Samsung is back this year with yet another super camera phone. The Galaxy s21 Ultra 5G is the company’s latest flagship phone, with a huge 6.8-inch screen supporting a refresh rate of up to 120Hz at its native 3200 x 1440 resolution. One of the elements that make it stand out is the five cameras tucked at the back.
Samsung knows how to make a huge phone with great specs and a great screen. What is really supposed to make the Galaxy S21 Ultra “ultra” is the camera system — it’s the most important differentiator from the other Galaxy S phones and the place where Samsung wants to rack up the biggest numbers.
In our experience, loading a phone with megapixels and zoom lenses does not mean it will have great photos or a good experience. This is what we saw with last year’s Ultra phone, last year’s Galaxy S20 Ultra. It suffered from serious focusing issues and generally didn’t justify its higher price. The Note 20 Ultra added laser autofocus, but it still didn’t do as much as it should have.
This year Samsung has to pull out all the tricks in the bag and have shown us that they have learned a good lesson from their mistakes — so the Galaxy S21 Ultra needed to overcome years of stasis and finally bring Samsung up to par with the competition.
Samsung never shyed away from camera promises in 2021 with Galaxy S21 Ultra. There are five image sensors, none of them throwaways:
- Main wide angle: 108-megapixel, OIS, f/1.8, 0.8μm
- Ultrawide: 12-megapixel, 120-degree field of view, f/2.2, 1.4μm
- Telephoto 1: 10-megapixel, Optical 3X, OIS, f/2.4, 1.22μm
- Telephoto 2: 10-megapixel, Optical 10X, OIS, f/4.9, 1.22μm
- Selfie camera: 40-megapixel, 80-degree field of view, f/2.2, 0.7 μm
The fifth hole on the back of the phone is for the laser autofocus sensor, which was added to help with some of the focus issues on the main sensor. That main 108-megapixel sensor is also a second-generation sensor, capable of 12-bit color and featuring what Samsung says is a new “remosaicing” process for converting 108-megapixels into the default 12-megapixel images. (Getting 12-bit color requires diving into the settings and using Pro mode.)
Galaxy S21 Ultra promised a fast and accurate focusing, a bigger focal plane, no discernible shutter lag, and most of all: taking better pictures. In the dark, expect the phone to switch over to night mode and produce images that have significantly less noise than before.
Expect the Galaxy S21 Ultra to really shine when it comes to zooming. It has two telephoto lenses that work in unison. Proper optical zoom at 3X makes a big difference, and Samsung uses data from multiple lenses up to 10X. Samsung still has its gimmicky “Space Zoom” that works up to 100X, but don’t expect to get anything usable beyond 30X and even then it will require a lot of light to create something usable on social media.
Galaxy S21 Ultra Video
When it comes to video there are some great improvements, Samsung has added a “director’s mode” in the Galaxy S21 Ultra that lets you switch lenses on the fly while shooting video in 1080p. You can shoot in 8K and pull out a still photo, you can use “Single Take 2” to let the AI try to make a bunch of amusing photos and video effects. Samsung’s Pro modes for both photo and video are excellent. You can shoot in RAW, too, although it is a standard RAW, not an Apple-style ProRAW that has some of the benefits of HDR mixed in.
Overall, there are just a thousand different ways you can work with the Galaxy S21 Ultra camera, and it will be a bit overwhelming for most users. What matters more is that taking a basic picture will give better results than older Samsung phones. We can’t wait to give it a full spin of our own.
