The 3x telephoto camera of Samsung’s last three generations of S Ultra devices is only 10 megapixels. While the 3x telephoto is excellent for portraits, it’s not capable of zooming digitally up to 10x without losing quality until the second telephoto kicks in.
Samsung is probably trying to improve this aspect for the Galaxy S24 Ultra by replacing the 10x telephoto with a 5x one.
A recent tweet from tipster @UniverseIce informs us about the telephoto camera selection for the Galaxy S24 Ultra. The response from the internet community isn’t really positive, as expected. However, it’s also reasonable to assume that Samsung made this decision after thorough research.
The Galaxy S23 Ultra has one of the best smartphone cameras, with its highlight being its zoom range. However, this device is not without its flaws.
How does the 5x telephoto benefit the S24 Ultra?
As I mentioned above, the 3x camera loses detail quickly as you zoom in digitally toward 10x. The quality after 7x actually becomes questionable sometimes, especially in low light.
Setting aside the flashy specifications, you don’t often need to zoom in to the 10x level or beyond. Having better quality below 10x is more important because you’ll use it more frequently.
And speaking of quality retention in digital zoom, the 50 MP resolution of the 5x telephoto would at least perform better compared to what the 10 MP 3x telephoto can do for the sub-10x range.
So, replacing the S24 Ultra’s 10x camera with a 5x one could actually be a good move, making the camera more useful, even if it seems to cut down on the specification.
Long range zooms may still be better than expectations
Reportedly, the 5x telephoto camera will feature a 50MP sensor. The higher resolution will help retain details in long-range zooms to compete the 10MP 10x telephoto of the S23 Ultra.
Although the tipster @UniverseIce concluded that the Galaxy S24 Ultra is likely to underperform compared to the S23 Ultra in long-range zooms, it’s important to note that his tests involved samples from the Xiaomi 13 Ultra’s 5x telephoto camera. Image processing plays a key role in zoomed shots, which is significantly different between the two brands.
So, we can’t accurately predict the performance of the 5x telephoto in the Galaxy S24 Ultra based on Xiaomi 13 Ultra’s samples. We’ve all seen the moon shots taken with the S23 Ultra, right? Samsung will likely do a better job of utilizing the data from the 50MP sensor.
Summary
Although the 10MP, 10x telephoto supports extremely long-range zooms, people use it more for showing off than satisfying their framing needs. From a practical standpoint, prioritizing the sub-10x zoom range seems to be more important, and Samsung has probably taken the same approach.
