Samsung Galaxy S5 camera shootout versus HTC One M8, iPhone 5S

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Samsung's marquee Galaxy S5 is blazing fast and chock full of new features. But does its 16-megapixel camera have the chops to compete against the HTC One M8 and Apple iPhone 5S?

Powerful, fast, and now even water resistant, the Galaxy S5 is Samsung's latest offering into the hyper-competitive smartphone industry. Thrusting in everything from a crisp 1080p screen, to an agile quad-core Snadragon 801 processor, Samsung isn't holding much back to ensure that its new flagship is markedly better than its predecessor.

That includes bumping up the once 13-megapixel shooter to a 16-megapixel one. And throwing in some new editing tricks as well, like enabling users to change the focal point after they take a picture, and annotating photos.

But the mobile business is tough, and full of other devices that are marketed to be just as good, if not better, than whatever Samsung brings to the table. So when it comes to camera chops at least, we had to ask: What's better? The GS5, HTC's newly minted One M8 marquee handset, or the high-end Apple iPhone 5S?

To find out, I took all three phones out in everyday situations and captured a number of shots for real-world testing. All photos were taken within minutes of one another, at the same location and distance from the focal object or scene (though due to its different aspect ratio, pictures on the iPhone 5S appeared as if I were closer, but I wasn't.) All cameras were set on auto-mode with default settings. Two shots ("Indoor group shot" and "Inside the photographer's studio") had the flash manually turned on. Then, along with CNET mobile editor Jessica Dolcourt and photographer Josh Miller, we took a hard look at the pictures.