Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra's camera detailed: 10x folded periscope joins 3x tele camera

07 December 2020
The 108 MP ISOCELL HM3 sensor can do lossless digital zoom up to 3x.

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  • 20 Dec 2020

Nick Tagataka, 08 Dec 2020There is no such thing called objectively "worse"... moreI am sick and tired of all videos and experts from youtube about " camera flagship ". Just give me a break dude. Perfect camera ....perfect smartphone...get a life my friend. I just bought the new Iphone 12. Perfect smartphone ever....for me. Great battery life....great display...GREAT CAMERA. Camera on Iphone 12 is good enough for me. Perfect photos...perfect. Videos...no comment..because Iphone always wins at videos. Before this 12...i had a Iphone xr. Great smartphone...absolutely great....with a great camera..of course. I was never ...never interested about making a photo in low light condition without flash. Never my friend. I always use flash when i want to make a photo in low light. Night mode...for me...is absolutely USELESS. If you want perfect photos my friend...buy Canon EOS R5. A phone..is a phone. A camera...is a camera.

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    • Nick
    • L@Y
    • 20 Dec 2020

    It will be the best android, and best phone at all. Take my money.

      Berserker, 09 Dec 2020This issues whould not be there on the first place.its not ... moreOh I wasn't referring to Huawei, I was referring to flagships in general.

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        • Kaja
        • 0T6
        • 09 Dec 2020

        Nick Tagataka, 08 Dec 2020There is no such thing called objectively "worse"... moreI dont have problems with ghosting in P30 Pro nightmode. Actually, it's ahead the auto mode. Walking people stay sharp in their first position and very often not even a passing car with lights on is visible in the picture.

        But OK, I haven't used P20 Pro.

          Android--Master, 09 Dec 2020These issues should be fixed with the new Snapdragon 888 ISP This issues whould not be there on the first place.its not the isp, or the cpu, but the frustrating huawei camera software.
          It does activate the periscope even when there is enough light. You klick on the 5x, the periscope activated and in a blink the software says "nope" here is the main camera.
          So I've found a way to trick the software sometime. I point the camera to the brightest spot in the room and acticate the peruscope ,than i Cover the maon camera with my finger so the software thinks that there is zero light. and than the periscope stays on all the time.

            Nick Tagataka, 08 Dec 2020The rumour suggests that S21 Ultra will feature a relativel... morePlus 10x optical brings 20x hybrid.

              Berserker, 08 Dec 2020Omg, switching between the lenses. Switching between the m... moreThese issues should be fixed with the new Snapdragon 888 ISP

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                • gogus
                • nDQ
                • 08 Dec 2020

                as always, secondary cameras use very small sensors so they will be unusable in low light situations. I'm waiting for the day when the secondary cameras will be at least 90% big as the main sensor.
                p50 pro will once again be on top

                  Anonymous, 07 Dec 2020It's not fake zoom. What do you think what digital zoo... moreIt is not fake zoom, but you understand many are disappointed, when you pay a lot for 1.1x when you can get 3x at the same price tag! It is not that useful to bring 1.1x! We are talking about flagships here, not some cheap 350 $ phone! Even some mid rangers have 2x optical zoom.

                    thats great but this leak is quite old, as for regular s21 cameras seems unchanged so I wonder if they will be worth upgrade.
                    Still, great to see fight at 10x, hope others join.

                      This may tempt me away from my Note 10+. If the camera performance is as good as they say, and it comes with stylus support, I may be persuaded.

                        AnonD-923722, 08 Dec 2020Yeah, almost all periscopes are like that. Just get to 1000... moreIn night scene the periscope does not active, the main camera is used also for zoom.

                          Aerni68, 08 Dec 2020Hopefully SAMSUNG is wise enough to offer the user an optio... moreThat's impossible since Quad Bayer binning is not software-based.

                            AnonD-923722, 08 Dec 2020But it will mean desaturated colours and you need to edit... moreWho told you that Vivo's RGBW CFA will lead to desaturated colours? You might be confusing it with the older 25% white RGBW CFA like the one on IMX278.

                              AnonD-923722, 08 Dec 2020And when a small sensor could do it, it is very impressive.... moreGo calculate the amount of light captured by each sensor and you'll see that the sensors on all of the phones you just listed do capture more light than the one on P30 series. Huawei stacks tons of frames (as indicated by a long wait time after each capture), brightens up the photo like crazy using post exposure control then applies lots of noise reduction to produce photos that are usable in small size in extreme low light. It's definitely a neat feature, but you need to understand that other manufacturers are not doing it not because they can't but rather because they have a night mode that is better than their auto mode at capturing light.

