Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra long-term review

The most versatile camera setup on a phone

The cameras on the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra are excellent. The selection of focal lengths is among the best you can get on a phone, and they're all equipped with autofocus. We'll bypass the sensor talk as you can find it better described in our review.

During this reviewer's use, the ultra-wide camera saw little use since the 23mm main camera is perfectly wide enough for most shots. It makes for some naturally-blurred backgrounds, which are impossible with the small ultrawide sensor and narrower lens combination.

Contrary to the ultra-wide, the 3x and 10x zoom cameras were the most used ones. As the great photographer Robert Capa famously said, "If your pictures aren't good enough, you aren't close enough." He's right, of course, the narrower the perspective to a subject, the more interesting the photo. The photos out of the main camera have a snapshot quality to them that this reviewer personally finds ordinary and uninteresting.

The Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra's main camera packs a dynamic punch. Highlights are always kept in check, even when you're literally shooting into the sun, while shadows get a healthy bump in post-processing (after you've taken the shot). Despite the wide range of tones, the camera retains a lot of micro-contrast in details and textures. The colors are also vibrant and deep. The Samsung camera app naturally shoots warmer images, which I like, but when it occasionally goes cooler, I correct the final photo in editing.

Main camera samples

Now let's talk about the 3x. The sensor behind this camera isn't impressive, but its output is. The 3x camera has a 70mm focal length, and it's perfect for isolating subjects that are far but not too far. The excellent dynamic range carries over from the main camera, and so does the contrasty and vivid output. The detail is not as good as the main camera's, but it's good overall. There's a faint trace of noise in some areas of the photos, but nothing worth obsessing about. Stabilization is very strong on the 3x. You can see how objects stay firmly shake-free in the viewfinder.

This is my favorite camera on the Galaxy S22 Ultra, and it's the sensor it'd most like Samsung to improve in the Galaxy S23 Ultra, which would also benefit the 10x as it uses the same sensor.

3x camera samples

The 10x periscope zoom is the sniper camera. It allows you to shoot photos of animals without making them uneasy or scared (or even notice). This camera lacks the resolution and detail retention abilities of the main camera, and it's almost entirely useless at night (unless you prop the phone on a surface or use a tripod).

In saying that, like the 3x, the 10x has an almost gimbal-like stable feel when you're shooting - you can see the subject in the viewfinder stay locked in. The 10x dynamic range is good, and the camera app does a fine job of sharpening the images to a usable state. It's also much better than the 10x of the Galaxy S21 Ultra, detail-wise, which makes me hopeful of the upcoming Galaxy S23 Ultra's 10x zoom.

10x camera samples

This camera is all about getting the shot no one else can. It's not about the technical quality of the photo but its story and perspective. Here's a good example - this is an image taken through a peephole in a door that would have been nearly impossible with a full-grown camera or a phone with a lesser zoom.

The 10x is all about perspective

As we said, the ultrawide didn't see that much use. It does come useful when there's no room to back up. Aside from a reduction in pixel-level detail, it has all the qualities of the main camera - great dynamic range, great colors, and great contrast.

Ultrawide camera samples

The Galaxy S22 Ultra takes great photos at night. It can achieve amazing-looking results, especially at a fit-to-screen level. The camera snaps night mode images very fast, usually within 2 seconds for the main and ultrawide cameras and 3-4 seconds for the zooms. Most of the time, the 108MP camera doesn't even need night mode unless it's really dark. A night mode shot will always have better highlight information and slightly brighter shadows with more detail. The images below are from an assortment of cameras.

Night mode samples from all cameras

The selfie camera is superb in all lighting conditions. At 26mm, it may not sound very wide, but it easily captures a group photo with four people. If we need more than that, I'll capture a selfie with the ultrawide camera on the other end.

Selfies have excellent detail and micro-contrast and the camera app applies some tone-mapping magic to emphasize subjects and especially faces. This setting is the Bright color mode and it's off by default so you'll need to enable it in settings, and people in your images will pop.

Expert RAW is a potent app that unlocks full manual control and the ability to retain both the built-in camera app's multi-frame processing and the raw image data for further edits. It can capture images with all five cameras and outputs both JPEG and DNG files.

Those DNG files can be edited in Lightroom Mobile, which has Samsung's full image data embedded through the built-in lens profile.

You can do some great things using Expert RAW but should know its limitations too. It gives you the ability to play with the color and dynamic range to a much greater extent than with the default jpeg or heic files.

Regular camera • Expert RAW

However, the default camera applies a more complex sharpening algorithm that you won't match with Lightroom.

Where Expert RAW gives you an edge is in lower light, especially with the zoom cameras. It consistently gets you better results of bands and singers at a concert with the 10x zoom lens by allowing you to manipulate the highlight and shadow information and the white balance and tint in Lightroom.

Videos from the Galaxy S22 Ultra carry over the excellent dynamic range, good level of contrast, expert sharpening, and great detail retention of the still photos. Jumping between cameras will result in slight shifts of color, but at least it's a snappy experience.

So there you have it. The Galaxy S22 Ultra is a capable walk-around phone camera for any scenario. It's as wide as possible, and its 10x zoom will get you further than any other phone. Dynamic range is the standout feature here, while autofocus on all cameras is a must-have for me.

Add niceties like the excellent camera app, the professional Expert RAW, and the S Pen remote trigger, and you have a no-compromises package that's nearly impossible to match.

If we could change the Galaxy S22 Ultra's camera in any way, we'd put larger sensors behind the two zoom lenses, but that may be asking too much from phones in 2022.

Wrap-up

At this point, it's no secret that this reviewer has enjoyed his time with the Galaxy S22 Ultra. In the months of using the phone, he rarely missed any feature. There is hardly a better phone in 2022.

Sure, there's a certain iPhone with better synthetic performance and battery life, but it can't do what this Android can do - download a torrent, sign a PDF file and mail it back, run any two apps side by side, etc. Sure, there are other great Android phones that do many individual things very well. But there's no single phone that does all the things the Galaxy S22 Ultra does.

Now, is the Galaxy S22 Ultra still worth it in late 2022, just a few short months before the Galaxy S23 Ultra comes along? Our answer is a resounding yes - if the price is right. It doesn't make sense to pay more than €1,000 for the Galaxy S22 Ultra. You can find one for less than €900 brand new, possibly less if you opt for a retailer on eBay. That's the beauty of a phone that's nearly a year old - there are a lot of deals around.

However, even at a year old, the Galaxy S22 Ultra still commands a premium over some of its competitors. You could get a Pixel 7 Pro for around €900, while a OnePlus 10 Pro would set you back merely €700. Those are both great phones. Then, if you want the best Samsung phone, you could wait a few months and get a Galaxy S23 Ultra.