Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra Camera Update Test: Better or Worse? By Danny Winget

What's up everybody, this is Danny, and today I want to show you my results from the Samsung Galaxy s, 20 ultra camera updates, I know, people were really upset. That I did my prior camera comparisons. Without this update, so I was excited to try. This out. I have two ultras here, one with the old software, which is the dot 92 version, and when you upgrade to the new version, you will see the dot nine eight at the end of the version. These are the snapdragon models, so the Enos and snapdragon models both should have this update.

Now so make sure you check your software updater. This is what that screen will look like. Let me know if you have this update in the comments below and what you think about it so far, but here are the results from my testing when it comes to regular pictures, I don't see a change at all. There might be some slight variations, but nothing huge that I can see. Of course, all of these pictures are taken in auto mode, and none of them are edited in any way straight out of the camera with scene.

Optimizer off my two biggest issues were autofocused and fringing with close-up shots because of the large sensor, and I'm happy to say that the autofocus is improved in photo mode. The differences aren't huge most of the time, but in some shots you can see that the images are sharper. This leap shot really shows the difference with the update you can see here on the smaller cluster of flowers that the edges are sharper and more defined. So there are some improvements here. I did take a bunch of photos, especially close-up, but I wouldn't say that this is a huge upgrade.

Sometimes even the older software takes better pictures. I just think it all depends on the situation and lighting. There are for sure some micro improvements here, just like I expected a lot of people in the comments are expecting this magic software update. That would improve everything right off the bat, and this is not it, but I'm- glad to see Samsung respond quickly to improve camera quality, so I'm looking forward to more as they come. Let me know what you think of the images and, if you see an improvement, but I'm, glad to see there are improvements in sharpness in most cases and better focusing when it comes to nighttime.

I do see a little better HDR control, which is nice. It's not a huge change at all, but in some of the scenarios it's also slightly sharper. So it's nice to see some small improvements here. I don't see much of a difference in night mode either, but that totally understandable, because this was not the focus of this camera update. The one thing it did fix is the wider field of view.

Video autofocus hunting. You can clearly see that the older firmware is really struggling in lower light conditions, just pulsing all over the place and the new firmware is just holding steady there. So I'm really happy that this is better on the new update during the day with a fixed, non-moving, clear subject: I really didn't have problems with this pulsing, so I tested it out here, and I also don't see much of a difference here at all. When you are moving and testing the autofocus in different scenarios, you do get some mixed results in this scenario, looks like the older firmware is focusing faster, but the new firmware is a little smoother when it comes to that autofocus transition. So initially, when I was looking at it on the screen, it was confusing me during the testing, regardless the changes really aren't as drastic as I would like to see the speed improvements are very slight, so let me know what you think.

The one thing I do have to say is that the focusing might be a little slow. It did not trip on me even one time in this test, but that all depends on if it decides to work. I do come across this a lot where it just doesn't want to work, and it just locks on to the background. Sometimes it works. Okay and then it gets the focus right, but then, when you try again on a subject, it just gets locked and doesn't want to work again, so that can be really frustrating at times in extreme low-light.

Testing I also found that the focus can be slower than the older firmware. It seems that the older firmware locks on faster, where the new one takes a little to find it, but it was really dark here, so it could be different for your usage. So after all this testing, I was really frustrated. I can't lie, but I did see. Someone online says that there is a little hack and I can confirm that it does work.

You can see here that I'm trying to get the ultra to focus on the iPod, and this is a scenario where it just did not want to focus. But if you tap to focus first before recording or in this case tap to focus and then take off the AF lock, it starts to work much faster and also does it with much more accuracy. I hope that the next update fixes this. So you don't have to do all of this beforehand, but this method will give you much more reliable, autofocus. So if you want the best focus out of the s20 ultra, just do this method first and then hit record.

It does still trip up once in a while. So it isn't perfect, but I highly recommend this to demonstrate that a little better here is that method shown alongside the older software without tapping the focus. First, you will see that both are having trouble, but the old software is really pulsating a lot. So you can see that slight improvement anyways on the new firmware, but then take a look at this performance after tapping to focus and taking off the AF lock. It is a lot more consistent on the new firmware, so I just wanted to show that side-by-side.

So you guys can compare. So is this the giant update to drastically fix things nope, it is not, is definitely not perfect, as you can see and is largely the same camera with just slight improvements, but it's nice that Samsung is continuing to work on the ultras' camera I. Hope to see greater improvements in the months to come with a few more patches to get the camera to the level that it needs to be on, but this is nice that Samsung is listening and responding to criticism from their fans. Let me know about your experience with the update in the comment section below and if you are still enjoying your ultra, the full review is dropping very soon, so I will see you guys in the next one.

Source : Danny Winget