoom.

As we're fond of saying here at Tom's Guide, the camera hardware only tells part of the story. The quality of the final photo relies on so many other factors, including computational photography software. This means you can't conclusively say which camera produces better photos until you put them to the test.

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So we did exactly that, taking over 150 photos with the Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra and the Oppo Find X9 Ultra. So which one produced the best photos? Read on to find out.

Camera specs compared

Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra vs Oppo Find X9 Ultra: Daytime

When it comes to the main camera, the Oppo definitely has an advantage in terms of coloring. The photos came out richer and less washed out than the Galaxy S26 Ultra, which seems to have ramped up the brightness a little more than I would like.

That said, the coloring can't make up for the fact that the Galaxy S26 Ultra has produced much crisper photos with a lot more detail and less blur — especially when you look closely at the subject.

Winner: Samsung Galaxy S26

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Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra vs Oppo Find X9 Ultra: Ultrawide

When it comes to the Ultrawide lens, the coloring comes out a little differently, with the Oppo offering a brighter and slightly more oversaturated shot compared to the Galaxy S26 Ultra. Both offer fairly similar-looking photos and the dynamic range on both is about equal.

But when it comes down to it, the Oppo has managed to pick up a lot more detail with its own 50MP ultrawide camera. Sadly, while the Galaxy S26 Ultra produces good photos at a glance, the quality is such that you would struggle to read the names on the memorial — an issues the Oppo didn't really have.

Winner: Oppo Find X9 Ultra

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Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra vs Oppo Find X9 Ultra: Zoom (3x)

When it comes to the 3x magnification, I can't say either phone produced a particularly good shot. For Samsung, that's a little understandbale, since the 3x optical zoom is powered by a 10MP telephoto lens. But since the Oppo's 3x lens offers 200MP resolution, I had hoped for a better photo. Alas, this was not to be.

The Galaxy S26 Ultra suffers from too much brightness, to the point where you can barely see the brown in my smaller dog's fur. The Oppo manages to capture the colors a little better, without letting the sun overpower everything, but the quality is noticeably worse. Both dogs are blurry and out of focus, and in general it does not look like a good photo.

Winner: Draw

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Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra vs Oppo Find X9 Ultra: Zoom (10x)

The 10x zoom is equally bad on the Oppo Find X9 Ultra, in fact, it almost looks like the same shot when you look closely. It makes me wonder whether The Oppo has cropped a higher resolution photo to give the illusion of longer optical zoom.

The Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra shot is a significant improvement over the 3x magnification, likely aided by the higher 50MP resolution. The quality is significantly better, letting you almost make out a lot of the finer details on both my dogs. The shot is still quite bright, but its nowhere close to the brightness we saw on the 3x shot.

Winner: Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra

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Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra vs Oppo Find X9 Ultra: Low Light

When it comes to low-light photography, it's clear that the Oppo captured a much better shot. Not only is its photo of the church brighter than the one from Samsung, but there's also significantly more detail on display — both on the church itself and the surrounding foliage.

Samsung's photo isn't bad, per se, and it features more natural coloring. However, the building is a lot blurrier, and the foliage looks more like a mess of green and brown. Overall, it's nowhere near as impressive.

Winner: Oppo Find X9 Ultra

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Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra vs Oppo Find X9 Ultra: Selfie

The Oppo Find X9 Ultra has a 50MP front-facing selfie camera, and it's easy to assume that such a hi-res lens will run rings around the Galaxy S26 Ultra's 12MP shooter. But that's not the case. Both cameras produced some exceptional selfies, but there's a clear winner.

The Oppo definitely produced the brighter photo with more true-to-life colors, especially in the bright sunlight, but the finer details just aren't there. The Samsung managed to capture a lot of smaller details, including my dog's fur, as well as my own stubble and stray gray hairs.

It even picked up the loose dog hairs on my clothes, something that every Labrador owner will be able to empathize with.

Winner: Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra

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Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra vs Oppo Find X9 Ultra: Portrait

It's a totally different story with Portrait mode switched on. It seems Samsung's selfie camera has given up, failing to adapt to the light shining through the trees and blurring up my face in the process of shooting the photo.

That's not to say the Oppo has fared much better, and the quality of the shot is significantly worse than the one taken by the regular selfie camera.

Still, the photo is a lot clearer than the one produced by Samsung, and the bokeh effect has seamlessly been applied around my person — adapting perfectly to the slightly unkempt nature of my hair. The S26 Ultra sadly added a weird halo effect around me, which makes a bad shot look even worse.

Winner: Oppo Find X9 Ultra

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Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra vs Oppo Find X9 Ultra: Color

When it comes to color reproduction, it seems both phones perform similarly. While Oppo didn't focus on the flowers the way I'd prefer, you can't deny that it managed to recreate the various colors in the shot pretty well — from the orchid to the blue Ikea bag hanging out in the background.

Samsung's colors seem a little more vivid in this shot, but they are no less realistic compared to the Oppo Find X9 Ultra.

Winner: Draw

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Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra vs Oppo Find X9 Ultra: Macro

Macro photography is a little tricky, especially since Galaxy S26 Ultra and Find X9 Ultra both have automatic macro modes that can't be triggered manually. This can lead to focusing issues with the final shot, and it was a recurring problem with the Galaxy S26 Ultra.

When the Galaxy could focus on macro shots correctly, the quality of the photos was impressive and on par with the Oppo Find X9 Ultra. Unfortunately, the issues actually getting the macro shots count against it, and it means the Oppo's consistently good photos come out on top.

Winner: Oppo Find X9 Ultra

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Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra vs Oppo Find X9 Ultra: Panorama

The interesting thing about the panorama shots on both these phones is how they present the final product. Oppo's camera is narrower, but stretches the panoramic view out a little more — which means the scene doesn't look so bunched up.

Samsung does the opposite, squashing the landscape into a skinnier shot, but making up the difference by capturing more of the vertical axis. That certainly makes the Galaxy panorama look a lot goofier-looking when you look at the two side by side. To make matters worse, the actual quality of everything in shot isn't as crisp, which gives the Oppo camera a clear win.

Winner: Oppo Find X9 Ultra

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Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra vs Oppo Find X9 Ultra: Verdict

The Oppo Find X9 Ultra camera is a lesson in why better camera hardware doesn't always mean better results. As impressive as its performance was in this shootout, across multiple key categories, I can't help but feel disappointed by its zooming performance.

The fact that a 200MP telephoto lens couldn't easily outmatch a 10MP lens is downright embarrassing. More so when you consider that the photo at 10x magnification was just as bad. Then again, the Galaxy S26 Ultra's awkward macro mode performance isn't exactly something to write home about.

Still, seeing the results of this shootout suggests that just because a phone has a grand history of taking better photos, it doesn't necessarily mean that it's always going to stay that way. It should be a warning to Samsung that it needs to stop being so complacent with its camera hardware — especially if the software isn't going to pick up the slack.

Both the Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra and Oppo Find X9 Ultra can take some great photos. But it seems as though Oppo has the slight upper hand right now. At least in terms of background quality from its main and ultrawide lenses.

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