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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AnonD-923722, 08 Dec 2020Great camera overall. But it may lack one thing that ONLY h... moreI don't understand why you're considering a lack of properly working night mode as a feature and NOT a bug. Night mode is supposed to give less noisy, more detailed image by using lower ISO and longer shutter speed - the exact opposite of what Huawei's night mode does. And yes, I know that Huawei's auto mode is comparable to night mode on other companies in terms of overall image quality. But that means if they sorted their s*** out then their phone could've produced even better photos in night mode than in auto. Don't praise the feature for not being functional, tell them to fix it instead.

"Yet, at pitcg black, p30 pro captures more light"
There's a considerably long "pause" after each shot when shooting in extreme low light with recent Huawei flagships, so likely it's stacking more frames to reduce the noise as much as possible.

"other phones don't have the power to reach ISO at 409600"
The ISO value of 409600 is quite arbitrary and Huawei could've kept it at 12800 or just straight up blown it up to 819200 if those were what Huawei really wanted to do. After all, the sensor's maximum supported ISO is 6400, and anything beyond that is extended/simulated ISO which is achieved by shooting photos at ISO 6400 then manually bringing up the exposure through post processing.

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    • Anonymous
    • JT5
    • 08 Dec 2020

    Nick Tagataka, 08 Dec 2020The person who you replied to quite literally said P30 Pro,... moreP30 pro still uses 1/1.78" main camera. With 1/1.5" ultra wide.
    P40 Pro is the one with 1/1.28".

    Ryyb is 30% more than rggb.
    Mono is 200% than rggb.

    Instead of using a 73mm2 sensor ryyb, two sensors 36mm2 (rggb + mono) would be much better. Also, it would not have the colour issues caused by green absense.

      AnonD-923722, 08 Dec 202010x optical zoom is great, but are they really usable? At ... moreThe rumour suggests that S21 Ultra will feature a relatively large 10MP 1.22µm sensor on both telephoto lenses, so I guess in low light the 10x zoom will be more usable than, let's say, P40 Pro, as long as Samsung won't mess up their image processing like they did on S20 Ultra. Note 20 Ultra already shows some signs of improvement in the way they handle details and noise, so I'm actually not worrying too much about how it might turn out to be.

      "will most of you guys notice the difference of 10x optical and 10x hybrid?"
      Yes I definitely do.

        Anonymous, 08 Dec 2020XZ2 Premium with dual smaller 1/2.3" mono + rgb could ... moreThe person who you replied to quite literally said P30 Pro, not P20 Pro.

          AnonD-923722, 08 Dec 2020I ask you, can it shoot : 1. In extreme dynamic range sc... moreOmg, switching between the lenses.
          Switching between the main camera and the periscope sometimes is total nightmare.
          When the scene it not to dark but also not enough light for the periscope to activate the software jumps between the two lenses like crazy.

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            • AnonD-945200
            • DkP
            • 08 Dec 2020

            all of these with an exycr@p chipset !!
            what a dream come true moment 😍

              Anonymous, 08 Dec 2020XZ2 Premium with dual smaller 1/2.3" mono + rgb could ... moreHuawei using monochrome sensor on P9

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                • Anonymous
                • JT5
                • 08 Dec 2020

                AnonD-923722, 08 Dec 2020I ask you, can it shoot : 1. In extreme dynamic range sc... moreEven photographers with professional gear avoid complete dark.
                Why do you need to do it?

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                  • Anonymous
                  • JT5
                  • 08 Dec 2020

                  AnonD-923722, 08 Dec 2020Great camera overall. But it may lack one thing that ONLY h... moreXZ2 Premium with dual smaller 1/2.3" mono + rgb could do much better than P20 Pro in really dark places. 1/2.3" monochrome is more light sensitive than 1/1.2" RGB.

                  Companies should ditch stupid macro/depth 2 and 5Mp or having two "zoom" (used just to satisfy dxomark) and add a monochrome to help main camera.

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                    • AnonD-909757
                    • pZQ
                    • 08 Dec 2020

                    10Mp 10x optical zoom ?
                    Really ? Are you for real Samsung ?

                    Why not just ditching this useless 3x zoom (what the point when you already have a 10x magnification ? Just make it damn constant variable zoom !!!) and switch this 10Mp to a sensor with AT LEAST 12Mp, as 12Mp is considered like the standard, and probably the absolute minimum in the photography industry.
                    I mean, if it was a super-duper amazing 10Mp sensor with incredible light gathering capabilities, amazing stabilization and all that, why not, but it is probably just a random Meh 10Mp sensor they had too many lying around from an older device's main camera like the S5K3J1...
                    A good S5K2LD which is the 12Mp Samsung S20+ main camera one would have probably been amazing, I am not talking about necessarily going full GN1 monster, but I guess the telephoto will probably be a deception.

                    But again, this is Samsung, it looks like they made a list of everything they should do, and mastered the art of making the absolute opposite of that, I don't know, maybe they receive points for making the biggest number of bad decision possible to get a reduction on Pizza delivery or something ?...

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                      • AnonD-923722
                      • Kxf
                      • 08 Dec 2020

                      Anonymous, 08 Dec 2020Nope, Huawei has tons of processing artifacts in dark condi... moreI ask you, can it shoot :

                      1. In extreme dynamic range scenarios? (even iphones and samsung loses to huawei, what can google do?)

                      2. In pitch black scenes (other phones require night mode, and they are super super noisy and still dark, huawei auto mode is enough, what can you hope? Even iphones and samusngs can't)

                      3. Lowlight without night mode (Pixels have tons of noise, what can you do? Use night sight? No one wanna wait for 4 seconds for an photo, people just point and shoot.)

