Galaxy S20 Ultra camera comparison

26 Feb 2020


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Anonymous, 29 Feb 2020There's one funny thing i noticed. At 108MP the S20U actual... moreProcessing remosaicked full res image takes a lot of time even when it's cropped down for digital zoom and perhaps Samsung wanted to avoid a shutter lag for more seamless UX. There's a room for improvement in this regard, though.

    S Yu, 29 Feb 2020>couldn't find mm notation on any of them I stand corre... more"when Huawei refrained from calling digital zoom "vario"
    More like they added that notation since P20 Pro because they now had a tele lens.

    "Labels such as this spread further confusion on what FLs actually mean"
    "There's been discussion around this over at DPR a few years ago"
    That also depends on whether they were talking about writings on dedicated cameras/professional lenses. If I'm recognising it correctly over there people who actually have gone far enough to use mobile phones as their secondary camera or the sole primary camera are on a minority side, because you see, DPReview is a photographer oriented professional camera gear website. All right, my point is - I don't think there are a significant number of people who actually consider the lack of "equiv." notation on a PHONE body a serious issue like you do. If you still believe this is an evil practice that needs to stopped, probably it's better for you to tell Huawei/tech reviewers your opinion directly or make a thread on reddit or something instead and let people think about it. Unless, you want to keep it to yourself so that you can continue bringing it up to criticise the company on the same topic.

    "so it's not random"
    It's random because the end point of digital zoom is something Samsung could choose however they wanted. For example it could've been 75x or even 55.674x instead, but in the end it doesn't really matter since no phone can produce usable quality shot at those magnifications, hence I'm saying it's pointless or even misleading to have that number on the back of the device. "4X Periscope Zoom" or even "10X Lossless Zoom" would've been not only more user friendly but also suitable from an ethical perspective, though IMO it would still look a bit too tacky. Ah well, whatever.

    I'm ending the conversation now because it feels like it would be a waste of time to keep writing long paragraphs on a topic that has a low relevance to the article itself. I don't want to be rude but honestly this is quickly getting exhausting for me, sorry.

      • ?
      • Anonymous
      • s}6
      • 29 Feb 2020

      There's one funny thing i noticed. At 108MP the S20U actually produced ALOT of details, objects were as clear if not clearer than Note 10 at 2X zoom. But at the 2X zoom test S20U didn't produce the same level of detail as the 108MP mode(besides that merge-with-zoom-lens center part of course), almost feels like Samsung is cheaping out by just cropping a 12MP mode output and stacking a zoomed photo at the center. I thought one of the biggest benefit of having an ultra high MP sensor is that you can do continuous zoom without switching lenses, but if S20U is just cropping a 12MP output then it makes that monstrous sensor pretty much useless unless you go 108MP mode or low light, and low light performance was not that impressive as well...

        • S
        • S Yu
        • mnQ
        • 29 Feb 2020

        Anonymous, 28 Feb 2020Huawei didn't fake the moon shots as far as I know. It was ... more"as far as you know"
        Good that you still added the disclaimer.
        They faked it. Shooting an altered image of the moon, or a mild resemblance of the moon would trigger the phone to paste prestored texture over the shot, altering the shot in the direction of the "default moon" under some conditions.
        https://www.zhihu.com/question/319986727
        And as I said before, this is no longer verifiable because Huawei already pushed updates to the system, like how they were caught with Taiwan Independence Gate (i.e. "Taipei(Taiwan)" in time zone settings) but pushed a hotfix within the day without apologizing to the Chinese public, and how they wished Taiwan "Happy Birthday" on National Day of the Republic of China on their Taiwan twitter account but then deleted it. All you have now are screenshots and that's all you can work with, as with much of the ugly history of this company.

          • S
          • S Yu
          • mnQ
          • 29 Feb 2020

          Nick Tagataka, 28 Feb 2020"Previously they would even add "mm" to the equivalent FL w... more>couldn't find mm notation on any of them
          I stand corrected. My memory on this wasn't accurate. I may have mixed memories of these labels with the label Lytro put on their cameras.

          >he/she will also instantly realise that they're about the equivalent focal lengths and not the actual ones
          Not at all. I see people completely unaware of the actual meaning behind FLs while throwing around equivalent numbers like that's all FL ever is. Labels such as this spread further confusion on what FLs actually mean, similar to calling normal lenses "telephoto".

          >absolutely nobody cares
          There's been discussion around this over at DPR a few years ago, but with repeated violations it grew old and people stopped complaining, it doesn't mean that people don't care, just that it feels useless to repeat themselves.

          >faithful representation of the actual camera specs
          There's no worse way of putting this. If you went through the previous models then you'd realize that there was a time when Huawei refrained from calling digital zoom "vario", this rule is no longer respected, so if anything, it's even less faithful to the truth than before. Also, the F stop is an empty number that doesn't indicate the actual light gathering ability(nor the DoF, making it useless except for cosmetic purposes) of the optical system without the corresponding image circle, which would have been more apparent had they used the actual FL which correlates with both the image circle diagonal and the FoV.

          >a random "100X"
          100x is where they chose to end their digital zoom, so it's not random with regard to how narrow you go without having to crop in post. It's not entirely useful, but it starts at the wide FoV smartphone users are used to, not the UWA or something niche, so it's not that useless either.

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            • Mad_admin
            • phC
            • 29 Feb 2020

            Wow, that's terrible, Samsung isn't even able with the best to reach the last year p30 pro.
            Unfortunately, Samsung still definitely not a camera-phone.
            Let's hope Google will get the special permission for Huawei
            like Microsoft.

              so i need to pay 1400+ USD to get P30 Pro photo quality level from samsung? ofcourse a mobile isn't just a camera but not up to 2x price and even more ! my P30 Pro satisfies me much with a way less price .

