Note 20 Ultra Camera Review: They FINALLY Did It! By Mark Spurrell

Hey guys mark here and over the past few days, I've gathered a ridiculous number of photos and video from this phone. The Samsung Galaxy note 20 ultra and I'm going to share all of them right now, but first I just want to say Samsung. You finally did it. My fianc? said to me yesterday that she thinks the photos and video from this phone might just be the best she's ever seen in a phone camera, and she's absolutely right. The first thing I instantly noticed in photos and video are just how well Samsung nailed the colors in this camera in the past, Samsung had a bit of a reputation for over saturating photos and video and making them just a little too contrast. But that's not the case here.

Even skin tones are absolutely bang on and natural in this shot, I did use the live, focus mode that uses software to blur out the background, and it did a pretty darn good job. Overall, video stabilization is another area where these cameras excel remember. All of this is handheld, and it almost looks like it's being shot with a gimbals, so this is inside the old radar base, and obviously you're going to hear some crazy amount of echo and stuff like that. But this place looks super cool right now. Obviously this was decommissioned.

I believe all the way back in the 70s. The Americans used to use it for radar back in the Cold War, but right now it's just the structure left, and it looks pretty darn cool, and it's also a really great opportunity to test the HDR capabilities of the note 20 ultra so yeah it looks pretty cool front facing video can be shot at 4k up to 60fps, and again I was very impressed here. It doesn't quite get as wide as I'd like, but colors and contrast are excellent and sharpness is too. You can also flip the phone around to use the rear-facing cameras, but you'll probably have issues with framing. Since you can't see yourself, you will get some awesome background blur from that huge 108 megapixel sensor, though there isn't much left to the old radar base and no one really comes up here, safe for some graffiti artists and airsoft players.

But it's an awesome place to test out new cameras, there's color everywhere, and the stark contrast between multi-colored art and the decaying structures makes for some great photography and videography. The note 20 ultra comes equipped with a five times optical periscope lens, and since the radar base is near a flight path for a local airport, I was able to get some shots of a couple of aircraft flying by pretty crazy for a phone camera beyond the 5x optical zoom. It can also use software to get 50 times, hybrid zoom, which can be incredibly helpful for viewing signs that are too far away to read with the naked eye. The radar base was built to be completely self-sufficient, so there are decaying structures in multiple areas all over the place, including this one. That has a great view of the cliffs on the shoreline.

Again, the video on this phone is absolutely incredible and using the ultrawide camera inside the building like this makes for some epic shots. This building features some neat artwork as well, but the main attraction is this side window with a view of the ocean. This shot shows how good the HDR capability of this phone is. Everything in the frame is perfectly exposed from the dimly lit walls of the building to the bright sunny sky out on the edge of the cliff. You can see that large 108 megapixel sensor going to work.

There's no live focus mode being used here, but the cliffs in the background are naturally out of focus nice. You can see that coming into play even more with objects that are close to the camera, the closer the subject, the more blurred the background will become after the radar base. I went alone to the top of signal hill and got a few snaps of Cabot tower. Most of these were shown in my full review, which you can check out by hitting the link-up in the top right-hand corner of this video. I honestly didn't think the 5x periscope lens was going to be all that useful, but now, after using it, I'm completely sold on its usefulness, I'd take a periscope over a 2x telephoto any day.

At this point again, I just want to reiterate here: colors are looking very natural and not over saturated at all, and despite all the wind up here, video was still very well stabilized. I do want to briefly touch on 8k video here. I didn't shoot much of it honestly, because, although it is incredibly sharp, and it is cool that a phone camera can shoot 8k, it's not all that usable dynamic range and stabilization are both crippled in the AK mode and 4k ends up looking a little better. As a result, plus there aren't all that many people that are going to be natively able to view 8k video, so you might as well just shoot 4k anyway, all right, then it's on to some night shots every shot. You're currently seeing was taken in near pitch darkness.

I even took some video to show you what my eyes were seeing compared to what the camera sees when it stitches together those photos, the camera can easily see in the dark, and it does an excellent job overall. Obviously, there are times when it won't capture things perfectly, and you can forget about trying to shoot moving subjects at night, but most of the time, the night mode works incredibly well, even the periscope camera works with night mode, although it has a f3 aperture, which isn't great in low light to say that I'm impressed with what Samsung has done with these cameras is an understatement. It feels like they've come a long way with the cameras on the note 20 ultra. To be completely honest, I wasn't all that excited to test out the cameras on the ultra, because I never really liked Samsung's color science with photos or video, but after using the cameras on this phone for the past week, or so my opinion has completely changed. I know we're only a few weeks away from seeing like the iPhone 12 and maybe even the pixel 5, but for right now.

At this moment, the note20 ultra has some of the best cameras on the market period. This phone was sent out to me by my friends over at wirelessplace. com. They aren't sponsoring this video, but if you want to pick up this phone after seeing this video, there will be a link for you down the description down below that leads to their website before you drop everything and go buy this phone, though I highly recommend that you check out my full review of the note 20 ultra up here somewhere, because, while the cameras are amazing, the phone isn't always sunshine and rainbow so do a little more research. First, if you like this video, please give it a like and subscribe to support my channel and, as always, have a great day.

Source : Mark Spurrell