The Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra has the best zoom camera in the industry… or does it?
The trick is that the Samsung camera relies on processing to give you clear detail in zoomed photos. Let’s call this processing: the Algorithm. The easiest way to recognize that it is used when taking zoom photos is to see a slight delay (that means it worked!).
Steps to activate the high quality zoom algorithm on Samsung Galaxy:
- In good lighting conditions: 1. Zoom further than 20X and take a picture. 2. Zoom back to a 6X – 10X levels. 3. Take a picture by pressing the shutter button but DO NOT tap on the viewfinder to focus.
- In dim lighting conditions: 1. Just zoom to 6X to 10X levels. 2. Take a picture by pressing the shutter button but DO NOT tap on the viewfinder.
S23 Ultra
On the Galaxy S23 Ultra, the difference is very noticeable.
Images taken with the algorithm on appear sharp and clear, with plenty of detail, while photos taken with the algorithm off look blurry and bad in comparison.
Keep in mind that we could replicate this issue with digital zoom. The algorithm seems to work well even with tap to focus IF you use the native 3X and 10X zoom levels, but for other zoom values like 8X, 9X or the in-betweens the quality drops unless you follow the above steps.
S22 Ultra
We have also replicated the issue on the Galaxy S22 Ultra.
Tap to focus while zoomed in and you get an image with lackluster detail.
Why did Samsung keep quiet about this?
These findings mean that zoom image quality on Samsung phones can vary just depending on the way you take a picture.
But why did Samsung keep quite about this? If this is mentioned somewhere in the user manuals, it has to be buried pretty deep as we don’t think anyone was aware about this until now.
And what led to such a clunky implementation of the zoom algorithm? After all, the user does not need to perform elaborate gymnastics just to take a good zoomed picture, the algorithm should work everytime and with all the supported gestures in the camera.
We will keep an eye for more news on this, but feel free to try this yourself if you own a recent Samsung Galaxy phone and see if you can unlock its zoom superpowers this way.