                      Night sight and nightmodes destroys the Pixels and other smartphones purpose for point and shoot cameras, you basically need to wait for 2 seconds and more. Google has a ton of noise and purple fringing, stop making good of Google, Pixel Fanboy.

                      Huawei still remains untouched when it comes to :

                      1. Extreme dynamic range scenarios
                      2. Pitch black scenes
                      3. Night time photos without night mode ( just auto)

                      Huawei just needs to work on :
                      1. Colour science
                      2. White balance
                      3. Detail preservation
                      4. Switching between lens experience

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                        • Anonymous
                        • 0cL
                        • 08 Dec 2020

                        AnonD-923722, 08 Dec 2020Great camera overall. But it may lack one thing that ONLY h... moreNope, Huawei has tons of processing artifacts in dark conditions. Google's AI does way better in the dark.

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                          • AnonD-923722
                          • Kxf
                          • 08 Dec 2020

                          10x optical zoom is great, but are they really usable?
                          At lowlight, their small sensor, small aperture and ling focal length makes it hard to capture more light. And they take up too much space inside our phone, better take an 5x optcial zoom. 5x modules are better in lowlight, better in dynamic range, and less shaky. Longer focal length means more shake, so it is pretty much useless, even in daytime, their small sensor and apertures aren't letting in enough light. Take a look at the P40 Pro + 10x zoom, will most of you guys notice the difference of 10x optical and 10x hybrid? No. Most even picked the 10x hybrid because it has much better HDR, exposure and colours. 10x is great if you are on an tripod and at daylight. But at night, or action ones, it is pretty much an gimmick. In video i wonder how much the shake will be, how dark/noisy it will be, and how often it will kick in (how often it will use the 10x zoom)

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                            • AnonD-923722
                            • Kxf
                            • 08 Dec 2020

                            Great camera overall. But it may lack one thing that ONLY huawei does, that no other phone does.

                            1. Shoot in pitch black conditions
                            2. Auto mode is enough for nighttime, no need nightmode, Nightmode only makes the photo worse

                            No other phone i have seen so far to have these 2 features, it will be interesting to see if Samsung could do it. Because, right now only Huawei does this. Even the P30 Pro's Pitch Black photos have few competition at auto mode, mainly only new huawei phones, others even need nightmode for such scenarios, and even some night modes delivers trash results at such light levels. It is useless to have an large camera sensor, big lens, and an huge camera bump if you can't capture many light.

                            For comparison, P30 Pro had 1/1.7 inch sensor F 1.6 with RYYB and 2 micron pixels when binned to 10 MP.

                            So it means that the 108 MP HM1 should capture more light when binned 9 to 1. Because they have F 1.8 aperture, OIS, RGGB. and larger 2.4 microns compared to the P30 Pro. Yet, at pitcg black, p30 pro captures more light, it is strange.

                            Why no one implemented it? It is such an useful feature to shoot in dark conditions without night mode that takes forever to capture or even using flash that provides unnatural results.

                            Maybe other phones don't have the power to reach ISO at 409600. So what's the purpose of large sensor if it captures less light than an smaller sensor? Very much useless

                              Imagine how sharp these zoom images are going to be now.

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                                • Anonymous
                                • JT5
                                • 07 Dec 2020

                                According to the certification of S21 series in Brazil, documents say " no earphones nor charger in the box".

                                I would not be susprised if just LG and Sony provide it ...
                                Chinese will soon follow Apple.

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                                  • Anonymous
                                  • 0cL
                                  • 07 Dec 2020

                                  It really looks impressive as far as specs go. But the software will make it or break it.

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                                    • Zzz
                                    • tx3
                                    • 07 Dec 2020

                                    Anonymous, 07 Dec 2020So they can shoot 8k videos without adding another lensThen why the hell they put 12 mp wide, if there are 108 mp wide with the same focal length?

                                    Trash out that 12mp wide, and use that 108mp as main cam with cheaper price

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                                      • Chetszot
                                      • dM8
                                      • 07 Dec 2020

                                      Anonymous, 07 Dec 2020Your link shows a comparison with the main camera of the S2... moreThere's a valid comparison between two lenses in worse light:
                                      https://www.gsmarena.com/samsung_galaxy_s20_fe_5g-review-2178p5.php#compare-82,81-at-0x-2196,0x-2196

                                      In this scenario, S20+ finally triggered it's "zoom" camera. Please note that the difference is noticeable even without photo magnification, which implies rather huge difference when comparing the same year devices (not mentioning that the "worse" one is that performs better).

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                                        • Chetszot
                                        • dM8
                                        • 07 Dec 2020

                                        Anonymous, 07 Dec 2020Your link shows a comparison with the main camera of the S2... moreYou're right. My link provides cropped main cam from the S20+ in a context of tele lenses comparison, which proves its tele lens being even worse as it was even not triggered to be used in low light by the camera software.
                                        I wish your technical explainations (which are indeed valid and true) provided better results in real usage scenario. In case of S20/S20+ it's not a case as optical 3x 8 MPx tele from cheaper S20 FE is simply a lot better.

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