According to a report from @IceUniverse, the Galaxy S24 Ultra may feature a 50MP sensor for its 3X telephoto camera, replacing the 10MP one that has been in use for the last three generations. Although there’s not much of a change except this new sensor in the camera specification of the s24 Ultra.
Since the Galaxy S21 Ultra, the telephoto camera hardware has remained the same, with improvements made only at the software level to enhance the quality of zoomed shots.
Although the use of a high-resolution sensor in the telephoto camera isn’t new to the S lineup of devices, the Galaxy S21 and S21+ have used 64MP sensors for their zoom cameras.
The difference was that the sensors were used to digitally crop the subject instead of enabling optical zoom. Later on, the company switched to longer focal length cameras with lower resolution sensors for the 3X zoom module. 10MP sensors have been used for the telephoto camera since then.
Using a larger sensor for the 3x optical zoom, would increase the focal length, leading to a significant increase in the camera module’s protrusion.
But now, it finally seems that they have figured out how to fit a large sensor with a 70mm equivalent focal length inside the next S Ultra model, the S24 Ultra.
The probable benefits of a high resolution sensor:
Digital cropping
A higher resolution on the zoom camera enables cropping without losing quality. There are two different telephoto sensors of 3x and 10x magnification levels, so between 3x to 10x, it’s optical zoom and digital cropping that happens. Now, having a higher resolution on the 3x telephoto sensor enables better information to be retained at 3x to 9x digital crop.
For some time, we had been hearing about the potential use of a dedicated 5x module on the S24 Ultra. However, completely abandoning the 3x camera might not be a good decision for portrait photography. Therefore, they opted to use a high-resolution sensor for the 3x module and to rely on digital zoom for achieving 5x magnification. It appears that there will be a dedicated 5x option on the camera UI, which they are referring to as ‘super-hybrid zoom.’
In the past, they did rely on digital zooming across the entire S20 series lineup, as well as in the later S21 and S21+. The S20 Ultra featured a 48MP 4x telephoto module capable of up to 10x hybrid zoom.
Better image processing
The camera system utilizes data from all the sensors to gather as much information as possible. This extra information helps the ISP in computational processing.
For example, while using the 10x telephoto, the 3x telephoto also collects information about the subject. Having a 50MP sensor in the 3x zoom module will help obtain higher detail for better processing.
Other improvements on the S24 Ultra include the use of a different battery technology that may finally enable Samsung to utilize faster charging speeds.
