“Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars.”—Norman Vincent Peale
LAST week, we talked about the design, build, and performance of the Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra, and true to its name and promise of being an ultra-premium flagship, it delivers—but is the device’s much-hyped 108MP camera and 100X space zoom just as good?
The Samsung Galaxy series has always been known for its great cameras.
It was even the king of the DXOMark Mobile Rankings once with the S7 Edge getting the highest score in 2016. While the Galaxy S9 and S10 still had fine cameras, they were overshadowed by what’s been offered by Huawei, Google, Xiaomi and the rest of the competition. Samsung knew it had to do something—and skip the S11.
According to the company, they chose Galaxy S20 because they wanted a name that kicks off the next 10 years of innovation. This year begins a whole new decade and marks Samsung as a pioneer of a mobile ecosystem powered by 5G, AI and IoT.
“That’s why it’s not the Galaxy S11. It’s the dawn of the next generation of Galaxy—the Galaxy S20,” the company explained.
It’s quite a dramatic way of explaining why they packed all these new features and hardware into their Galaxy S flagships. But its also a subtle way of indicating that while it may be next gen, this new technology is also a work in progress.
EXPLORING THE CAMERA APP
BEFORE we discuss my thoughts about the Galaxy S20 Ultra cameras, I’d like to share some tips first to help you make the most out of its shooter.
ADD MORE MODES: When you first open the camera app you’ll only have a few modes available—Single Shot, Photo and Video. To add more modes tap on “More” and the pen icon to drag other modes like Night, Food, PRO, Panorama, Slow Motion, etc. to your main options.
A.I. GUIDE: Head over to the Settings menu (gear icon on the top) and make sure these options are turned on. First is Shot Suggestions. Using AI, this guides you to get the best shot composition for the scene. An opaque circle and a spirit level-style straight line will appear, which you need to line up to get the best position (it turns yellow when you get it right). You don’t actually have to follow it all the time, but it’s a good way to help newbies and useful to make sure your phone is perfectly level.
Another way to help you better frame your photos is to turn on “Grid Lines” which provides a visual guide to help you stick to the rule of thirds. Since the S20 Ultra is quite big, you might find yourself struggling to reach the shutter button when taking shots of something you are holding in your other hand; when such is the case, go to shooting methods and activate “Floating Shutter Button”. This will add an extra shutter button that you can move anywhere on the screen. Another suggestion is to also turn on “Show Palm” for taking selfies.
HOW TO TAKE 108MP PHOTOS AND 8K VIDEOS: The Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra has a massive 108MP main lens, but the camera defaults to taking 12MP photos. So how do you switch to the max MP? On the top of the screen is an icon that’s likely marked 9:16—tap it and choose 3:4 108MP (or 4:3 for landscape) to take full-resolution photos. Take note that images with 12000 x 9000 pixels can take up a minimum of 10MB of storage space for each photo. It’s the same thing for videos: to shoot 8K resolution video, simply tap the icon marked 9:16, or 16:9 if you’re in landscape, and select the 9:16/16:9 8K option. Note that a one 60-second clip can take up at more than 500MB, and a screenshot from this mode will give you 33MP stills.
ZOOM: To use the zoom feature, you can either tap on the icons above the shutter button or use your fingers to pinch/expand the screen. But to get a more exact zoom magnification, it’s quicker to just tap the magnification icons and choose from all those extra zoom icons 4x, 10x, 30x all the way up to 100x zoom.
SINGLE TAKE: Perhaps the best addition to the S20 Ultra’s camera modes is Single Take. If you’re like me who can’t decide whether to take a quick video or snap a photo, Single Take takes the worry out of missing the moment by making use of the camera’s multiple modes and features. All you have to do is point the camera in the right direction and the camera creates shorter videos, stills, filtered images, and shots in different aspect ratios for you.
It’s easy to use and great for people who want to capture those one-shot moments with their babies and pets or anything that moves around.
HOW GOOD ARE THE CAMERAS?
REMEMBER when you were a kid and you got your first award or won first prize or something which gave you an overwhelming sense of pride and achievement that you wanted to wear that medal or ribbon and show it off to everyone—until you realized it wasn’t really such a big deal?
I guess that’s what Samsung felt about its new zoom feature: that it was going to be such a win they couldn’t restrain themselves from slapping the “SPACE ZOOM 100X” label on its camera module.
I’ve been using the Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra for the past couple of months; unfortunately because of the ECQ, I wasn’t able to take a lot more photos as I would have wanted to, but it really does have an amazing camera—the best on a Samsung—well, except for its 100X Space Zoom.
The S20 Ultra introduces an all-new camera system, and that huge panel at the back houses Samsung’s quad-camera system: a large 108MP wide angle, 12MP ultra-wide angle, 48MP telephoto with periscopic 4x optical zoom and a depth sensor. It also has a 40MP front-facing camera.
It’s an impressive mix of smartphone camera tech and is the most advanced on a Samsung smartphone, so it’s no surprise that it got a score of 122 overall points in the DXOMark and a photo score of 132. It’s also the only phone in the top five that isn’t from a Chinese company.
The 108MP sensor outputs 12MP images via a process called “Nona binning” which happens directly on the sensor hardware. This method has been used on other phones before, but Samsung went bigger by combining nine of them. The resulting photos are great, striking an excellent balance of detail and low noise. Although I found myself sticking to the default 12MP resolution most of the time.
In good lighting conditions, photos taken from both the front and main rear cameras are excellent. Colors are typical of a Samsung phone with great details and wide dynamic range.
Outdoor and landscape shots come out vibrant with good detail and sharpness as well. The AI isn’t too aggressive and I prefer the more natural looking tones of the S20 Ultra than the oversaturated ones from other phones. The selfie camera is a substantial upgrade from previous generations and takes very detailed photos without too much beautification. There’s also a wide angle so you could fit in a couple more people, and is useful for vloggers who want to capture more than just their face on screen.
The S20 Ultra also captures very good video and is the only smartphone that can currently shoot 8K videos. The downside is that it consumes a lot of space, which is why it would have been better had Samsung upped the default storage to 256GB.
And now for the 100X Space Zoom.
Remember that quote we used at the start? It’s clear that Samsung was shooting for the moon, and was trying to one-up Huawei’s 50X Zoom, but it’s way off target.
Did it land on the stars?
Let’s just say it is up there among the stars, but it’s not shining as bright as it should have.
Is the Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra a flagship we recommend?
The truth is it isn’t for everybody. If it’s value-for-money you are looking for, you might not even be the target of the S20 Ultra (the S20 and S20 Plus might be a better option). There’s a reason why Samsung threw everything on the S20 Ultra—because it’s meant for those whom money is no object, and they just want the best of what’s out there. It’s a statement phone to see and be seen with.
That’s why I called it the Boss’ Baby, both because it’s for the top executives, and also because its still a baby that needs to grow up and improve. The Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra is priced at P69,990, and it’s best to get it through a Smart Signature plan to get the best deal and Internet service.
Speaking of Smart, the telco is launching a new campaign with none other than Crash Landing on You lead star Hyun Bin. MVP has already confirmed it and the TV and online ads will premiere on June 1. It’s the first time the telco has tapped an international star for its ad campaign, and it will be interesting to see what happens.