In my review, the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra 5G checked most of the boxes to be one of the best Android smartphones this year and one of the apexes is the camera setup.
We will dive in-depth into the cameras and what made them so great?
First, let’s know more about the camera setup array.
- Main Camera: 108 megapixels (12megapixels binned), 1/1.33″, 0.8μm pixels, f/1.8 aperture, 85° FoV, Optical Image Stabilization, PDAF
- Ultrawide Camera: 12 megapixels, 1/2.55″, 1.4μm pixels, f/2.2 aperture, 123° FoV, Dual Pixel AF
- 3x Telephoto Camera: 10 megapixels, 1/3.52″, 1.12μm pixels, f/2.4 aperture, 36° FoV, Dual Pixel AF, 3x Optical Zoom
- 10x Telephoto Camera: 10 megapixels, 1/3.52″, 1.12μm pixels, f/4.9 aperture, 36° FoV, Dual Pixel AF, 10x Optical Zoom
- Laser Autofocus
AI, NPU & Super Clear Glass Lens
With the new yet powerful ISP and NPU on the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 SoC, Samsung has further pushed the camera sensor capabilities through AI. This result improves light sensitivity and increases the amount of light captured in low-light environments.
To further enhance, Samsung uses a new lens, Super Clear Glass Lens on the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra 5G’s main camera which is anti-reflective nano-coated that helps more light to reach the sensor, as well as to reduce reflection and halo effect.
Multi-Focal Length
The Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra 5G offered a comprehensive focal length ranging from 13mm to 230mm equivalent. This allows you to take crisp and sharp images without any digital cropping or zooming.
This is important as different focal would give a different perspective of the photo you want to take. Best example, taking portraits with the main camera that has a 23mm focal would get you close to the subject as a result of distorted facial features, instead of switching it to the 3x telephoto that gave a more natural facial feature.
Of course, there’s also a 10x optical zoom which allows you to take a different kind of angle or creative shots.
Image Quality
During the day, photos taken with the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra 5G have plenty of detail with good color and contrast. The autofocus and white balance are quick on point and hardly missed any shots throughout my test.
The Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra delivers a good target exposure in all conditions combined with a wide dynamic range. In terms of night shots, noise levels and texture is well handled.
You can view full-resolution photos on GDrive.
Expert Raw
The Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra is the first Samsung Galaxy device that features a separate app that allows you to shoot 16-bit RAW capture. It’s not pre-installed and only available in the Galaxy Store but not on Google Play.
Expert RAW allows you to capture more data by shooting multi-frame images and combining them together. This enabled editing photos with a higher degree of control over the process. You get to make precise adjustments so that your photo comes out exactly what you want through professional editing software like Adobe Lightroom or Photoshop.
Worth noting, with extra-bit depth, comes with extra storage requirements. A standard .JPEG photo taken from the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra is about 2MB to 3MB, while the 16-bit Expert RAW can fetch up to around 30MB. With storage expansion limitation on the Galaxy S22 Ultra 5G, I would highly recommend you grab at least 256GB or 512GB if you are taking a lot of photos and videos with this device.
Nightography
Low-light shooting gets a boost with a multi-shot night mode. The device would detect a dark scene and shows a crescent moon icon in the camera app letting you know it’s ready for low-light capture. The results are distinctive with bright, clean, and sharp images but with a small caveat; unnatural sharpening. Some point-and-shoot users would love it as it’s ready to be used for social media sharing.
I’ll talk more about its video capability on my next article.
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