S21 camera disappointment

Hi,

So I've had my S21 for 2 weeks and with the arrival of my mini tripod, I've spent the last couple of days experimenting with a few pics...and I have to say I'm not exactly blown away.

I should mention that I'm coming from a six year old S6, a phone on which I've taken some excellent photos and videos (several pics have been framed or made into cards etc) primarily of the flora and fauna in the garden. This is the first time I've bought a phone outright and certainly the first time I've ever bought a new model at launch and I really thought that jumping from such an old phone to the newest model available, the improvement in camera quality would be, frankly, mind blowing.

Apart from more saturation in colour on the S21, I can't really perceive a massive difference in quality.

As a matter of interest the screen and camera specs for the two phones are...

S6: Quad HD, 1440 x 2560, ppi 577, rear camera 16mp

S21: FHD+, 1080 x 2400, ppi 421, rear camera 12mp (with a selection of clever zooms)

...I know you can get bogged down in arguing the pros and cons of megapixels and resolutions etc but if I'm reading that right, is the screen resolution and camera on the S21 'worse' (I use that term carefully) than my S6?

I'm not sure if I've just massively overestimated in my mind what I'd expect from a smartphone camera six years down the line.

The two pics below where taken on a tripod fitted with a smartphone mount and a timer on the shutter release with both phones set to take the highest resolution image they can.

I think I was just expecting the S21 to blow the S6 out of the water with a super sharp imagine that makes you go wow...I just don't get that feeling!

Thanks for your time.

Nick

S6 Orchid crop

S21 Orchid crop

...there's also something very weird going on with the outer edge of the flower in the

s21 pic. If you zoom right in, on the left hand side, there's a kind of blurry, ghosted edge?

Hi Nick,

I've seen that fringing on a lot of photos from these newer large megapixels sensors that use pixel binning.

From looking at the metadata, it looks like the F stop was 2 on your S21 photo which suggests it came from the 64M sensor rather than the 12M which is F1.8

Can you shoot using the 12M and see if it's OK? I don't have a Samsung so I've no idea if it's feasible to manually pick the 12M lens over the 64M.

Cheers

Mark

Hi Mark,

Many thanks for taking the time to reply.

Yes you're right, I'd selected the aspect ration 3:4 (64MP) thinking this would give me the highest resolution of all.

In photo mode, the S21 presents you with five aspect ratios to choose from...

3:4 (64MP)

3:4

9:16

1:1

FULL

...and this is the first time I've seen that as a selection option and I have to say I wasn't entirely sure what I should select. There was no selection on the S6 (or so I thought) I was happy with the quality of the pics from the word go and kind of forgot about it, however, on going through the camera settings on the S6 yesterday I noticed that buried away is a 'picture size' setting for the rear camera with two 4:3 options, two 16:9 options and a 1:1 but 16:9 (16M) was selected by default and that's where it's stayed for 6 years lol.

Anyway, doing some internet searching this afternoon to try and understand what these different aspect ratios mean in terms of the quality of the photo taken, I think I'm right in saying that I should be keeping it on 3:4 as this means I'm losing less of the image I'm photographing, is that right ?

I'm gonna hazard a guess and say that the second of the two 3:4 options on the S21 will use the 12MP sensor so I'll give that a try and post up my results. It's the dullest grey, rainy day here at the moment so much so we've got lights on in the back room where that orchid is so I'll have a go tomorrow in better light.

Nick

Hi Nick,

The aspect ratio will impact the resolution as it will 'crop' the sensor based on the sensor dimensions to obtain the correct ratio. The highest resolution would depend on the actual dimensions but I imagine you are correct on the ratio 3:4 being the best on a mobile sensor in the S21.

I don't think that's the key to the lens selection as  the 'ratio' could be the same for both sensors.

The 3:4 64MP and 3:4 may just be allowing you to pixel bin the 64MP sensor (i.e. get a full size image or a 12MP pixel binned image).

I had a quick look at the S21 manual on-line but there is very little info. I didn't see any specific info about selecting specific lenses.

Looking at the specs, the 12MP sensor is F1.8 with a 79 FOV where as the 64MP is F2.0 with a 76' FOV. It may be that the camera app will default to the 64MP sensor for HDR images but that is just a guess.

There is a 'Pro mode, which should be  within the 'more' tab on the camera app. I suggest you try the pro mode and see if it allows you to select the specific lens.

Best of luck!

Hi Mark,

Having done some more research it seems the only way you can really specifically select a lens is via the three little 'tree' symbols that appear onscreen in the camera app...

...where 1 is the ultra wide lens, 2 is the wide angle lens and 3 is the telephoto lens.

The 'Pro' mode gives you more control over various camera settings, focus, ISO etc but still does not allow you to directly select a particular lens.

Anyway, I selected the standard 3:4 aspect ratio (not 3:4 64MP) and took another pic of the orchid today, HDR was on, scene optimiser off...

S21 Orchid crop 3:4

...F stop is now 1.8

I'm still not particularly impressed to be honest

Since both the lense/sensors have the same 'edge' issue, I can only imagine that it must be software related, maybe the HDR routine.

The sensors are now bigger, so the DOF will be reduced on these close up shots compared with your S6. It looks like the center is in focus but the rest is maybe starting to drop out of focus.

Seems to be the day of phone camera disappointments

I just got a Pixel 4a 5g to replace a LG V30. The V30 has smaller sensors but it's at least on a par with the Pixel when using the Gcam app. The only thing that is better is the Night Sight as the LG V30 wouldn't always focus in Night Sight on Gcam.

After doing a lot of research, the only phone that I really liked the photos from was the Huawei P40 Pro. If it had google services I would have bought it.

Thanks for your quick reply.

I totally agree with you about the edges dropping out of focus. The camera was wanting to focus on the wall behind the plant and the bloom was very much out of focus, so by touching the area on the screen where the bloom was, it pulls the flower into focus but I did wonder if it was now focusing too tightly on the middle of the flower?

I was wondering if there's a setting I've yet to discover that would allow me to widen the focus target area (if that's even a thing), so it concentrated on the flower as a whole ?

There have been two software updates in the last two weeks both (amongst other things) mentioned camera fixes so I wonder whether things maybe ironed out in future fixes but to say I'm disappointed is an understatement!

Like you, I did an awful lot of research and never intended to spend this sort of money on a phone but felt it was an investment as I tend to keep them for long periods and not chase the latest models etc. I just assumed the differences would be night and day in terms of camera performance!

I also looked at the Huawei as it kept getting mentioned in the camera reviews but I think you'd end up with half a phone, given nothing Google related will work.

I actually did a live chat with Samsung this afternoon and asked what my options where for returning the S21, they initially said I could return it within 28 days for ANY reason which I found quite surprising tbh but as earbuds came free with it (and I've used them) they then said I'd have to call customer services.

I'll have to have a think...performance may improve with patches and a better understanding on my part...or it may not.

Thanks for your time.

I think the s21u camera is pretty good. I haven't tested it thoroughly but i seem to prefer the pics from the normal 4:3 camera over the higher megapixel option. Not sure why tho.

Photos in good light will rarely show great differences

hey,

this one looks fine, buts its only a smartphone cam

I agree with your assessment. I went from a Samsung S10+ to the S21 and macro shots have gotten significantly worse. Decent focus is nearly impossible and DOF is pretty bad. It is pretty disappointing for the flagship phone.

This summarizes the issue I'm having, if it's related

They're all like that dude. Heres my S21U on Pro