                Kendra Shields, 28 Feb 2020Thank you very much my friend:) I'm in a crisis here. Sh... moreI think you should wait for the note 20 ultra,it seems like the iPhone 12 series won't surpass the s20 in terms of photography performance however the note will definitely surpass both,plus you get the s-pen and better color options. Also what did you think of the video?
                And you're like the friendliest person I've met on this site

                  AnonD-754814, 29 Feb 2020I was saying, both are cheating. Using DSLR and putting 100... moreAt least you're not being biased towards a specific company regarding this matter. I respect your opinion.

                    AnonD-754814, 29 Feb 2020When someone ask what is the CFA pattern you should tell, 2... moreThe way you asked me the question made me thought you don't have a clue and genuinely asked me for the explanation, so I described what it is without going into deeper details.

                    "CFA pattern of QB and nonacell"
                    4x4 and 6x6 respectively.

                    "The bayering isn't important for color and picture quality"
                    ..Probably I should've made myself a lot clearer about why I think in the way I do about Nonacell. *Theoretically* NC and TC should perform identically if they share the same sensor size and effective "binned" resolution. But in real life, there are some other factors that need to be taken into consideration. For example, increased number of pixel walls reduces the amount of light entering the sensor, while smaller pixel pitch that is closer to visible lights' wavelengths makes it more difficult for each pixel to capture light efficiently. It also increases the complexity of array conversion/remosaicing process because pixels with different colours are farther away from each other hence reduces its effectiveness.

                    As you say software updates will keep improving the post processing, and yes I'm fully aware of that. But that's not related to the point I'm trying to make, here I'm just wondering why Samsung decided to go with Nonacell instead of Tetracell. So if you come up with a potential benefit of Nonacell, then feel free to tell me because I want to know. And please understand that I'm not trying to offend anyone nor saying S20 Ultra's camera sucks, that has never been the case. I'm giving them some time to fix the issues and will be holding off on criticising its image quality for a next few weeks.

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                      • AnonD-754814
                      • uNV
                      • 29 Feb 2020

                      Nick Tagataka, 29 Feb 2020Here's the definition of CFA from wikipedia: "A mosaic of ... moreWhen someone ask what is the CFA pattern you should tell, 2*2; 4*4; 6*6 etc..
                      Now tell me what is the CFA pattern of QB and nonacell with number of color(each) pixel.
                      And I am not trying to confuse you. The bayering isn't important for color and picture quality. The most important thing is CFA. Bayering and CFA aren't the same thing.

                        AnonD-754814, 29 Feb 2020This is not CFA pattern. First you need to know what CFA pa... moreHere's the definition of CFA from wikipedia:
                        "A mosaic of color filters (generally red, green and blue) that overlays the pixels comprising the sensor"
                        So yeah, Nonacell and Tetracell/QB do still have CFA patterns.

                        Qualcomm, during the announcement of SD865, called the typical Quad Bayer pattern "Quad CFA" (probably they wanted to include the non-Bayer pattern by using this name). I don't understand why it's not OK to apply the same naming convention and call it Nona CFA?

                        Edit: Now I see what you did. So you basically tried to confuse me by asking for the definition of a term I never used in my comments, hence Nona"cell" CFA. That's petty.

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                          • AnonD-754814
                          • uNV
                          • 29 Feb 2020

                          Nick Tagataka, 29 Feb 2020This image should help you understand what it is. https://... moreThis is not CFA pattern. First you need to know what CFA pattern is. You don't know what CFA pattern is and you are telling the lacking of nonacell compared to quad bayer. Very funny.

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                            • AnonD-754814
                            • uNV
                            • 29 Feb 2020

                            Nick Tagataka, 29 Feb 2020I'm not talking about 100x zoom, though. This is about how ... moreI was saying, both are cheating. Using DSLR and putting 100x on the back.

                              AnonD-754814, 29 Feb 2020Cheating is cheating , no matter who did it. Like I said ... moreI'm not talking about 100x zoom, though. This is about how some people consider the use of DSLR in promotions of phone camera disingenuous and they tend to have a strong bias against larger companies.

                                AnonD-754814, 29 Feb 2020What is nonacell CFA pattern, can you tell me that ?This image should help you understand what it is.
                                https://fdn.gsmarena.com/imgroot/reviews/20/samsung-galaxy-s20-ultra/review/inline/-727/gsmarena_001.jpg
                                Basically each virtual pixel consists of 9 smaller pixels instead of 4, which lets the sensor have higher SNR at a cost of effective resolution given that the pixel pitch is identical. The real question, however, is whether it has any advantage over quad CFA sensor that is equal in size and has identical virtual pixel size - so put it simply, is there any benefit of splitting a 2.4µm pixel into 9 0.8µm ones instead of 4 1.2µm like Omnivision did?

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                                  • AnonD-754814
                                  • uNV
                                  • 29 Feb 2020

                                  Nick Tagataka, 29 Feb 2020It's also interesting to see how company size or popularity... moreCheating is cheating , no matter who did it.
                                  Like I said earlier, putting 100x on the back is a disgrace for Samsung.

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                                    • AnonD-754814
                                    • uNV
                                    • 29 Feb 2020

                                    Nick Tagataka, 29 Feb 2020I beg your pardon?What is nonacell CFA pattern, can you tell me that ?

                                      AnonD-754814, 28 Feb 2020Can you please provide me with the Nonacell CFA pattern ? I beg your pardon?

                                        Flgshp2020, 28 Feb 2020Yeah really? Do you have any smartphone running nona Bayer?... moreI'm not in the development team but I can give you the reasons why Nonacell might be inferiour to Tetracell/QB. If you disagree with me feel free to tell me your theory on why it is not.

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