![]() The S23 Ultra’s lens allows it to photograph more distant objects without relying on cropping and AI sharpening. The Pixel 7 Pro also has a periscope zoom, but it reaches only 5x. That’s the only way to fit such a long lens inside the compact body of a phone, even one as big as the Galaxy S23 Ultra. The 10x telephoto lens is what’s known as a folded periscope because it uses a mirror to reflect light on a sensor that is mounted perpendicular to the back of the phone. But a 200-megapixel sensor is great for zooming, and that’s where the S23 Ultra truly shines for people who aren’t pros. Why use that sensor instead of something with physically larger pixels and a lower resolution? Shooting ultra-high-resolution pictures in pro mode with raw-file output is a cool feature that photography buffs are likely to value. So the S23 Ultra’s 200-megapixel shots don’t look as good. In the real-world comparison shown below, the binned photo looks sharper because the 200-megapixel shot’s smaller pixels captured less light and thus less detail in both light and dark areas the colors and white balance of the full-resolution shot are also worse. Nine times out of 10, that processed photo is the one you’ll keep, because the 200-megapixel version is not similarly optimized. The 12.5-megapixel images pump up the colors, even out the brightness, and sharpen the edges, all trademarks of Samsung’s image processing. However, life is not perfectly or even consistently lit. ![]() In perfect lighting, as shown in the images above, the 200-megapixel mode can extract impressive detail compared with the binned photo. You can tell the difference particularly in low-light mode, where the S23 Ultra can capture slightly brighter, more balanced photos than Google’s Pixel 7 Pro. That’s how you get from 200 megapixels to 12.5 megapixels. By merging four-by-four blocks of pixels together, Samsung turns individual 0.6-micron pixels into a giant 2.6-micron pixel. The solution to this simple physics problem is a process called pixel binning, which merges multiple adjacent pixels into larger virtual pixels with higher light sensitivity. Small sensors mean small pixels, and small pixels can’t collect as much light. Smartphone camera sensors are small compared with the sensors in dedicated cameras. This process may give up some resolution in favor of increased brightness, however, and that’s why the S23 Ultra’s 200-megapixel images don’t wow like the 12.5-megapixel versions it’s designed to output by default. ![]() ![]() Unlike mechanical cameras or DSLRs, which take one photo when you press the shutter, your phone’s camera can capture multiple frames, apply custom color science, and run the pixels through AI algorithms to create the final product. What does a 200-megapixel camera even do?Įvery smartphone maker uses computational photography to make camera images look more impressive. The real upgrade in the S23 Ultra’s camera lies in how it allows increasingly effortless zoom while preserving brightness, so you can frame every shot the way you want. In fact, the default 12.5-megapixel mode will almost always produce better overall images because of the way smartphone cameras work today-the quality you get is as much about image-processing techniques as it is about the number of megapixels. But it isn’t as much of an upgrade as it sounds. And thanks to this sensor, you can shoot razor-sharp photos at full resolution. The Galaxy S23 Ultra’s 200-megapixel Samsung Isocell HP2 sensor seems like a big increase from the 108-megapixel sensor on the Galaxy S22 Ultra. But if your current phone is only a few years old, shelling out that much money to get more megapixels simply isn’t necessary. Samsung’s new Galaxy S23 Ultra attempts to justify its sky-high $1,200 price tag in a few ways, including a 200-megapixel camera that seems especially impressive on paper. Flagship smartphones are extremely expensive, and one of the tactics that device makers like Samsung and Apple employ to try to convince people to upgrade is to add new, DSLR-style camera features to their phones. ![]()
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