Samsung Galaxy S21 cameras: 4 best new features

Samsung Galaxy S21 cameras: 4 all-time new features

(Image credit: Future)

Subsequently a twelvemonth'south worth of rumors, Samsung officially unveiled the new Galaxy S21. And this year, the electronics behemothic isn't belongings back against Apple and the iPhone 12's impressive suite of camera features.

While Apple has never crammed in the highest pixels in its camera sensors, often reviewers are surprised at how clean and accurate photos look from iPhones. The secret? Quality sensors and software optimization.

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Even with a lower megapixel count, iPhones are able to take in an image and use smart software tricks to aid clean up racket, reinterpret colors, and add the right amount of sharpening to make for a quality smartphone photograph. This is why megapixels alone aren't enough to determine how good a photo might turn out and why a upkeep $250 telephone similar the Moto G Power (2021) nevertheless can't beat an iPhone, fifty-fifty with its 48MP main camera.

Look at Google with its Pixel line. The Pixel 4a, which simply costs $349, continues to churn out some of the best mobile photos in the industry cheers to clever software engineering, despite having merely a single camera lens.

This year, Samsung is gear up to fight. Not merely is Samsung claiming improved AI performance for image processing with the Galaxy S21 family, but has introduced some new features as well.

Below, nosotros've detailed all the new camera tricks that can be establish on this year'due south Milky way S21 models, and why new buyers should take the fourth dimension to learn these features to go the best Instagram-worthy snapshots.

The new and improved Single Accept feature

Samsung introduced the Unmarried Accept feature with last twelvemonth'southward Galaxy S20. Single Accept allows users to take a single photograph with all lenses simultaneously. This meant that users could get an array of pics, and choose the one they liked best without needing their subject area to pose for multiple shots.

The Milky way S21 is adding slow-mo videos to Single Have. Every bit a user is taking a photo of their friends, not only will Unmarried Take capture unmarried snapshots, but also slow move video of those friends popping a piece of processed into their mouths. It'south a little contemporary, only information technology shows the power of the Snapdragon 888 processor inside the S21 in beingness able to take multiple photos along with slow motion video simultaneously.

Manager'due south View

Manager'southward view brings vlogging to the Milky way S21. With this way enabled, both the front and rear facing cameras will take video simultaneously. This yields a picture-in-picture video, one that gives a feed of the director — the person holding the phone — also equally whatever they're shooting. This feature tin be enabled on either the telephoto, wide, or ultra wide lenses.

Samsung fifty-fifty put together a trailer — with actors who clearly met the day of the shoot — demonstrating how both Single Take and Director's View works.

Just at that place's more to Managing director's View than vlogger fashion. Say y'all're filming a friend solving a Rubik's Cube. You might desire to start the frame with the ultra wide lens to get a wide take of the environment. You lot tin can then switch between the other wide and telephoto lenses with one tap to get multiple angles all on the same accept. Earlier Managing director'south View, y'all might accept needed to stop filming with one lens and start another recording with another. Now, it'southward far more seamless this time effectually.

Nighttime Mode

Low lite photography has always been a claiming for phones. Generally, sensors are much smaller on a phone than on a standard DSLR, meaning the f-stop tends to be college and on a fixed aperture. This technical jargon pretty much means that telephone cameras can't gather as much low-cal. To get around this, companies use software every bit a fashion to raise depression light photos. It'south an evolving procedure, but one that gets better every yr.

Samsung is aiming to take on Apple tree and Google with new Dark Style enhancements. The video above demonstrates how the S21 Ultra uses all lenses to gather image information along with AI deep learning to capture low calorie-free photos. Pair that with enhanced dissonance reduction and it yields an paradigm that's far brighter. While there is some optical image stabilization, information technology volition probable work best with a steady hand or a tripod, every bit is the case with all depression light photography,.

Zoom Lock

Samsung has implemented a periscope lens with its telephoto sensor in this year'south Galaxy S21 Ultra. So, instead of having the lenses sandwiched on elevation of ane some other like in nigh photographic camera modules, this lens array is horizontally stacked and uses mirrors to bounce the light back to the sensor. This means that Samsung is able to fit more prism lenses for increased clarity while zooming.

Even so, while in the Ultra you'll be able to zoom in 100x, it'll nonetheless be difficult to take a photo without a tripod, every bit any slight motility is more pronounced. Samsung has implemented Zoom Lock, a software feature in which a user can tap at the centre of their zoomed prototype which volition aim to minimize shaking and jittering.

Users can also tap on a specific part of a frame and zoom in more than seamlessly with minimal jitter in what Samsung calls Space Zoom. While the video to a higher place makes it wait as if you're zooming in with a real massive $2,000 telephoto lens on a tripod, we'll have to see for ourselves to what extent Samsung is exaggerating in its trailers.

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Imad Khan is news editor at Tom's Guide, helping direct the day'due south breaking coverage. Prior to working at the site, Imad was a full-time freelancer, with bylines at the New York Times, the Washington Mail and ESPN. Outside of piece of work, y'all can find him sitting blankly in forepart of a Word document trying badly to write the first pages of a new book.