                                AnonD-923722, 08 Dec 2020But that's true, Huaweis Night mode, colour science, w... moreThere is no such thing called objectively "worse" colour science. Colour science is entirely subjective and if some people prefer a certain look from a specific brand then FOR THEM that company has the best colour science. While I'm not a fan of green hue on yellows of Mate's camera, neither do I like iPhone's warm tint and weird colour reproduction in high contrast scenes, Pixel's muddy midtones nor Galaxy's occasional oversaturated colours. I prefer how Xperia handles colours in many situations but that doesn't mean Xperia is superiour to others when it comes to colour reproduction.

                                As for the WB, after going through a bunch of samples images on the internet, I found Mate 40 Pro's WB adjustment fairly consistent and non-issue most of the time. The tint is also consistently skewed towards magenta and I can easily make the images look very similar to those taken with iPhone, Galaxy and Xperia by applying the SAME colour corrections for all the GSMArena samples that I looked into.

                                "the colour shift and jump is very noticeable"
                                Not really on Mate 40 Pro.

                                "Their Ultrawide are RGGB, yet have strange colour"
                                Source?

                                "Since the Night mode is better than the Auto mode"
                                So you prefer smudged oilpainting with ghosting artifacts over a photo with decent amount of details? Unless you're in pitch black the auto performs consistently better than the night mode on P20 Pro.

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                                  • AnonD-923722
                                  • Kx9
                                  • 08 Dec 2020

                                  Nick Tagataka, 08 Dec 2020You know that even if the sensor did support ISO 409600, th... moreAnd when a small sensor could do it, it is very impressive. Note 20 Ultra, Find X2 Pro, Oneplus 8 Pro, Mi 10 Ultra, even those with larger sensors couldn't do it, it is a shame, even though larger sensor means more light. Which means that larger sensor isn't capturing as much light

                                    AnonD-923722, 08 Dec 2020I understand that stacking multiple frames will reduce nois... moreYou know that even if the sensor did support ISO 409600, the image would be full of noise and utterly unusable unless you stack tons of frames and apply a ton of noise reduction, right? And what makes you think that P30's small 1/1.7 inch sensor supports such a setting when most full frame sensors including those specialised in extreme light sensitivity like the one inside A7SIII don't?

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                                      • AnonD-909757
                                      • pZQ
                                      • 08 Dec 2020

                                      AnonD-923722, 08 Dec 2020Stupid idea, why ditch the 3x One? Moving periscope isn... moreActually, it just requires to think differently, there are many ways to achieve that result, but if anything, fixed magnification that require cropping are worse.

                                      The advantage of periscope is that they allow a much longer lenses path than an inline one, so rather than having a fixed front element F that set the main FoV inside the lenses, we can easily have a really low F and use those lenses to easily compensate for this, as long as the initial light isn't spread anyway you won't lose more light, since whatever get through the front element will be the same in any cases, the first lens (before the Focus) would have for goal to dynamically change the F.

                                      Another possibility is to use something like my all-modes single sensor periscope with rotating (selecting) reflector :
                                      https://imgur.com/gallery/tIXYDCW
                                      But in a different way, the funny part is that I did find how to improve it yesterday by reading "folded periscope", as reversing a telephoto give an ultra-wide and vise-versa, we could take advantage of folded periscope design to, post focus, select either the reversed telephoto, or the telephoto which is moving, BUT, only through a limited range but with a 1x or even 0.95x minimum magnification (to work as buffer), and, either directly outputting to the sensor, or going through another additional folded periscope, even a third one is possible, that way, it is literally a single sensor able to, for example, 0.45x main (Ultra-Wide) to 1.1x from the Ultra-Wide direction, and 0.95x to 2x first stage telephoto, followed by 2x to 4x and with a third one, 4x to 8x for example.
                                      There will only be a short period where you lose the image, like a Reflex, when going through the various modes, but it can be made more compact than a folded periscope with its own sensor + an inline camera.

                                      Think outside the box.

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                                        • AnonD-923722
                                        • Kx9
                                        • 08 Dec 2020

                                        Nick Tagataka, 08 Dec 2020"stacking multiple frames will still yield a lot of no... moreI understand that stacking multiple frames will reduce noise, but if the noise is too many and you keep bringing the exposure in post up, it will still keep on having that noise. That's why Pixels have a ton amount of noise in extreme dynamic range scenarios because the shadows have way too much noise for them to remove by stacking images, and pixels barely does any noise reduction.

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